Populasian: May 2025

Thursday, May 15, 2025

Thunderbolts* - 雷霆特攻隊*

Thunderbolts* (雷霆特攻隊*) is an 2025 film. The movie stars an ensemble cast of Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko, Lewis Pullman, Geraldine Viswanathan, Chris Bauer, Wendell Pierce, David Harbour, Hannah John-Kamen, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. This movie is part of the MCU and is the 36th installment.

Florence Pugh plays Yelena Belova, a black widow assassin trained in the red room. Yelena is a merc for hire and works for Julia Louis-Dreyfus's character of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, the director of the CIA. Yelena is sent on missions to assassinate targets for Valentina. When Valentina sends her other 3 operatives to the same spot to take out a target. Things don't work out and they assemble to get out of the situation. Bucky and the Red Gaurdian find out through his sources and goes to target location as well. Bucky and the assembled than have to assemble to take down Valentina who has been playing them all along. Will they be able to right the wrongs of Valentina?

I have not been consistent with Marvel lately and missed a couple of movies and all of the recent TV stuff on D+. As the internet chatter as been, I would agree that this Thunderbolts movie is a bit of a return to form. Will Fantastic Four and Doomsday rectify everything? It's hard to say as there was so much crap for so long.

I was not bored watching and the charater development was quite quick but satisfying. We have seen all these characters in the past and this movie gives us just a little more of what and who they are now. When they assembled, it made sense.

And you may have already found out that this movie is about depression and how to handle it. The story of the void and its shame rooms is evidence of that. And the film goes about dealing with this subject.

Not even a week in, the current cast is running around calling themselves "The New Avengers". Yikes! Cannot wait for the drama to unfold.

Thursday, May 8, 2025

Sinners - 罪人

Sinners (罪人) is an 2025 film. The movie stars Michael B. Jordan. The supporting cast include Hailee Steinfeld, Miles Caton, Jack O'Connell, Wunmi Mosaku, Jayme Lawson, Omar Miller, Delroy Lindo, Yao, and Li Jun Li. The movie was based in 1932 in the delta. Michael B. Jordan plays a dual role as twins.

Michael B. Jordan plays both Smoke and Stack, war veterans whom were away in Chicago for the past 7 years. They have returned to their roots in the Mississippi delta. They want to start their own juke joint business. They assemble their team of people from their roots to work the juke joint. The juke joint starts and the party begins. However, things turn for the worst when vampires join the party. Can the party goers survive these super natural creatures of the night?

I caught this at a local matinee showing. Eye test would suggest that the theatre was about half filled and in one of the bigger screen rooms. Which is pretty good for its third weekend out.

The first third of this movie was a bit of like assembling the avengers to run the juke joint. The twins went about their separate ways to round up the major players. From cooks, bartenders, and the door man. Unfortunately, this part of the movie was quite boring for me. The second third of the movie was about running the juke joint and the business aspect, including the shift to the musical performances. This part was also a bit boring for me. Up to this point, the character development did not make me care for the players in play. But then the vampires show up and the action starts. This last third of the movie caught my attention and the payoff of sitting through the boring stuff is fulfilled. And the extended mid credit scene harkens to a sequel.

Yao and Li Jun Li play an Chinese couple with a daughter whom run the local department store in town, Bo and Grace. Grace's character is slightly more significant than Bo's and plays a pivotal role during the climatic battle. Just a bit of an inconsistency for me is that Li is from Shanghai and if she were to retain any of her heritage, she would not have understood the Cantonese that the Vampire was speaking. Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghainese are all their own families of dialect. But I know, its a movie, and in the 1930s, its a very high likelihood that the Chinese were from the Guangdong delta (Pearl River Delta).