Today's Movie: Opportunity Knocks

Released in 1990, Opportunity Knocks is a comedy starring Dana Carvey. Honestly, until recently I had never heard of this movie. The film made no money at the box office in 1990 and currently holds a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes but, I like Dana Carvey so I decided to give it a watch. 

The film is about a con-man named Eddie (played by Carvey) who owes a substantial amount of money to a local crime boss. After breaking into the house of a business man who is on vacation, people just assume Eddie is the man's old college buddy who is supposed to be house-sitting. After stumbling into the con of a lifetime, Eddie soon starts to really enjoy this fake life as he gets a great job and falls in love. This is one of those movies where a few simple lies snowball, and eventually you know Eddie is going to have to come clean to everybody. 

This movie isn't bad, it's just nothing special. Carvey of course gets a few opportunities to do some of his impressions, and the the movie does have some charm. While not as funny as Wayne's World, which Carvey would star in alongside Mike Myers in 1992, there were a few funny moments scattered throughout this movie that genuinely made me chuckle.

Overall, I give this one a 2 out of 5.

The Great, Big, Quarantine Catch Up

I'm not going to get political or anything on here but, with much of the world shut down it's safe to say that I've had a bit more time on my hands than usual. Now, with so much time I have been able to catch up on some T.V. shows that I had pushed to the back burner and luckily Nintendo has blessed the world with the gem that is Animal Crossing: New Horizons. However, that doesn't mean I haven't been watching a whole bunch of movies. It's been a little while since my last post (again the world is in a weird place right now) and I thought it might be an interesting change of pace to do an overview of what movies I've watched lately. 

Of course, being stuck inside it's been the perfect opportunity for a few marathons. This past weekend rewatched the three Godfather films. The first two are obviously considered great movies but, I'm starting to gain more appreciation for the often disregarded third film in the trilogy... It's still not great but, I liked it more since the last time I saw it a few years ago. I also went on a little bit of a Tim Burton kick for a few days and rewatched some of his early films. Beetlejuice, Batman, Ed Wood, Edward Scissorhands... these are all good movies and got me thinking "What happened to Tim Burton? All he makes is crap now". Maybe that'll end up being the topic of a separate post in the future. 

In terms of movies that I hadn't seen before, I finally got around to watching Rocketman. I didn't have time to see it when it was in theaters last year but, better late than never. When the movie goes into big musical numbers it's a lot of fun but, the rest of the time it's a pretty paint-by-numbers biopic. Overall, liked it and it's probably in that 3.5 out of 5 range for me. I also watched Mirrors 2. I never saw the first Mirrors but I found this one in a bargain bin and with the quote on the back of the blu-ray case " They can't run... they can't hide... the can't even look in the mirror!" Well, that's all I needed. It's a schlocky horror movie. Not good but, I had fun with it. Another horror movie I decided to watch was The Exorcism of Molly Hartley. It's far from the worst exorcism movie I've seen (that honor is held by Exorcism of the Dead) but, I still wouldn't recommend this one. Turning away from horror, I finally watched a film that had been sitting in the stack of movies on my desk for months, Machine Gun Preacher. The film is based on a true story about an ex-biker gang member who starts helping poor kids in Africa. It's fine. The title is way better than the movie.

Finishing up, here are a few miscellaneous favorites that I've rewatched over the past few weeks. I highly recommend all of these so if you're like me, stuck at home waiting for the world to go back to normal, these are some solid films to help pass the time. 

- Field of Dreams, a feel good movie and there's no real baseball on T.V. right now. 

- Gone with the Wind, it's an all-time classic and the 4hr-runtime isn't a big deal when there's nothing else going on. 

-Top Gun... I just really like this one.

- The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese movies are always worthwhile.

- Spartacus, like Gone with the Wind, it's a long one but, worth it. 

- The Muppets from 2011. Good songs, and funny jokes. A perfect distraction.

- The Man Who Knew Too Much, I personally prefer the 1956 version with James Stewart and Doris Day but, the 1934 original is a great movie as well. 

-And finally Moon. It's great, I love it, and more people need to see it.