“Don’t Breathe” is an interesting horror/thriller that defies many tropes. While I think all the materials for a great movie are there, it just never quite gripped me in the way that I hoped it would. There was even one plot element, which I won’t spoil, that made me chuckle. A lot of this movie is effective yet I had hoped for a little more after hearing all the praise it has received.

In this film, Rocky (Jane Levy “Evil Dead”), Alex (Dylan Minnette “Prisoners”, “Let Me In”) and Money (Daniel Zovatto “Lady Bird”) are burglars, who decide to hit one last house in Michigan before Rocky and Money leave for California. They think it will be easy to rob a blind Gulf War veteran (Stephen Lang “Avatar”, “Manhunter”), who is apparently sitting on a fortune after receiving compensation from the government. However, this old man has dark secrets of his own.

While the three burglars are not badly written or anything like that, I didn’t massively care one way or another if they escaped. You initially feel bad for the old man but once you realise just how sick and twisted this man is, you’ll see he’s the real villain. He also has a vicious dog. Whenever the old man isn’t the current problem, the dog is after them.

“Don’t Breathe” has some unsettling ideas in it and I think it does a reasonable job of creating an intense situation. Due to the very realistic nature of this movie, I found it to be more unnerving than a film such as “It Follows”. Still, I cannot help but feel “Don’t Breathe” could have been better. I’m not exactly sure how but it just didn’t quite shock me in the way that films such as “Audition” or “Split” did. I’m still giving “Don’t Breathe” a modest recommendation.

“Space Jam: A New Legacy” is a film with a lot of cameos in it. Like “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”, “Last Action Hero” and “Ready Player One” before it, this film is packed with appearances by characters from other franchises. Here’s a list of several cameos/references that seem fairly odd.

5. Casablanca

“Casablanca” is undeniably a cinematic classic. However, I didn’t expect to see it referenced here. The “Looney Tunes” already spoofed “Casablanca” in the wonderful “Carrotblanca”. I felt “Carrotblanca” did pretty much everything you could do with Bugs and the gang being in “Casablanca” so this brief reference in a “Space Jam” sequel just felt unnecessary.

4. Austin Powers

We’re now getting into the territory of references that seem somewhat inappropriate. The “Austin Powers” films are known for their raunchy humour. While they’re very juvenile, they’re not the kind of films I imagine many parents would happily show kids.

3. It

A lot of kids (and adults) are afraid of clowns so it’s kind of shocking to see Pennywise from “It” pop up in the background. While he’s never the centre of any shot, he is noticeable. I can just imagine some kids will be having restless nights.

2. Training Day

We hear a sanitised version of the famous King Kong line from “Training Day”. While the line kind of works since King Kong also appears in this “Space Jam” sequel, I just thought it was weird to make the connection at all. “Training Day” is of course a gritty cop drama; not the kind of film many kids are going to know quotes from.

1. A Clockwork Orange

If you’re making a family movie about cartoon characters playing basketball, maybe don’t reference a 1970s sci-fi flick with sex, assault, rape, murder and torture. The filmmakers of “Space Jam: A New Legacy” somehow thought it was a good idea to feature the droogs from “A Clockwork Orange”. Now, that is a truly baffling decision.

As much as I love “Looney Tunes”, I didn’t care much for the original 1996 “Space Jam”. Now, here comes “Space Jam: A New Legacy”, which swaps Michael Jordan out for LeBron James. The first “Space Jam” was underwhelming but this is a total mess. “A New Legacy” is trying to be a dozen different things at once and it ends up feeling very unoriginal.

Basketball star LeBron James gets transported inside a virtual reality based on various Warner Bros. properties (“Harry Potter”, DC superheroes, “Wizard Of Oz” etc…) by the evil computer algorithm Al G. Rhythm (Don Cheadle “Hotel Rwanda”), who has kidnapped LeBron’s son. Now, LeBron must team up with the Looney Tunes to win a basketball game with crazy videogame rules so he can save his child.

LeBron James is just absolutely awful. If you thought Michael Jordan was wooden in the first “Space Jam”, LeBron James is like a forest. Don Cheadle is cringeworthy as the villain. It takes way too long before the Looney Tunes appear. There’s so much else going on, they feel like an afterthought. However, the animation (both 2D and 3D) for them is good. Keep an eye out for cameos from King Kong, the Flintstones, Iron Giant, Pennywise, Space Ghost, Batman, The Mask and even the droogs from “A Clockwork Orange”.

The plot is merely a mix of the original “Space Jam”, “Ready Player One” and “Tron” so it’s not remotely original. The performances from James and Cheadle are just terrible. Also, there are just so many references to other films including “The Matrix”, “Mad Max”, “Austin Powers”, “Training Day” and I doubt any young kid will have seen half of the films referenced. It also feels like a big ad for gaming tech and E3. This is a total mess and it completely fails at being a “Looney Tunes” film.

“Flowers For Algernon” is one of the most emotional, thought-provoking and terrifying films I’ve seen in a long time. It’s light on the science-fiction but still, it presents concepts that are as fascinating as the best episodes of “Star Trek”. The only disappointing thing about the film is that because it’s a tv film, the production values look a little cheap.

Charlie Gordon (Matthew Modine “Full Metal Jacket”) is a mentally handicapped man given the chance to be ‘normal’ after undergoing brain surgery. He quickly starts to catch up on the years of learning that he has been missing out on. It soon becomes clear that he’s now no ordinary man, he’s a real genius. However, this presents problems for him socially and emotionally as he struggles to adjust to the rapid changes.

Matthew Modine is totally believable as both Charlie when he’s mentally handicapped and when he’s an intellectual. This performance is even better than Tom Hanks in “Forrest Gump”. Algernon is a mouse that previously underwent the same surgery as Charlie. Charlie eventually finds it easier to have a friendship with the mouse than with the people around him. Pretty much everybody in this film gives a good performance.

I feared that this would end up being something like “Lawnmower Man” but the terrific script helps make “Flowers For Algernon” a true masterpiece. This isn’t a long film but it successfully explores a lot of ideas about the relationships between intelligence and happiness. For a film that features only the tamest depictions of violence, this is a seriously disturbing picture. Again, that’s due to the great writing. The movie reminded me a lot of both “A Beautiful Mind” and “Gattaca” and those are two wonderful films. Definitely make sure you check out “Flowers For Algernon” but be prepared for some very emotionally and intellectually intense material.

“Daffy Duck’s Fantastic Island” is another “Looney Tunes” compilation film. This was the first one to shift the focus away from Bugs Bunny. As much as I do love Bugs Bunny, I love a lot of the other characters as well so it’s refreshing. As lazy as these compilation films can be, I actually think this one manages to tie the different shorts together in a fairly creative way. It’s obviously meant to be a spoof of the “Fantasy Island” tv show.

Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzalez are stranded on a remote island. When they come across a magic well, Daffy decides to monetise this and charge visitors a price to get a wish granted by the well. Visitors include Foghorn Leghorn, Granny and Porky Pig.

Daffy Duck is very enjoyable here. I love the shorts involving Sylvester. I was less impressed by the ones involving Foghorn Leghorn as I’ve always thought he was one of the weaker Looney Tunes. I’m also not a big fan of Pepé Le Pew as his shorts tend to get very repetitive. We also get to see some new material with Daffy, Yosemite Sam and Taz being among the most prominent characters. Bugs Bunny does appear but don’t expect to see too much of him.

While a few of the shorts are underwhelming and again, I dislike the idea of just recycling old material, “Fantastic Island” at least does a good job of fitting them together. Some of the new material is actually fairly funny too. It’s not a tremendous recommendation but at the end of the day, you get some wonderful old cartoons and some decent new sequence even if you have to endure a few dud shorts. If you are a “Looney Tunes” fan, I think that this compilation film will likely entertain you.

“Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips” remains one of the most controversial cartoons in the entire history of the “Looney Tunes”. It is undoubtedly a piece of war propaganda with some racially insensitive elements but taking that into context, this is still an amusing short.

During WWII, Bugs Bunny finds himself on an island where he comes face to face with Hideki Tojo, the Prime Minister of Japan. Bugs has a lot of tricks up his sleeve as he repeatedly outsmarts and outmanoeuvres Tojo. However, the Japanese leader is prepared to fight until the bitter end. Will Bugs ever be able to leave this dreaded island?

Bugs Bunny is wonderful here. I like the Hideki Tojo depiction here. I know some will see it as racist but you have to remember that Tojo was seen as Japan’s Hitler by the Americans at the time. Of course, the “Looney Tunes” shorts exaggerated aspects of characters’ appearances and cultures. At one point, Bugs even disguises himself as Emperor Hirohito to fool Tojo. The interactions between the two are a lot like the Bugs Bunny cartoons with either Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam. I found the other characters that appear here to be amusing too.

“Bugs Bunny Nips The Nips” has been made largely unavailable due to its use of stereotypes. It’s a shame that a lot of these older cartoons are being lost. “All This And Rabbit Stew” is another Bugs Bunny short that is hard to get hold of due to concerns over racism. At the end of the day, I think there is still a world of difference between something made primarily to entertain such as this than something that is overtly meant to increase hatred and division such as the anti-Semitic propaganda films by the Nazis. If you love Bugs Bunny, you may get some laughs out of this cartoon if you manage to find it.

“Daffy Duck’s Quackbusters” was another “Looney Tunes” compilation film. This one certainly has more of a horror theme to it so if you like the shorts that had horror elements, you might like this. The compilation films frustrate me so much because all the good stuff is old material we have seen before and a lot of the new stuff is really lousy. There are also some noticeable audio problems between old and new that become really distracting.

Daffy Duck helps an elderly millionaire to laugh again. When he later dies, Daffy inherits the fortune. However, he’s forced to use his money for good. He decides to create a new business to catch ghosts. With the help of Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig, Daffy will lead the fight against ghosts and other monsters.

I love seeing Daffy, Bugs, Porky, Sylvester, Tweety and some of the other characters. The old shorts are still hilarious and Mel Blanc did a truly outstanding job voicing them. However, the new material here was the last time Mel Blanc would voice these characters before his death. Unfortunately, his voice had just gone at this point so none of the characters sound right and it’s even more jarring when we keep cutting between the old shorts and the new material.

The new sequences here are really bad. They’re just not funny and it’s even more frustrating when we see that the makers have edited out parts of the old shorts. I love “Looney Tunes” but I’ve never really been a fan of the compilation film format. This one suffers from additional issues like Mel Blanc’s voicework. I can’t recommend the film as it is. However, I will make clear that parts of it are hilarious. Please just seek the original shorts in a better form than this.

In 1996, the Looney Tunes starred alongside legendary basketball player Michael Jordan in “Space Jam”. The Looney Tunes had previously appeared with Jordan in a series of commercials for Nike but now, they were in a big movie together. While “Space Jam” got poor reviews from critics, it made a lot of money and is often fondly remembered by people that were kids back in the 90s.

In 2021, “Space Jam: A New Legacy” was released. It’s very similar in concept to the original movie with the Looney Tunes having to join forces with a real basketball star (this time it’s LeBron James instead of Jordan) to compete in a basketball game against monsters. However, many other proposed “Space Jam” sequels never happened in the years since the original’s release.

A lot of the sequels that never got made were also meant to be focused on sports. “Golf Jam” with Tiger Woods and “Skate Jam” with Tony Hawk were apparently on the table. Not all suggestions involved sports. At one point, we were going to get “Spy Jam” with martial arts star Jackie Chan, who had finally become popular in the United States after “Rush Hour”.

Eventually, we did get another big screen “Looney Tunes” film with “Looney Tunes: Back In Action”. The movie had almost no relation to “Space Jam”. It starred Brendan Fraser (“The Mummy”) and Steve Martin (“The Jerk”) with Joe Dante (“Gremlins”) in the director’s chair. It got decent reviews but it didn’t do so well at the box-office.

While some maybe happy with the new “Space Jam” sequel, others may feel that some of the various sequels that never got made may have been more interesting than what we finally got.

You may recall that in the popular family Christmas film “Home Alone”, Kevin (Macaulay Culkin “The Good Son”) watches a gangster film. The film is titled “Angels With Filthy Souls” and it appears to be a relatively violent black and white crime flick. Kevin famously uses the film’s audio in a clever way to trick people including a pizza delivery man so that he can get out of paying for the pizza.

You may well have thought that this was a real movie but it’s actually all made for “Home Alone”. There was a terrific 1938 gangster film by the name of “Angels With Dirty Faces”. It stars James Cagney (“Yankee Doodle Dandy”) is a pretty violent picture for its era. “Angels With Filthy Souls” is clearly a homage to this. The “Home Alone” filmmakers did an excellent job at making their fake film look and feel authentic.

In “Home Alone 2: Lost In New York”, Kevin watches and makes use of its sequel, “Angels With Filthier Souls”. Again, this is a fake film yet it looks genuine.

To this day, many people never realised that “Angels With Filthy Souls” was just made for “Home Alone”. There is sadly no full version, what you see in “Home Alone” is probably all that there ever was. Of course, I hope it does inspire people to check out the brilliant “Angels With Dirty Faces”.

While never becoming as popular as the “Godzilla” franchise, the “Gamera” movies provided plenty of giant monster action. As you would expect with a film series about a giant turtle saving the world, things can get pretty ridiculous. Here is a list of some of the funniest moments from the franchise.

5. Insulting The King – Gamera: Super Monster

Let’s kick things off with a brief moment from debatably the worst of the “Gamera” films. “Gamera: Super Monster” was little more than a glorified clip show but it did feature a great gag when we see a poster of the ‘King of the Monsters’ Godzilla get knocked down. That’s one way to mock the competition.

4. The Bikini Disguise – Gamera vs. Zigra

A evil alien woman comes to Earth and tries to blend in by stealing some clothes. However, the first people she meets are dressed for the beach. This means she spends a while wandering the streets in a pretty tight bikini. One man cannot help but stare. It’s just so funny and out of nowhere in a film that’s otherwise aimed at young kids.

3. Flying Baby Gamera – Gamera The Brave

Seeing the giant rocket-powered turtle fly around is great but it’s even funnier when you see the baby Gamera in “Gamera The Brave” fly around in a young boy’s home. It’s just so cute and so ridiculous.

2. Playing The Xylophone – Gamera vs. Zigra

Another hilarious moment from “Gamera vs. Zigra”. In the final battle, Gamera ends up playing the monstrous Zigra like he’s a musical instrument. It’s like something out of a “Looney Tunes” cartoon but this is with guys in a rubber monster suits.

1. The Gymnast – Gamera vs. Guiron

There is perhaps no more absurd moment in the entire “Gamera” franchise than when he swings around a metal bar, flips off it and lands just like a gymnast in the Olympics. The gold medal has to go to this classic moment.