The staff at EastIdahoNews.com lost a good friend this weekend, and the community at large lost a one-of-a-kind writer and online personality.

Longtime entertainment reporter and columnist Adam Forsgren died at home Saturday due to a long-fought heart condition. He was 49.

Adam was the first contributor to EastIdahoNews.com when it launched in 2015. A native of Sugar City, Adam came to us with a degree in film arts and a passion for the written word, the silver screen and all things nerdy. He pitched us on running his movie reviews and columns about everything from comic books and cosplay, to metal music and artwork.

READ: Thomas Adam Forsgren’s Obituary

During his eight years with us, he deeply delved into eastern Idaho’s arts and entertainment community. Although he often described himself as an extreme introvert, in his professional life, he often found himself among large groups of eccentric or interesting people.

You may have run into Adam at Comic-Con or Fandom events. He attended Renaissance Fairs and LARPing battles. He covered concerts — large and small — and enjoyed attending community theater or high schools events. He spent a great deal of time covering new exhibits at the museums, and art galleries in our small communities.

No matter what he was covering, his editors and audience could always expect articles full of life, thoughtfulness, and humor.

More than anyone at EastIdahoNews.com, Adam knew how to insert his own personality into his writing. Once, we gave him the challenge to write something about fashion. His response was the photo displayed below — accompanied by an article about shirts every nerd need to have. It’s a delightful read.

He would be surprised when one of his odd-topic articles went viral online. His first article to circle the globe was about a Japanese music phenomenon called Babymetal in 2015. We had no idea why it got so much attention, but it was good to see Adam’s work recognized.

Although Adam’s work was generally focused on local arts and entertainment, he never strayed far from his roots as film expert and critic. He wrote hundreds of reviews for us over the years, and despite his other writing assignments, he often managed to get a couple of reviews in a month. His final review, which was for the latest Transformers movie, was published Saturday, just a few hours before his unexpected death.

As a film critic, Adam had an unwavering sense of what made good cinema and didn’t compromise. His reviews drew strong criticism and mean comments on more than one occasion. But he always took it in stride, ignoring the hate and trying to present a logical and technical argument behind his viewpoints.

Besides his writing for EastIdahoNews.com, Adam was an aspiring novelist and avid blogger. He often talked about participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and it was always a treat to hear about his ideas coming together.

Adam Forsgren’s body of work speaks for itself — and we hope readers will take the time to read it. EastIdahoNews.com won’t be the same without him, but we are grateful that so much of himself will live on in his writing.

Our hearts also go out to Adam’s family and friends grieving his loss. Anyone wishing to help with funeral expenses or a headstone can donate to the GoFundMe here.

Funeral services will be held 11 a.m. Friday, June 16, at the Sugar City Gray Chapel. The family will receive friends Thursday evening from 5:30 to 7 p.m. at Flamm Funeral Home and again from 10 to 10:45 a.m. at the church prior to services. The interment will be in the Fielding Memorial Cemetery.

Read Adam’s obituary here.

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Illumination, the studio that made “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” has a reputation for prioritizing elements like humor and action over the narratives of its movies. “Super Mario Bros.” is chock full of colorful, exciting action sequences that bring its video game source material to life, yet its story is as bland as plain cottage cheese.

That’s a long way of saying that you’d probably be able to tell Illumination made “Super Mario Bros.” even if it didn’t have the studio logo at the head of the film.

“Super Mario Bros.” introduces us to Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day), two brothers who’ve just started a plumbing business in their hometown of Brooklyn. An encounter with a strange pipe sends them hurtling into a strange land and getting separated. Mario joins forces with Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) in the quest to find Luigi and recruit the Kong army to help them thwart the Koopa invasion led by Bowser (Jack Black).

The main reasons to see “Super Mario Bros.” are Black’s performance as Bowser and the wonderful action scenes. Black is easily the best thing about this movie. His deep, thundering voice possesses real menace and yet he deftly bounces back and forth between scary and funny. Oh, and the piano ballad he sings for Princess Peach? The brightest highlight of the movie.

Not far behind that, however, are the movie’s action scenes. They are so full of imaginative camera work, kinetic movement and vivid colors that you can’t help but smile. In particular, the Rainbow Road sequence involving speeding karts was more fun than anything I’ve seen in any recent Marvel movies and took me back to warm memories of watching “Wacky Races” cartoons as a little kid. It was kind of magical.

If all you’re looking for from this movie is a faithful, fun adaptation of some old video games, I suspect you’ll be plenty happy. Unfortunately, Illumination Studios movies do Illumination Studio movies things and once you get past Black and the action sequences, “Super Mario Bros.” doesn’t have much to offer in the story department.

“Super Mario Bros.” follows the well-worn plotline of “ruler seeks help to stop an invading force from destroying their picturesque kingdom.” Taken at its most basic level, “Super Mario Bros.” treads the same story path as movies like “Star Wars – Episode 1: The Phantom Menace.” In a world as colorful and imaginative as the Mushroom Kingdom, that just feels like a let-down and it really put a damper on my enthusiasm for this movie.

That’s not to say that “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” is bad. Pretty far from it. It’s got some laughs. Although Black steals the show, the rest of the cast is pretty solid. It’s a beautiful-looking film, and the action is terrific. It’s not quite on the level of “Dungeons & Dragons,” another recently-released game adaptation. Still, if you grew up playing the “Mario” games or if your kids are into them, this movie is the best way to spend an hour and a half.

Next to playing the actual games, of course.

3 Indy Fedoras out of 5

MPAA Rating: PG

The post “Super Mario Bros.” features great action supporting bland story appeared first on East Idaho News.

It’s been a while since I last played Dungeons and Dragons. I’m talking since before COVID hit. I miss throwing dice and having adventures with my nearest and dearest. But for the two hours and fourteen minutes I spent watching “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves,” I felt like I was hanging out with my old party, cracking jokes, talking trash and having a blast.

That is the highest compliment I can pay “Honor Among Thieves”: that while I was watching it, I wasn’t missing my old D&D gang.

“Honor Among Thieves” tells the tale of Edgin (Chris Pine) and Holga (Michelle Rodriguez), two old friends who embark on a mission to free Edgin’s daughter from the clutches of Forge (Hugh Grant). They recruit sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith) and shape-shifting Doric (Sophia Lillis) in their mission to bring down Forge and evil wizard Sofina (Daisy Head). The quest is stuffed full of monsters, magic and even a little romance.

While it’s set in a fantasy world, “Honor Among Thieves” doesn’t try to be a “Lord of the Rings”-style epic adventure. Instead, this movie is a fast-paced, funny heist movie with a lively cast. Think of it as “Ocean’s Eleven” where the leads have to stop their thieving every so often to cross swords or fight dragons.

In other words, this movie is a blast.

The foundation of all this fun is a witty, well-balanced script written by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daily and Michael Gilio. Between the script and the direction by Goldstein and Daily, it becomes clear that the filmmakers love Dungeons and Dragons and understand what makes the game so cool. They get that it’s as much about getting the right people together to play with as the specifics of the game itself that makes D&D fun.

In that regard, Goldstein and Daily hit a home run. This cast is delightful. Pine and Rodriguez work really well together as the buffoon and deadpan duo in the movie. Grant is a scene stealer and gets a whole bunch of the film’s biggest laughs. Smith and Lillis also have plenty of highlight scenes that make their characters feel like essential members of the party and not just distracting side characters.

The filmmakers’ love for D&D shows up in the action scenes, too. While the battles don’t rewrite the action sequence handbook, most of them go that little extra mile to provide something memorable. For example, Holga gets to beat up bad guys using whatever she finds around her in a way that recalls some great Jackie Chan movies.

But my favorite part of “Honor Among Thieves” is the way this movie feels like an actual D&D campaign you’re playing through with friends. You can almost feel the personalities of the players manipulating the characters on screen. You get to laugh at their misfortunes and rejoice at their successes, just like in a real game. I wasn’t expecting that from this movie but I’m so glad that I got it.

“Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” is a cut above the usual big Hollywood franchise movie. It gets a level of care from the filmmakers that it just wouldn’t get if all that mattered to them was making money. It doesn’t throw any twists at you and it can be a bit predictable, but this movie is so fun, it more than makes up for its flaws.

3 ½ Indy Fedoras out of 5

MPAA Rating: PG-13

The post New ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ movie a lively, funny caper story appeared first on East Idaho News.

I recently started riding an exercise bike every day. The experience goes thusly: I get on the bike, pedal like mad for a period of time, then get off the bike having worked like I rode several miles but not having gone anywhere.

That’s kind of what watching “Shazam!: Fury of the Gods” is like. It’s the cinematic equivalent of spending two hours and change on an exercise bike, minus the sweat.

“Fury of the Gods” finds Shazam/Billy Batson (Zachary Levi/Asher Angel) straining to hold his superpowered foster siblings together as they threaten to go off in their own directions. As if that’s not enough to deal with, the Daughters of Atlas (Helen Mirren, Lucy Liu) show up to steal a powerful relic and hatch a plot that could destroy the world.

This movie isn’t bad. Nowhere near bad. A lot of the things that worked in the first movie are still present and still work. Levi is still close to perfect as Shazam, who is literally a teenage kid in an adult superhero’s body. The chemistry between Angel and Jack Dylan Grazer, who plays his foster brother Freddie, is still terrific and they get to mine new emotional territory as Freddie struggles to get out from Billy’s shadow.

The movie does a good job of tying together the mythology of the DC Comics universe with the high-flying, superpowered action scenes these comic book films need. Christophe Beck’s musical score stirs your feelings. The visuals are a full spectrum of creepy mythological creatures.

Adding Mirren and Liu to the cast was a good move, too. Liu appears to really enjoy playing an evil witch and Mirren is Mirren, meaning that she’s great in her role.

That said, “Fury of the Gods” is undone by the fact that nothing really changes. Two hours of cinematic story essentially leads us in a circle. Some things have changed for some characters but the overall situation remains static. All of which left me feeling like a hamster on a wheel.

Another issue is that this movie adheres to the superhero movie trilogy formula. The movie’s threats are more world-ending, meaning the plot takes the focus off the characters. The best scenes in “Fury of the Gods” are when Billy and his siblings are hanging out together, interacting and bouncing their personalities off one another. This movie needs more of that.

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” is fine. It’s a perfectly acceptable way to kill two hours. It just doesn’t really make any story progress. It throws you around a little bit but you ultimately end up back where you started and that makes this movie less satisfying than it could’ve been.

3 Indy Fedoras out of 5

MPAA Rating: PG-13

The post New ‘Shazam!’ movie an entertaining ride that doesn’t go anywhere appeared first on East Idaho News.

“65” has a lot going for it. It’s built around a really cool premise. It stars Adam Driver, one of the most watchable actors in Hollywood right now. It’s written and directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods, the co-writers of “A Quiet Place.”

So, with so much going for it, why is this movie so dull?

“65” chronicles the adventures of Mills (Driver), a pilot who finds himself marooned on an alien world after his ship crashes. He soon learns that the only other survivor is a young girl, Koa (Arianna Greenblatt). Mills and Koa undertake a dangerous journey through a strange land and must survive the local wildlife (and worse) to get to the ship that could get them home.

It’s been a while since a movie underwhelmed me as much as “65” did. I went in expecting “Planet of the Apes” with dinosaurs but instead got a movie that was lacking in thrills in spite of the dangerous situation the protagonists were in.

Part of the problem is that it’s really short. That means we don’t have a lot of time to get to know Mills before he’s thrust into the action of the story. We get a few flashbacks to his daughter to explain his motivation for protecting Koa, but we don’t get a full picture of how his relationship with his daughter affects his choices. With a few more scenes, we’d not only understand Mills a little better but we’d have more of a reason to care about him.

With such flimsy character writing, the acting suffers. Driver is a really good actor but he feels a bit disinterested in what’s going on here. Maybe that’s because there’s not much for him to work with in the writing. Again, give him a few more scenes before the story really kicks in and maybe there’s more for him to use to define his character. Maybe there would be more for him to bite into, character-wise.

But that’s not the movie we got with “65” and the result is that it’s hard to get too emotionally involved with Mills so the drama of the situation evaporates. The attacks Mills and Koa endure feel predictable and anticlimactic. This makes “65” feel way longer than 91 minutes.

All that said, there are a few things “65” does right. Chris Bacon’s musical score is excellent and is often the only element providing an emotional kick in many scenes. The writers did a good job of setting up plot points and paying them off. The third act is actually pretty cool. Unfortunately, by the time the movie gets to its climax, it’s too late to salvage things.

“65” is a master class in wasted potential. It has a few good moments, but overall, it’s about as exciting as sitting around watching the snow melt for an hour and a half.

2 Indy Fedoras out of 5

MPAA Rating: PG-13

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Early on in the first episode of the sitcom “Spaced,” Simon Pegg goes on a rant about how much better the original “Star Wars” movies were than “The Phantom Menace.”

“You so do not understand,” he screams at the object of his ire, a little kid. “You weren’t there at the beginning. You don’t know how good it was. How important.”

When thinking about how the Marvel Cinematic Universe started and its latest chapter, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” I think I can relate to what Pegg’s character was feeling. Because “Quantumania” really left me cold.

“Quantumania” purports to be the story of Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) and his family accidentally getting sucked into the quantum realm and fighting to find a way back home. In the course of that story, we get some size-shifting action and massive battle scenes.

But what this movie is really about is setting up the new Avengers-level threat, the time-traveling Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors). Kang is trying to use the movie’s McGuffin to escape the quantum realm and take revenge on the people who exiled him there. Apparently, his definition of revenge involves destroying whole timelines and trillions of lives, so of course, he must be stopped.

That’s really the main problem vexing “Quantumania.” It seems only to exist as a way to set up Kang and the threat that he represents. While he was introduced in the “Loki” Disney+ series, we really get to see what he’s all about in “Quantumania.”

While that might be great for future MCU films, it means the “Quantumania” never truly feels like a movie in its own right. If you removed Kang from the equation, would this movie have a reason to exist? I’m not sure it would.

This also affects the characters. Because so much of the screen time is dedicated to getting Kang up and running, the other important characters feel sidelined. Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) shares the title with Ant-Man but she gets most of her screen time in group scenes or when she shows up to save Ant-Man’s butt. It just feels like she gets a raw deal in service of setting up future Marvel movies.

On the plus side, Majors kills it as Kang. He carries himself with a calmness and confidence of a man who knows exactly how everything would play out. His arrogance is off-putting, which is perfect for the character. When it’s time for Kang to rage, Majors pulls it off in a way that carries a full load of menace. He gonna be fun to watch as the MCU continues to unspool.

“Quantumania” also introduces one of my favorite Marvel villains and gives him a personal connection to Scott. I don’t want to say much more than that because I don’t want to spoil anything. But it made me smile.

Visually, this flick is also one of the most interesting of the Marvel movies. It mixes the shiny futurism of science fiction with bizarre, monstrous creatures and dream-like landscapes in a way that would make legendary Marvel artist Jack Kirby proud.

Overall, “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” didn’t make me mad or sad. For the most part, I sat there in the dark and felt nothing. I wonder if in the rush to create a massive, fully interconnected movie multiverse, the folks at Marvel have lost sight of what made their earlier movies work so well: creating compelling characters. “Quantumania” has reality-altering stakes but Ant-Man worked a lot better as the lead in a smaller, more intimate heist movie, like the original “Ant-Man”.

The words of master bluesman B.B. King are fitting with regard to this movie and the larger MCU these days: the thrill is gone. I hope Kevin Feige and the other people running the MCU figure out how to bring it back.

2 ½ Indy Fedoras out of 5

MPAA Rating: PG-13

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We all know that sitcoms work familiar formulas we’ve all seen many times before. What makes a sitcom work is its characters. Give us a cast of characters we love spending with, and we’ll watch them work through well-worn situations and issues just so we can see how they’ll react.

“Not Dead Yet” puts a novel twist on a very familiar formula. It’s essentially a workplace comedy but it filters that situation through a “Sixth Sense”-like plot conceit: the protagonist sees dead people. Thanks to that twist and an engaging cast, “Not Dead Yet” is a series that has plenty going for it, if it’s handled correctly.

This show introduces us to Nell Serrano (Gina Rodriguez), who left her life in the U.S. to be with her man in England. When that relationship falls apart, Nell moves back home and takes a job writing obituaries for the news outlet she used to work for.

Unfortunately, Nell soon discovers that she can see and interact with the ghosts of the person whose obituary she’s currently writing, which causes her all kinds of added stress. On top of that, she struggles to maintain her relationships with her friends Sam (Hannah Simone) and Dennis (Josh Banday) while keeping the peace with her boss, Lexi (Lauren Ash), and her roommate, Edward (Rick Glassman).

There are a number of good elements here to work with, starting with Nell herself. Rodriguez is delightful, so likable and easy to root for. She has a really approachable quality about her as if you could sit next to her on a park bench and talk for hours. (Not that I recommend sitting next to strangers on park benches).

Simone and Banday provide good supporting work to the proceedings and add a lot as Nell’s coworkers and BFFs. The weekly guest stars also give the show a lift, especially Martin Mull, who gives a monologue near the end of the pilot that really tugs at the heartstrings.

The show also does a good job of making each ghost address a specific issue Nells battles with. For example, in the second episode, Nell writes about a motivational speaker and her travails writing the piece and dealing with the ghost help her become more assertive.

Not only do such plot elements and themes make Nell more relatable and easier to pull for, but they also made me think about issues I’m having in my own life. I like shows that entertain for the sake of entertaining but I love shows that get me to think a little in the process of entertaining me.

Despite all these good elements, “Not Dead Yet” is far from perfect. First and foremost, while it’s frequently clever and witty, the show is rarely laugh-out-loud hilarious. The scene I mentioned with Martin Mull earlier packs a nice dollop of the feels but the following episodes never reach those emotional heights again.

But the biggest flaw is that the show seems bound and determined to make break-out characters out of Lexi and Mason the Intern (Jimmy Bellinger). Ash is fine in the role but it’s hard to imagine anyone as loopy and incompetent being able to find their way to the top of a major business. As for Mason, well, he’s just straight-up annoying and unfunny.

“Not Dead Yet” has a lot going for it and if handled right, I think it can be a rewarding watch for a long time. Making the show more consistently funny will help. More laughs would probably even make the more annoying characters a little more tolerable. But with Rodriguez, a good supporting cast, excellent guest stars and themes that leave you thinking about your own life, the is plenty of life in “Not Dead Yet.”

”Not Dead Yet” airs each Wednesday night on ABC and episodes can be streamed on Hulu.

The post There’s plenty of potential in ‘Not Dead Yet’ appeared first on East Idaho News.

“The Witcher: Blood Origin” is four episodes of violent action, cardboard characters and backstabbing. There are plot strands that disappear only to reappear later with no explanation. When the scenes in your TV series that make the most sense involve a wizard talking to a floating ball of light, you know you have problems.

Set centuries before the events of “The Witcher,” “Blood Origin” plays like one of those stories where a rag-tag team of skilled individuals comes together to accomplish a mission. At the core of the group is warrior elf Fjall (Laurence O’Fuarain), who was disowned for disgracing his clan, and Eile (Sophia Brown), a warrior who left her clan to become a traveling bard.

Their mission: infiltrate the castle of Xin’trea and stop a trio of evil schemers, including Fjall’s ex-lover, Empress Merwyn (Mirren Mack), from using some magic monoliths to open portals to new worlds and spread their empire. One by one, new warriors join Fjall and Eile, with the fate of multiple worlds on the line.

This show wasn’t boring. I was too busy trying to figure out exactly what was going on, why characters are doing what they were doing and how all the plot events fit together to be bored. What “Blood Origin” is is frustrating. A couple of examples:

• ”Blood Origin” opens with a coup during which evil mage Balor (Lenny Henry), military leader Eredin (Jacobs Collins-Levy) and Merwyn assume power. But the setup is so sloppy that it’s hard to tell who is aligned with who, who is getting wiped out and why this all is happening to begin with.
• The show goes out of its way to highlight a pair of comets in the Xin’trean sky but then doesn’t really explain the significance of the comets. That’s not a problem for people who are familiar with the “Witcher” universe, but it leaves those not in the know scratching their heads.
• Syndril (Zach Wyatt) is shown imprisoned in a scene, with Balor forcing him to figure out how to use the monoliths. Later, he shows up in a completely different setting with no explanation beyond “I escaped.” There’s some serious “Rise of Skywalker” “Somehow Palpatine has returned” energy going on there.

There are issues like this throughout “Blood Origin” and it makes it easy to check out of the story. It doesn’t help that the characters don’t have much depth. For example, we don’t really get to know Fjall before he’s kicked to the curb, so once he embarks on his mission, there are no personal stakes or reasons to pull for him to succeed.

All that said, “Blood Origin” isn’t completely bereft of good elements. Michelle Yeoh, who plays Eile’s trainer, Scian, is graceful and awesome as always. The fight scenes are pretty cool, although the end fight involving Fjall is pretty anticlimactic. The scenes where Balor talks to a floating ball of light look like album art for a 70s prog band.

Still, “The Witcher: Blood Origin” is not much fun to sit through. If you’re someone who is looking to get into watching “The Witcher,” I wouldn’t recommend starting here. This show is only for completists who need to watch everything “Witcher”-related.

You can stream “The Witcher: Blood Origin” on Netflix. The show is rated TV-MA for language, bloody violence and sex.

The post ‘The Witcher: Blood Origin’ violent, haphazard mess appeared first on East Idaho News.

“Night Court,” the latest attempt by a TV network to capture an audience by exhuming a beloved yet long-dead intellectual property, has some things going for it. The show stars Melissa Rauch, whose portrayal of Bernadette was the best thing about “The Big Bang Theory,” brings back a fan-favorite character in a major role and recycles the original show’s concept of a court full of offbeat personalities. Unfortunately, it lacks the fun quirks of the original show and while it does have a few good laughs, it mostly comes off as flat and uninspired.

This new “Night Court” introduces us to Abby Stone (Rauch), a young judge who’s taking over the New York night arraignment court her father, Harry, used to preside over. She takes it as her mission to not only treat defendants with compassion but also to push her crew to better themselves.

Unfortunately for Abby, her new job gets off to a bad start when the public defender quits. To fill that role, Abby recruits Dan Fielding (John Larroquette), who used to work with her father. Dan reluctantly accepts, but Abby pushes him to wholeheartedly embrace his new role. Throw in a cast of eccentric defendants and a flock of pizza-eating pigeons, and hilarity ensues, right?

Not quite. While bringing back the “Night Court” concept with Rauch in the lead isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever heard, it’s not exactly off to a high-flying start. Rauch’s perky do-gooder is the kind of character we’ve seen countless times before in other sitcoms. Rauch is giving it her best shot and does have some good moments, but for the most part, the writing lets her down.

Most of the other characters are well-worn character cliches that aren’t quirky enough to differentiate themselves from other characters in other sitcoms. For example, the court’s clerk, Neil (Kapil Talwalkar), is the kind of guy who took his job so he could get paid for doing as little as possible. It’s like Neil was a leftover character from “Clerks,” who didn’t make the final cut because he didn’t have anything interesting to say.

Then there’s Olivia (India De Beaufort), the court assistant D.A. whose major story arc through the first two episodes is that she’s being borderline stalked by the court’s stenographer. But she’s your basic career climber who sees night court as a bus stop on the way to greater things. There’s nothing interesting enough about her to inspire anyone to stalk her, so that plot strand falls flat.

There is one character that actually works pretty well. That’s Nicolia (Dimiter D. Marinov), the court janitor. He had the best one-liner of the show so far, and it’s not even close. Anytime Nicolai was on screen, I at least got to chuckle. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get much screen time through the first two episodes.

“Night Court” might figure itself out later in this season. It might get better. The question is whether there’s enough good there to keep you hanging on until it does get better. Based on what I saw, I think I’m better off leaving this “Night Court” behind.

New “Night Court” episodes drop every Tuesday on NBC and you can stream the show on Peacock or at nbc.com.

The post Mediocre ‘Night Court’ reboot only occasionally funny appeared first on East Idaho News.

The new year is not only a time to reflect on the past but also a great to get excited about what the future holds. When it comes to cinema, Hollywood is preparing to hurl all kinds of offerings at perspective filmgoers. There’s a lot to choose from, but here are 10 upcoming movies that I can’t wait to see. In order of release date:

“65” – March 17 A shipwrecked pilot finds himself dodging dinosaurs while trying to find a way home. This flick is being produced by Sam Raimi (“Evil Dead,” the Toby Maguire “Spider-Man” trilogy) and stars Adam Driver. That’s enough to get me interested.

“John Wick: Chapter 4” – March 24 The “John Wick” franchise is a bit of a throwback to the action cinema of the 80s and 90s, which is a breath of fresh air in a world where comic book movies and sci-fi franchises like “Avatar” dominate the landscape. So you bet, I’m excited to spend a couple more hours watching Keanu Reeves kick bad guy booty. See the trailer here.

“Evil Dead Rise” – April 21 Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell bring forth another helping of the legendary “Evil Dead” series. The trailer, which dropped this week, is 10 kinds of creepy, which is perfect for an “Evil Dead” film. I’m getting my popcorn ready!

“Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3” – May 5 Director James Gunn was recently put in charge of DC Comics movies going forward, but before he leaves the MCU, he’s delivering one last salvo of “Guardians.” Get ready to laugh but have a box of tissues handy, just in case things get emotional.

“Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” – June 2 The first “Spider-Verse” movie is my second-favorite Spidey flick of all time. Not only was it a great story, but it also utilized comic book-style visuals better than any superhero movie that had come before it. I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.

“Asteroid City” – June 23 The new Wes Anderson film is a romantic dramedy set at a convention for stargazers in 1955. The film will receive a limited release before going wide release later in the year.

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” – June 30 OK, so Harrison Ford is like 100 years old now, and “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” was depressingly mediocre. Maybe I shouldn’t be too excited for this one. But James Mangold is in the director’s chair and his track record (“Logan,” “Ford v Ferrari”) gives me hope. Plus, the trailer gave me all sorts of warm nostalgia fuzzies.

“True Love” – Oct. 6 There’s not a lot of available information about this flick yet. But the cast includes John David Washington, Gemma Chan and Ken Watanabe. And I enjoyed director Gareth Edwards’ take on Godzilla, not to mention “Andor,” on which he was the showrunner. I’ll give this one a chance.

“Ghostbusters Afterlife” sequel – Dec. 20 “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” was the movie “Ghostbusters: Answer the Call” should have been and it will be interesting where the filmmakers decide to take these characters and this story.

”Ferrari” – TBA 2023 This biopic covers Enzo Ferrari and the rise of Ferrari as an exotic car brand. It’s inspired by a book by Brock Yates and stars Adam Driver. The film is a passion project director Michael Mann has been trying to get made for at least 15 years. That’s more than enough to pique my interest.

The post 10 movies I can’t wait to see in 2023 appeared first on East Idaho News.