NETFLIX IN JULY

New on Netflix in July....which begins tomorrow.

• For the 50th anniversary, you can binge on Jaws 1, 2, 3 and 4, from July 1.  I already did this last year.  Yes, it got worse and worse.  Saw them on Shark Week on the Discovery channel.

Title                       Domestic Gross    Rotten Tomatoes    Year

Jaws                        $260,000,000                  97                   1975

Jaws 2                       $81,000,000                  52                   1978

Jaws 3-D                   $45,517,055                  10                   1983

IV:  The Revenge      $20,763,013                    2                   1987

• 
  Rotten Tomatoes rated all the shark films.
• Jaws is #1 at 97.
• #2 is Playing with Sharks (2021) at 96.  On Disney+.
• #3 is Dangerous Animals (2025) at 85.  On Amazon Prime, but not free.
• Jaws 3-D is #44 at 10.
• #45 is Jaws the Revenge at 2. 
• #46 is a tie, Shark Attack (1999) and Dark Tide (2012) both at ZERO.  So it can get worse than Jaws 4.
• 
  Netflix will release a new series they just produced, All the Sharks.  
• Episode 1 will be available on July 4.
• There will be six episodes, following shark researchers competing for a $50,000 prize while diving with shark species.
• Too new yet for any Rotten Tomatoes rating.
• 
  About the seas, today is your last chance to watch on Netflix Oceans 11, 12 and 13, plus 33 other films.
• 31 newly added films on July 1, including four Karate Kids and five Mission Impossibles.

I've been relaxing at home a lot since we returned from our trip to the Osaka Expo and a cruise on the Oceania Riviera from Yokohama to Vancouver.  Not much sports on TV anymore except for Major League Baseball.  I don't have any fantasy teams in basketball nor ice hockey, so don't watch their games.  At night I have turned to Netflix....a lot.  Here are just some of the flicks I saw.

• 
  I last night watched Close (2019), with Noomi Rapace.  I thought it was fine, mostly because I first checked Rotten Tomatoes, and saw ratings of 91/88.  Turned out I had found another Close (2022), the same title, which got that score.  Not on Netflix.  The Rapace film, only 35/35.  So maybe not so good a film.

• 
  Saw that Red Notice had Rotten Tomatoes rating of 37 from reviewers and 92 from audiences.  I usually side with the masses, so clicked on it.  Rock Johnson, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot.  Excellent, with many twists.

• 
  Reached back to the 1988 Robert de Niro Midnight Run.  RT of 95/87.  Kind of an odd couple with Charles Grodin.  Good.  I can recommend.  Comedy and action.
• Another old film, Heat (1995), with Robert de Niro as the criminal and Al Pacino as the cop.  RT of 84/94.  If I had written and directed this movie, I would have turned things around at the end.  Instead of being killed, it would have been a different touch for de Niro to have successfully escaped to New Zealand with his new girlfriend.  This would have been morally unacceptable to Hollywood, but so what.  Watch it and see if you agree with me.

• 
  Plane (2023) with Gerard Butler.  RT of 79/94.  White-knuckle action film.  Agreed with audience.  Go watch it too.
• I saw that Rebel Ridge (2024) got Rotten Tomatoes scores of 95/73, so I watched it.  Was fine.

• 
  Noticed a 2017 film Our Souls at Night, with Robert Redford, Jane Fonda and Bruce Dern.  RT of 91/76.  Can't remember anything about this film.  So I watched the trailer.  Still drew a blank.  Maybe I never got around to watching it.  
• Similarly, I viewed The American, a low-keyed George Clooney as an assassin hanging out in Italy.  Can hardly remember the details.  Only got 64/39 scores.  Must not have been much.

• 
  I noticed Enola Holmes (2020) had ratings of 91/71, so I went straight to the sequel (2022), rated 93/79.  Got totally bored.  Flippant, lame, so forth. Thought it had promise, Enola being the younger sister of Sherlock. Nope.  I dropped out at around the 20-minute mark.  I must be missing something because #3 is being made in the UK and will someday be on Netflix.
• Runaway Jury (2003), 73/75, Dustin Hoffman, John Cusack, Gene Hackman and Rachel Weisz.  Okay, but deserves those rankings.

• 
  I earlier had seen The Accountant (2016) with Ben Affleck, and even with a score of 53/77, seemed okay to me.  So I went to the sequel, which got 77/92.  The original was better.  And there will be an Accountant 3.

• 
  Big mistake, for I saw Now You See Me 2.  Almost quit, but stayed to the end.  Shouldn't have.  RT scores of 34/53, which was about right.  I wasted my time because the original, which only scored 51/70, I thought was good.

On my list for the future includes  a lot of Korean productions.

• When Life Gives You Tangerines, RT 100/99.  From South Korea, first season of 16 episodes, each an hour long.  Time magazine said of this series, devastatingly profound.  No production has ever gotten 100/100 scores by Rotten Tomatoes.  So this series is the highest I've ever seen.  Just about my very favorite all-time film is Seven Samurai.  Received scores of 100/97.

• 
  Mercy for None (2025).  Also from Korea.  RT 100/90.  
• But first, Season 3 of Squid Game.  However, only RT scores of 80/50.

• 
  South Korea productions are by far the best today in the world.  No other country is even close.
• Here are the best 14 films currently available on Netflix. 
• #1 is 20th Century Girl (2022).  RT 86/87.

• 
  #2, Ballerina (2023).  RT 91/73.  By the way, there is another Ballerina (2025) with Keanu Reaves with RT scores on 76/93 in movie theaters.
• #3, The Call (2020).  RT 100/79.  Said to be a twisty Korean production.
• #9, Parasite (2019).  RT 99/90.  Thisis the film that won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2020.
• #11, Silenced (2011).  RT 100/93.

-

BE THANKFUL OF YOUR LIFE

I thought Donald Trump and Elon Musk made nice-nice after their brouhaha.  Apparently not, for when Trump's 940-page Big Beautiful Bill survived a Senate procedural vote yesterday to be considered by the floor, Musk used terms like, the latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in American and cause harm to our country....utterly insane and destructive....political suicide for the Republican party....will raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, the biggest increase in history, putting America in the fast lane to debt slavery.

I watched two films last night, one on Netflix and another on Amazon Prime, that grabbed my attention regarding my life, but in totally different ways.  One was loved by Rotten Tomatoes reviewers, gaining a 94 rating, with audiences giving only 79.  The other was the opposite, with RT reviewers at 82 and audiences 95.  For me, both were excellent films.  So what I will do on Sundays devoted to spiritualism and my personal life, is to have a two-part series, featuring this contradistinction.

Next week will be bit edgy, but today I start with my wonderful life.  Secure, comfortable and happy.  Certainly, compared to the lead in the 2022 Emily the Criminal.  This is the one that earned a Rotten Tomatoes reviewers score of 94.  

I've been lucky my whole life.  This film got me thinking, where would I be had serendipity not prevailed?  The Emily in this production unfortunately suffered all the bad breaks.  First, student debt, then a couple of not so serious incidents that nevertheless tainted her record.  When she tried to enter the job market, she was locked out because of these "criminal" issues.

Emily has a tough life, with no close family alliances.  Every day is a struggle.  Very stressful.  One of those lives where you wonder if it is worth even living.  Of course it can be a lot worse if you were desperate in Nigeria or Ukraine or dozens of other places around the world.

For one, she can't keep up with her bills.  Fate draws her into participating in a "dummy shopper" service that promises to make her $200 in one hour.  A credit card fraud ring.  Bad things happen, so she tries to recoup some funds through forceful means, and barely escapes with a garbage bag of money.  No sense continuing to live in Los Angeles, so she escapes to her dream world in a South American city.  She does speak Latin American.   Can now enjoy swimming off a beach, or just sit and contemplate.  Luxuriates, compared to her previous drag.  Sort of like me.  Secure and happy.  No indication of how much money was in that bag, but, apparently not a whole lot, for the final scene has her re-starting the scam life from which she fled.  Kind of gut-wrenching, for her future can only be bad.

Many of you reading this posting exist on a scale between Emily and me, although some no doubt have it better.  Not rich, by any means, but secure and happy.  I could live like I do today for the rest of my life and be perfectly satisfied.

To close, have you been keeping up with Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani?  Some claim him as the best baseball player ever.  Maybe not yet, but shows promise.  Got two anecdotes.  

First, his fame, at least in Japan and Hawaii, has influenced a brand new type of TV fan.  Older oriental women who normally wouldn't watch Major League Baseball.  Something about his success, looks and character attracts them.  Do I have any polls to back me up?  No.  Just talking to friends and they bringing this subject up.

Second, his relationship with Vinnie Pasquantino of the Kansas City Royals.

• Shohei Ohtani threw the fastest pitch of his MLB career on Saturday to Kansas City Royals first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino. The Los Angeles Dodgers star, who just returned to pitching this month after a near two-year break, unleashed a 101.7-mph four-seam fastball to Pasquantino in the first inning.

• 
  The funny thing is, though, that Ohtani's fastest pitch thrown in his entire baseball career was a 102-mph in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, according to ESPN's Jeff Passan. And who did he throw that pitch to? None other than Pasquantino.

• Reporters asked Pasquantino after the game about the bizarre fortune of seeing Ohtani's two fastest pitches of his career, and he gave a funny response.  "He keeps doing that to me," Pasquantino said, via MLB's Anne Rogers. "I need to talk to him."   

Here are some other facts about Shohei.

• He threw a 99.4 MPH pitch while still in high school.
• Was an outstanding swimmer, who his coach said would have made the Olympics.
• His father was a semi-professional baseball player and mother an accomplished badminton star.

Comparison with Babe Ruth.

• Ruth
• played 20 seasons, pitched 10 years
• 714 home runs, 123 stolen bases, won 94 games

• 
  Ohtani
• 7.5 seasons, pitched 5 years
• 254 home runs, 156 stolen bases, won 38 games
• He and Babe Ruth are the only two players in the history of the Majors to hit at least 10 or more home runs and win 10 or more games in the same season.  
• Ohtani in 2022 won 15 games and hit 34 home runs and in 2023 won 10 games and hit 26 home runs
• Ruth in 1919 won 13 games and hit 29 home runs.  
• Ohtani also did this in 2014 and 2016 for the Nippon Ham Fighters
• 
  In 2024, Ohtani hit 54 home runs and stole 59 bases.
• In 1921, Ruth hit 59 homers and stole 17 bases.
• In 1927, Ruth hit 60 homers and stole 7 bases
• Ruth hit 25 or more homers 16 times and won 10 or more games 4 times.
• Ohtani is the only player to play in the All-Star game as hitter and pitcher.  That was in 2021.

-

STAR WARS vs JURASSIC PARK

 There was a time in my life when I was into Star Wars films.  The first appeared in 1977 when I was still teaching engineering at the University of Hawaii.  That was 48 years ago.  I bring this subject up today because I will focus on entertainment, and saw a headline:  Giant "Darth Vader" sea bug discovered off the coast of Vietnam.

• First, this not an insect but a crustacean,  and a local delicacy.
• Second, does not much look like DV to me.  If this isopod (Bathynomus vaderi) was colored black, maybe

• 
  There have been 12 Star Wars films so far, and the next one, The Mandalorian & Grogu, will be released in May, next year.  But I've grown up, and couldn't care less.
• This franchise has kept returning because later productions also scored well on Rotten Tomatoes.
• The highest rated was the first in 1977, Episode IV--A New Hope, got the highest score, 94.
• However, #2 was the 1980 The Empire Strikes Back at 93, #3 2015 The Force Awakens 93 and #4 the 2017 The Last Jedi at 91.

However, I remain interested in Jurassic Park productions.  There have been six of them.

• Jurassic Park (1993)
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
• Jurassic Park III (2001)
• Jurassic World (2015)
• Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
• Jurassic World Dominion (2022)

Next week, though, opens Jurassic World Rebirth.  Still no Rotten Tomatoes ratings.

• Advertised as a New Era.  What does this mean?
• First, some history.
• The 1963 film was based on the 1990 book by Michael Crichton.  

• 
  Directed by Steven Spielberg, with Crichton as an advisor and David Koepp writing the final draft.  

• 
  Filming took place in California and Hawaii in 1992.  Hurricane Iniki overwhelmed Spielberg and his crew.

• 
  Starred Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough (as billionaire John Hammond) and Samuel Jackson.

• 
  Score by John Williams.
• Watch this Welcome to Jurassic Park clip and the wonder of awe.  While it would have taken around 20 years for the dinosaurs to mature, mention was made of genetic manipulation to allow for swift opening of the park.
• 

  Got three Academy Awards.
• Has been cited for its pioneering used of computer graphics.
• Cost $63 million, but scored at the box office, just more than a billion dollars.
• Spawned six sequels, comics, video games, TV shows, theme park attractions and more.

• 
  This new era introduces new characters five years after Jurassic World Dominion (which in the next movie is 2027, 34 years after the original).  I guess this is why it is called the New Era.
• Steven Spielberg returns as executive producer.  So does David Koepp, who wrote the screenplay.
• There is a new monster, a mutant hybrid of a TRex that flies, a pteranadon.

• 
  Now stars Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali.
• This franchise needs swift reboot, for, while the first scored 91 by Rotten Tomatoes, the sequels declined to 72, 52, 49, 47 and 22.  I might actually go to the theater if Rebirth returns into the 90s.

So in a battle between Star Wars and Jurassic Park, which is the better franchise?  Here is an earlier Pandora comparison, from 2014.

• By then, there were 6 SW films and 4 JPs.
• Best villains?  SW had many of them, with Darth Vader preeminent.  JP, mostly raptors and dinosaurs.
• Best theme music?  John Williams did both, with the one from SW more memorable.
• Best computer generated imagery?  Probably JP, although SW looked good too.
• Since 2014, the SW franchise has produced better films, while JP has waned.  So the winner is Star Wars.

About SW, Solo is the only one currently on Netflix, which also has four JP films, but not the first two. Amazon Prime has zero SW films (they can generally be found on Disney+) and two free JP movies (World and World Dominion), plus Fallen Kingdom for rent.  Peacock has all six JP productions and no SWs.

As you know, the wedding of the year ocurred yesterday.  61-year old Jeff Bezos got prematurely married yesterday in Venice to 55-year old Lauren Sánchez, wearing a Dolce & Gabbana lace wedding dress.  Something to do with protests.  Was supposed to occur today.  This was the second for both.  Total of seven children already.

• There were more than 200 invited guests, like Oprah, two Kardashians, Usher, Leonardo DiCaprio, Bill Gates, Mick Jagger and Tom Brady.
• Ceremony kicked off with Matteo (son of Andrea) Bocelli singing Can't Help Falling Love.

• 
  Food?  Pizza, fried zucchini flowers, arancini, octopus and cod.  Plus, Spaghetti alla Nerano.  
• 
  Was that all?  Well, $2 million on  wines and champagne, as for example, 50 bottles of 1964 Petrus Pomerol (something to do with Bezos' birthday), 20 bottles of 1969 Giacomo Conterno Barolo (yes, Sanchez's birth) 20 magnums of 1961 Dom Pérignon and 500 bottles of 1996 Dom Pérignon Brut.  Also 15 bottles of Louis XIII Cognac and 50 bottles of rare rum.  That Petrus?  Between $3500 and $8600/bottle.  I've paid $4000 for a bottle of Louis XIII, more than once.
• Cost?  $1,170/guest
• Instead of gifts, guests were told to donate to the UNESCO Venice Office, CORILA and Venice International University.

• 
  Why Venice?  They said it is a magical place.  I agree.  Maybe my one best day on any tour was here.  On this day I first met my Blue-Bar Pigeon, who was eating my breakfast, and later in the day watched me have a truffles lunch at Quadri.  In the evening I had a choice seat of Vivaldi's Four Seasons in the auditorium where he wrote these pieces, more than three centuries ago.

-