Sunday, July 6, 2025

Squid Game, 2021-2025

The first season of Squid Game was released worldwide on September 17, 2021, to critical acclaim and international attention. It became Netflix's most-watched series and received numerous accolades, including six Primetime Emmy Awards and one Golden Globe. Production for the second season began in July 2023, and was released on December 26, 2024, to mostly positive reviews. The third and final season was filmed back-to-back with the second season, and was released on June 27, 2025, this time to mixed reviews.





Trailer


Season 1


Season 2


Season 3



Premise

In South Korea, Seong Gi-hun, a divorced father and indebted gambling addict who lives with his elderly mother, is invited to play a series of children's games for a chance at a large cash prize. Accepting the offer, he is taken to an unknown location where he finds himself among 455 other players who are all in deep financial trouble. The players are made to wear green tracksuits and are kept under watch at all times by masked guards in pink jumpsuits, with the games overseen by the Front Man, who wears a black mask and black uniform. The players soon discover that losing a game results in their deaths, with each death contributing 100 million (US$87,400) to the potential 45.6 billion (US$39.86 million) grand prize. Gi-hun allies with other players, including his childhood friend Cho Sang-woo and North Korean defector Kang Sae-byeok, to try to survive the games' physical and psychological twists, while detective Hwang Jun-ho infiltrates the games as one of the guards to find his missing brother.

In the second season, Gi-hun, who had vowed revenge three years after winning the game, participates in it again to take revenge on the Front Man and end the game for good, and is joined by police officer Jun-ho, the Front Man's brother. After assuming full control of the game following the creator Il-nam's death, the Front Man attempts to make Gi-hun see that there is no way he can end the games due to the true nature of people.

In the third and final season, Gi-hun and the players fight for survival in ever-deadlier games, which have dire consequences. In-ho welcomes the VIPs while his brother Jun-ho continues the search for the island, unaware of a traitor in their midst.


Rating: 10 Stars


Tuesday, June 3, 2025

Day Shift, 2022

Day Shift is a 2022 American Action Comedy horror, independent film directed by J. J. Perry in his directorial debut, written by Tyler Tice and Shay Hatten from a story by Tice, and starring Jamie Foxx as a blue-collar father whose pool-cleaning job is a front for his work as a vampire hunter. The film also stars Dave FrancoSnoop DoggNatasha Liu BordizzoMeagan GoodKarla SouzaSteve HoweyScott Adkins and Zion Broadnax.


TRAILER 




PLOT

Bud Jablonski is a blue-collar dad who provides for his family by hunting and killing vampires under the guise of being a pool cleaner.

While at work Bud sees a man leaving the house where he's working, silently breaking into the house, and encounters two vampires an elderly woman and a younger man, who he kills after a lengthy fight. With their fangs pulled out, Bud tries to sell them at a pawn shop, but the prices that Troy, the owner, offers are not enough to help him with his money troubles. Bud's ex-wife Jocelyn plans to move to Florida with their daughter, who attends a private school with high fees. To pay the tuition, cover his debts, and buy his daughter braces, Bud is forced to return to the vampire hunting union.

Bud enlists his old army friend, "Big" John Elliot, to help him rejoin the union. The union boss, Ralph Seeger, initially refuses, due to Bud's history of multiple code violations. He eventually is given a final chance but must work under strict conditions: He must only work the day shift, which does not pay well and must be supervised by a union rep named Seth. Seth is tasked to look for, and report, any violations committed by Bud. Meanwhile, a vampire named Audrey finds the vampires that Bud killed. While searching for the man who killed the older of the two vampires, Audrey finds, tortures, and interrogates Troy. Before she kills him, she reveals that humans used to worship vampires as gods and plans to restore the old order by building homes and using them to establish vampire colonies so she can create an army.

Bud and Seth go hunting, and although Bud violates several union protocols, Seth does not report them after learning of Bud's aim to support his family with his earnings. After they find and destroy an unusual nest filled with several varieties of vampires, Audrey contacts Bud and threatens his family, revealing that the elderly vampire was her daughter. Bud rushes to his ex-wife to save her while being pursued by vampires but fails to get there in time. His family is taken hostage by Audrey, and Seth is turned into a vampire. Now set on rescuing his family, Bud and Seth recruit Bud's neighbor, an outcast vampire named Heather, to help them assault Audrey's stronghold.

At the stronghold, they are joined by Big John. During the fight, John gets bitten and chooses to sacrifice himself so that Bud can save his family. Bud is no match for Audrey's superior speed and physical strength, but through a clever trick, he gains the upper hand, kills her, and saves his family. When Seeger arrives with backup from the union and tries to use Bud's numerous violations to kick him out, Seth uses his extensive knowledge of loopholes in the union's rules to prevent him from doing so. As the Jablonski family drives away, Big John climbs out of a manhole in the street showing that he survived the explosion.

CAST

  • Jamie Foxx as Bud Jablonski, a former paratrooper and down-on-his-luck vampire hunter who later becomes Seth's best friend.
  • Dave Franco as Seth, Bud's union supervisor and partner.
  • Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Heather, Bud's neighbor and a nursing student, who was turned into a vampire by Audrey to trap Bud's family.
  • Meagan Good as Jocelyn Jablonski, Bud's ex-wife.
  • Karla Souza as Audrey San Fernando, a vampire posing as a real estate agent threatening to kill Bud's family as revenge for her daughter.
  • Steve Howey as Mike Nazarian, vampire hunter and Diran's brother.
  • Scott Adkins as Diran Nazarian, vampire hunter and Mike's brother.
  • Oliver Masucci as Klaus, Audrey's right-hand man.
  • Snoop Dogg as John "Big John" Elliott, an old friend of Bud's and a veteran vampire hunter.
  • Eric Lange as Ralph Seeger, president of the vampire hunter's union.
  • Peter Stormare as Troy, a pawnbroker who illegally deals in supernatural items.
  • Zion Broadnax as Paige Jablonski, Bud and Jocelyn's daughter.

Rating:10 Stars

Thursday, April 17, 2025

A Discovery of Witches, 2018-2022 (Netflix)

A Discovery of Witches, 2018-2022, is a British fantasy television series based on the All Souls Trilogy, by Deborah Harkness, named after the first book in the trilogy. Produced by Bad Wolf and Sky Studios, it stars Matthew Goode and Teresa Palmer as a vampire and a witch who must learn about and fend off magical creatures. Edward BluemelLouise BrealeyMalin BuskaAiysha HartOwen TealeAlex Kingston, and Valarie Pettiford are also featured.



TRAILER




Premise

Diana Bishop, a historian and reluctant witch, unexpectedly discovers a bewitched manuscript in Oxford's Bodleian Lybrary. This discovery forces her back into the world of magic in order to unravel the secrets it holds about magical beings. She is offered help by a mysterious biochemist and vampire Matthew Clairmont. Despite a long-held mistrust between witches and vampires, they form an alliance and set out to protect the book and solve the mysteries hidden within while dodging threats from the creature world.

Available on Netflix.

Squid Game, 2021-2025

The  first season  of  Squid Game  was released worldwide on September 17, 2021, to critical acclaim and international attention. It became ...