Mike Ryan

“If this were a TV show, I’d watch it every single week.” These were the words I spoke right after watching Antoine Fuqua’s theatrical version of ‘The Equalizer,’ which is kind of a dumb thing to say considering that ‘The Equalizer’ was a TV show. Though, this updated version of ‘The Equalizer’ bears little resemblance to the mid-‘80s version, even though it kind of has everything to do with it.

It’s Labor Day weekend. The good news: You most likely have a three-day weekend ahead of you. The bad news: Movies are terrible. Anyway, there a new movie called ‘As Above/ So Below’ that comes out this weekend. You might be tempted to see it because it’s new. New isn’t always better. Sometimes it is! But not this time. As a service to no one, really, because you are already enjoying your long weekend, we answer every question that you could possibly have about ‘As Above/ So Below.’

Yes, I did have a morbid curiosity in regards to ‘Jersey Shore Massacre,’ a new movie produced by Jennifer “JWoww” Farley who is best known for her participation in the MTV reality television series, ‘Jersey Shore.’ She is not best known for producing movies. When ‘Jersey Shore Massacre’ was released into theaters last week, it wasn’t playing anywhere near where I live – but, now, it’s available for all on VOD. So, on Thursday morning, I purchased 'Jersey Shore Massacre' and watched it in the comfort of my own home. While watching, I kept a running diary. Here’s how that all went:

We first met the cinematic version of Thanos in 2012 -- his face smiling at us during a mid-credits sequence of ‘The Avengers,’ there to let us know that this guy is the mastermind behind the whole operation. OK then! Eventually we learn that Thanos is trying to collect the Infinity Stones, because if he has those, he will become a god. Fair enough. Though, now, after ten movies in the Marvel cinematic universe – ten! – Thanos has a grand total of zero Infinity Stones. So far, Thanos is terrible at being a supervillain.

It's almost impossible to stay on topic when interviewing 'Weird Al'. He's a walking encyclopedia of popular culture knowledge and every answer leaves multiple alleyways to explore. Ahead, the topics covered include 'Star Wars,' 'UHF,' Charlie Kaufman, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Springsteen, 'The LEGO' Movie, his is favorite movie of all-time, Joe Piscopo, 'The Naked Gun,' 'Rocky' and a host of other topics that don't have much to do with one another.

A movie like ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ exists only to make money. And it did make money -- a lot of money. And there are a lot of movies that fit into this supposed “blockbuster” (or, if at Blockbuster, the “box office buster”) category. These movie don’t have to be good. People just see them. That’s why it is really notable when one of these movies is as good as ‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes' is.

Here are the best movies of 2014 so far! (Note: These movies have all been released in theaters and I am not including movies that I saw at film festivals that have not been yet released to the public.)

‘Batman’ was a big enough moment in popular culture that, at one time, a perfectly reasonable sophomore in high school wanted to permanently attach a logo from a movie onto his only mode of transportation. And no other seemingly reasonable classmates of his were going to publicly disagree with this idea.