Category: Movie Review

By Jimmy Don Ventura Movie Critic, Stockton Telegram-DispatchGuest Reviewer — CMC Blog There are movies where cars are props.There are movies where cars are characters. And then there’s Death Proof, where the cars are both executioners and confession booths, rolling down the asphalt like they’ve got something to settle with God and the guardrail. Now…

By Jimmy Don Ventura Movie Critic, Stockton Telegram-DispatchGuest Reviewer — CMC Blog Every month the Captain pays me to moonlight away from the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch and gives me about two thousand words and a loose set of instructions that can best be summarized as, “Jimmy Don, talk about cars and try not to insult the…

By Jimmy Don Ventura Movie Critic, Stockton Telegram-DispatchGuest Reviewer — CMC Blog COLD OPEN: NO WARM-UP LAP REQUIRED I don’t ease into Goldfinger. I never have. You don’t tiptoe up to a movie like this. You open the door hard, let the hinges complain, and see who flinches. February needed a film with some weight…

By Jimmy Don Ventura Movie Critic, Stockton Telegram-DispatchGuest Reviewer — CMC Blog There are movies you watch on purpose.There are movies you catch halfway through because the remote fell behind the couch.And then there are movies that don’t so much begin as ambush you—grab you by the collar, shove you down a stairwell, and make…

By:  Jimmy Don Ventura Stockton Telegram-Dispatch Movie Reviewer | Captain My Captain Blog Contributor The Gospel According to Ralphie Some folks remember the holidays by the smell of pine needles or Grandma’s stuffing. Me? I remember it by the sound of the Old Man cussing at his car. That’s why A Christmas Story (1983) hits me…

By Jimmy Don Ventura, Movie Reviewer of the Stockton Telegram-Dispatch and Special Contributor to the CMC Blog Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Jimmy Don, this is a Thanksgiving movie, not a car movie.” And you’d be right—except for the fact that every single beat of John Hughes’ 1987 classic depends on cars either breaking…

Jimmy Don Ventura’s Monthly Movie Review: McQ (1974) Stockton Telegram-Dispatch | Captain My Captain Blog You can’t spell “John Wayne” without “JW,” and you can’t spell “JW” without thinking of whiskey, wide-brimmed hats, and a face carved out of a sandstone bluff. But in 1974, the Duke holstered his six-shooters, parked the horse at the hitchin’…

A tale of tail lights, ambition, and corporate varmints By Jimmy-Don Ventura, Special Contributor to the CMC Blog I’ll tell you right now, Tucker: The Man and His Dream is the only movie I’ve ever watched that made me think Detroit could’ve used a little more Fort Stockton in it. Preston Tucker was a man…