The Ray Pletcher Blog

  Tom Cruise is pushing 60 and he’s still not done defying death at every turn in his career as an action star. Known for doing all of his own stunts in all his movies including high-octane action sequences such as him climbing the tallest building in the world at the time in M14 , hanging onto the side of an airplane in M15 , learning to pilot a helicopter and free fall from an incredible height in M16 , as well as preparing to travel to outer space to shoot a movie on the International Space Station Tom Cruise is certainly endeavoring to make history with every movie he makes. At CinemaCon, a convention for movie theater owners held in Las Vegas earlier this week, a new in-depth behind the scenes featurette for M17 was unveiled in which they go into detail on how Tom Cruise trained for a year for his most dangerous stunt yet in which he barrels down a ramp off a cliff in Norway and in mid-air lets the bike go and free falls before his parachute is released.      D...

  12 years ago Avatar released into theaters and became the highest-grossing film of all time with a total box office gross of over $2.7 billion until Avengers: Endgame temporarily dethroned it with its $2.79 billion gross only to be matched by Avatar reclaiming its spot as no. 1 with a re-release in China earlier this year raising its box office gross to a total of $2.8 billion. Avatar starred Sam Worthington as Jake Sully, a soldier pitted between two worlds when he finds himself becoming protective of the exotic mind-bending planet that his love interest Neytiri played by Zoe Saldana calls home which is threatened by the dangerous and formidable Colonel played by Stephen Lang. The film was a break-through in 3D technology stunning audiences across the globe and James Cameron, the man also responsible for the cinematic hit that was Titanic got to work on sequels that would return audiences to the world of Pandora. However, time marched onward and delay after delay on the deve...

Originally a spin-off of JAG , NCIS has become a legend as the show is now 18 seasons deep into its run and has spun off three separate shows itself expanding the universe with NCIS: LA , NCIS: New Orleans , and NCIS: Hawaii . Just as recently as April Nielsen reported NCIS as being the top-rated show in streaming as an estimated 890 million minutes of NCIS reruns were streamed in between April 19-25 alone. Over the years NCIS has attracted millions of fans across the globe especially since the show got into syndication skyrocketing the trajectory of the show’s success while the show was already 7 seasons in with its eccentric characters, compelling and suspenseful dramatic storylines, and of course the bread and butter of the show its humor. NCIS has never been satisfied to be merely a police procedural as the writers behind the scenes strive to create a character drama that just happens to take place in the world of military criminal investigations, however, the focus is alw...

  Sean Connery is my favorite Bond but Roger Moore will forever be one of the most important Bonds to me as following Connery’s departure from the role after Diamonds are Forever (1971), Roger Moore took over the mantle of Bond starting with Live and Let Die (1973), at the age of 45 and up until Daniel Craig’s recent extended tenure as the character was the longest-serving Bond portraying 007 across 7 different entries in the franchise over a span of a dozen years. Moore’s Bond is often criticized for driving the franchise into increasingly campy territory and for him playing the part well past his prime but his undeniably charismatic and suave portrayal of the playboy version of Bond no doubt sets him apart from the rest of the Bonds while his run as 007 brought a sense of consistency and stability to the series following all the fallout and drama from both Connery and Lazenby’s departure from the role in the late 60s/early 70s. The Roger Moore Bond films are particularly an intr...