TxMike Reviews

Footloose (1984)

Now a classic, all the high school kids wanted to do was dance.

[4 May 2024]

Much was made in entertainment news of 2024 being the 40th anniversary of the release of "Footloose." There even were special reports from the Utah high school where much of the filming was done. Kevin Bacon even agreed to make an appearance at an event. So I found the DVD of the movie at my public library. My wife and I watched it last night, even enjoying the music we used to listen to.

Kevin Bacon is Ren who moves to this fictional mountainous community of Beaumont (not the one in Texas). He soon figures out the local preacher has influenced the townspeople that music and dancing are dangerous and bad so they have been banned. Except, of course, calming classical music that the preacher chooses to listen to. But Ren, a gymnast and a dancer, wants to change that.

As it turns out the preacher's daughter is Lori Singer as Ariel and she is the usual rebellious teenager, she has a hard time sticking to her dad's rules. She also wants to dance.

Her dad, the preacher, is played well by John Lithgow who it turns out was about 37 during filming but plays a 40-something man who has been married for 20+ years.

I suspect everyone knows, even those who haven't watched the whole movie, that there was in fact the restoration of "proper" dancing, Ren even used bible verses referencing dancing as part of his argument at the town meeting.

This is a good movie and now, a classic. I am surprised that its IMDb rating is rather low. It was also fun seeing Sean Penn's younger brother, Chris Penn, who unfortunately died young at 40. Also Sarah Jessica Parker, still a bubbly teenager during filming.

The Idea of You (2024)

Older woman and younger man, difficulties that presents.

[3 May 2024]

My wife and I watched this movie on its first day of streaming on Prime. We expected it to be a lightweight but entertaining rom-com but we were completely wrong. It is much more than that. It examines a number of societal issues, including:

The verbal abuse an older woman takes if she dates a much younger man.

The role of paparazzi and social media in inflaming a situation.

The realities of balancing motherhood and social life.

It also plays on one of my favorite themes, the reality of random events determining our direction in life. Anne Hathaway is Solène, a divorced woman just turning 40. She owns an art gallery, she also has a teenage daughter. One day as her ex-husband is about to take the daughter and friends to Coachella he pulls out due to business in Houston, Solène fills in. In another random, accidental incident she goes into the trailer of a well-known, 24-yr-old entertainer, thinking it was the restroom, and meets him.

Nicholas Galitzine, British actor, plays the young entertainer, Hayes. He is a member of a boy band and takes an immediate liking to Solène. Her first reaction is "I am too old for you." His reaction is "I don't care."

This is a well-done movie, the situations and dialog are interesting, the sound track is very good.

Butcher's Crossing (2022)

It was 1874, Bison hunting was a big thing.

[2 May 2024]

This movie was filmed in Montana on Blackfeet land and using the Blackfeet Bison herds. In a sense it pays tribute to the almost complete decimation of the American Bison herds in the late 1800s, but through recognition of the issue and conservation has now restored the Bison to healthy numbers.

There are several stories going on here but the catalyst is a young man, Will Andrews (played by 20-ish Fred Hechinger), a student from Massachusetts who dropped out of Harvard to experience something different, traveling to the fictional Kansas town of Butcher's Crossing with a few hundred in cash in his wallet. And very short on relevant experience.

There he meets Nicolas Cage as Miller, an old experienced Bison hunter. Miller says he knows of a land in Colorado where Bison are so plentiful you can kill as many as you want. He expects the skins will fetch four dollars each. All he needs is a few hundred to finance the four-man trip with horses and a wagon to bring the skins back.

There isn't much novel about the characters or the problems they encounter, we have all seen that in various 1800s old west movies. However it turns into a good character study, although somewhat slow during most of the second half of the movie. The thing that stuck with me the most was the depiction of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of skinned Bison carcasses in the field. This was special effects in the movie but that sort of thing really did happen back then.

Interesting movie, but I wouldn't want to watch it again. On DVD from my public library. Nic Cage is good as he usually is.

The Great Escape (1963)

Based on actual events, POWs plan an escape from a German POW camp.

[2 May 2024]

The year this movie came out has special meaning to me, I graduated from high school and started college in 1963. While I had watched short clips here and there over the years this week was the first time I actually watched the whole movie.

The movie has quite a number of "stars" in it but most often we think of Steve McQueen and his motorcycle in the role of Hilts 'The Cooler', so named because he so often was sent "to the cooler" for weeks for various infractions, like attempted escapes. It is somewhat sobering to me, he was the same age then as my grandson is now. Time marches on.

This whole story, covering roughly three years from 1941 to 1944, is based on a memoire. It is in substance all true, including the 335 foot tunnel, although some names are changed and some characters are composites.

The movie is long, at almost three hours, but it moves along interestingly. I watched it streaming on Prime, in four sittings over several days, much as if it had been a mini-series.

Good movie for the time and events it represents.

The Royal Hotel (2023)

Two Canadian girls in the Australian outback.

[30 April 2024]

There is a 2016 documentary about Hotel Coolgardie, an out of the way Australian spot where foreign backpackers can work for a time to earn money, but also where two Finnish backpackers faced inhumane treatment while working as bartenders.

This movie, "The Royal Hotel" is a fictional story that was inspired by Hotel Coolgardie. It starts in Sydney, where Canadian friends, Julia Garner as Hanna and Jessica Henwick as Liv, find themselves without funds. There in fact is a real Work and Travel program in Australia for travelers between the ages of 18 and 30 who want to earn and travel. So the two friends take advantage of that.

They get a bus ticket to a remote spot, they end up at the fictional Royal Hotel which has rooms where they stay, but is primarily a pub. The owner is played excellently by "Matrix" veteran, Hugo Weaving.

Some things happen but the movie is really about the unpleasantness that female bar workers often must contend with. As the filmmakers explain, it doesn't have to be in the Australian outback, it could be in a Manhattan bar, as rowdy men get boozed up and threaten to cross the line in behavior.

While I don't rate this movie very highly I found it interesting and the main actors are all very good. At home on DVD from my public library, my wife read the description and skipped.

County Line: All In (2022)

Gunshot victim found exactly on the county line.

[28 April 2024]

This movie is set in Georgia and was filmed in Georgia and North Carolina. I enjoyed it for Tom Wopat who I watched almost 50 years ago in "Dukes of Hazard". Now at 70 years old he takes on different types of roles. Here he is newly reelected, elderly Sheriff Alden Rockwell.

Kelsey Crane is newly elected Sheriff Joanne Porter of the adjacent county. She is trained in more modern theories and methods of law enforcement and that naturally causes clashes with the older men.

The meat of this story is the beginning, the annual reenactment of a Civil War battle, in costume and with muskets. One participant is found dead, shot not with a musket ball but with a 9mm bullet. Since the body is directly in the middle of the dirt road that separates two adjacent counties. Which Sheriff will take control of the investigation?

My wife and I watched it streaming on Prime. We enjoyed it, for the most part, but too much of it stretches the realm of believability. For example, one scene where the criminal suspects shoot at the feet of the arriving law enforcement, as to not hit them. With a high-powered rifle. Then nothing of consequence happened to the shooters.

Then, at the end when the killer and his motive were revealed, the short scene systematically explained point-by-point why he was killing people. Something that the movie provided no clue about so everything before that point was just a series of red herrings. The hallmark of a mediocre movie.

Yes, it is not a particularly good movie but we enjoyed enough of the actors that it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Cut, Color, Murder (2022 TV Movie)

Hairdresser cuts and colors, and sometimes helps solve a murder.

[26 April 2024]

I am just an ordinary movie-watcher, I write reviews mostly to remember if I watched the movie and if so, what my impressions were. If I were a professional reviewer I wouldn't give this movie a very positive review, there are too many things wrong with it.

However, as just a plain old viewer, a retired grandpa, I can say this is a very entertaining movie. What makes it so is that at least three times I was SURE I knew who the killer was, but when it was all over none of them did it. From that perspective it is well-made, nothing too serious for light entertainment.

The small community is having their annual pageant, the lady who runs it has a way to agitate almost everyone. During the buildup to the pageant, she is found dead, with scissors stuck into her back. She was wearing a device that, among other things, showed her heart stopped at 4:33PM, which was key to eventually providing clues to crack the case.

It is a Hallmark movie, my wife and I watched it streaming on Peacock.

Dune (1984)

He who controls the Spice, controls the Universe.

[25 April 2024]

I read the book when I was much younger, and I probably watched this 1984 movie at some point over the past 40 years but if I did, I didn't remember any of it. So I went in fresh, my motivation was to see how they treated the source material back then vs the current 2-part Dune movies out now in the 2020s.

It would be easy to dismiss this version with cheesy costumes and marginal special effects, but that would not be fair. Things were a lot different in the 1980s. So, for an older movie it plays as it should.

The story is set over 8000 years in the future, when humanity has figured out how to fold space and travel to anywhere in the universe without moving. Or waiting. That is critical because even traveling at the speed of light in a conventional manner would take so long they could not "explore the universe."

Cut through the futuristic ideas of space and strange worlds and people with telepathic powers, the core story is very common. There is a precious and valuable substance and everyone wants it. The quirk here is "spice" is the most powerful substance in the universe and only one planet contains it. Plus some really large sand worms that are able to track down rhythmic sound patterns.

So all the jockeying leads up to the final scene with lots and lots of explosions. For me it was fun to see a very young (24 during filming) Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides, and also a very young Virginia Madsen (22 during filming) as Princess Irulan.

It is a good movie, fun to watch, but not a great movie. At home on DVD from my public library.

The Eagle and the Albatross (2020)

Orphaned half-Korean girl befriends an older hie-hard golfer.

[24 April 2024]

I was looking for an interesting and entertaining movie to watch before bedtime and came across this one on FreeVee, meaning I had to endure a few commercials. The theme is golf and, being a golfer for 60+ years, I have a hard time turning away from movies with a golf theme, even a rather simplistic movie like this.

The star is Amber Liu, born in 1992 in Los Angeles, but went to Korea in 2008 to be in the K-Pop entertainment. So, while she is probably 27 or 28 during the making of this movie, she plays teenager Ji-min Kurt, or just "Jim", now an orphan after both her dad and mom died. She now travels to Pennsylvania to officially live with her aunt, the sister of her military dad. She is very good in this role.

The movie is a very mixed bad which to me lowers its rating quite a bit. While the meat of the movie is the young girl befriending an older die-hard golfer, and learning from him, there are additional stories involving her aunt selling sex toys and vibrators to the local country club women, and both the men and women in the country club lounge making frequent off-color jokes about shafts, balls, holes, all obvious sophomoric sexual references. That did not fit the tone of the golfing part of the movie and dragged it down.

All the golf here is bad golf, no one has a decent golf swing, but that doesn't really matter. The core story is about relationships and how you can find your new family if you look for the good in people.

Escape to Athena (1979)

Seems to have been made mostly to employ the various actors.

[23 April 2024]

I had not heard of this movie but today it showed up on the broadcast TV channel "Movies!" which specializes in older movies. We were having a cable outage and it was a way to pass time with no internet, no streaming.

The premise is that during WW2 there was a Nazi prison camp on a Greek Island. The prisoners hatch an escape plan and their ultimate mission is to get to Athena where they think valuable items stolen by the Nazis are being hidden.

By modern standards, this is not an especially good movie.

The tone of the film is wildly uneven, there are lots of funny bits but also lots of shooting and killing. Often it feels like separate scenes were ineptly joined together. I didn't feel that the mixture of the broad comedy and action-adventure sequences worked.

Also the Germans are depicted as very incompetent, as happened in many post-WW2 movies and TV shows. The movie is mainly interesting for the array of stars in it.

A particular novelty was Sonny Bono as one of the prisoners. He comes across as an inexperienced actor but does fine in his limited role. This came on the heels of the very popular 1970s TV show "Sonny and Cher."

The Eagle Has Landed (1976)

I'm off to the pub. The only time this plan makes sense is when I am drunk.

[22 April 2024]

I found this movie when I was seeing if I had missed any Jenny Agutter movies. Her role here isn't large, she plays an "almost 19" girl in the small English community and probably wasn't necessary. But it was still fun seeing her.

The movie starts with a real newsreel from 1943, during WW2, when Hitler sent a rescue party to get Mussolini. That really did happen.

The premise of this movie is that Hitler decided he wanted to kidnap England's Prime Minister, and key to their war effort, Winston Churchill. The directive was just for an inquiry, to see if it were feasible, but the German officer took off and ran with it.

The movie is very interesting both for its concept, and the several big-name movie stars of the time. I viewed it on Blu-Ray from my public library and the video is very nice for a movie filmed almost 50 years ago.

Wish (II) (2023)

An expansion of Disney's "When you wish upon a star."

[22 April 2024]

My wife and I watched this at home, on DVD from our public library. We enjoyed it as light entertainment. The animation and sound are done very well and the several songs are performed well.

The premise is that a man became fascinated with magic and sorcery when he was young and he devoted his life to perfecting it for himself. He found a small island in the Mediterranean and established his land there, with himself as king. He would accept wishes from the common people, but would not grant all of them, it depended on what he thought the result would be.

Wishes are depicted as light blue ballon-like vessels, about the size of an adult's hand, and they would float up to the top of the large gathering hall.

For one young girl, she wanted the wish of her old grandpa to be granted but the king never would. So she takes it as a personal mission of hers to correct what she views as a wrong, not only for the old man, but also for the others in the kingdom. She gets surprising help when a small yellow star actually comes down to help out.

As I already said, we were entertained.

Dazed and Confused (1993)

Teenagers misbehaving in 1976 Austin, Texas.

[22 April 2024]

Richard Linklater, who wrote and directed this movie, was born in 1960 in Houston, Texas. I suspect that this script is somewhat autobiographical as he would have been a teenager in 1976.

One fascination is the large number of young actors who went on to become movie and TV stars. Also an equal number of young actors who just faded away, which shows the uncertainty of pursuing a career as an actor.

Today in the 2020s a common trait of the speech patterns of many teenagers and young adults is to insert the word "like" one or more times in a sentence, where it is totally unnecessary. "It was like one of the best like experiences I ever had." In this movie the pervasive, unnecessary word is "man", as in "Yeah, man..." or "That was a wild time, man." After a while I got sick of hearing most characters say "man" all the time.

This is an interesting movie for its depiction of the time but in truth not that good a movie. It portrays teenagers in Austin as being rebellious and always thinking about sex, drinking, and smoking pot. The part that bothers me most is the hazing of freshmen by upperclassmen. The older boys chasing down freshmen boys and beating on them with thick wooden paddles.

I attended high school in the 1960s, my children attended high school in the 1980s and 1990s. I don't know if what is depicted here is accurate but they sure have foul mouths in this movie.

At home, streaming on Peacock.

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)

Sequel, not as entertaining as the first one with Momoa.

[20 April 2024]

Of the 2018 "Aquaman" movie I wrote, "This is a good popcorn movie, but I watched it at home on BluRay from my public library. It has a lot of very deep bass in many scenes and often rattled the glass doors covering the fireplace." And further, "The computer graphics and special effects are really great, but for my tastes there is just too much frantic battles and destruction in the scenes leading up to the conclusion."

And I can pretty well say the same for this movie. Right now its IMDb rating is about a point lower than the 2018 movie and that seems appropriate.

The actors in various roles are pretty much the same. In this one Aquaman and his half-brother Orm must cooperate to defeat a menace who has a Black Trident which gives the bearer similar powers to Aquaman's Trident.

I don't consider it to be a very good movie, however it is suitably entertaining if you don't expect too much.

My wife skipped, not her kind of movie.

Drive-Away Dolls (2024)

Lesbian sex road trip, as interpreted by Ethan Coen.

[20 April 2024]

This is not a movie for mainstream fans. It certainly shares characteristics from other Coen movies, especially "Fargo". The seemingly gratuitous non-sexy nudity. The road trip with the talkative little guy and the goon. My wife watched half of the trailer and decided to skip, streaming on Peacock. For those of us who enjoy many of the Coen movies, this is a very entertaining one. Though more than a bit raunchy.

My main reason for trying it was Margaret Qualley who was so good in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" and in "My Salinger Year." Here she is unabashed Lesbian, Jamie, living and working in Pennsylvania. When her good friend and fellow Lesbian says she wants to go to Tallahassee to visit her aunt, Jamie has an idea, she will go too and they will get there by picking up a "drive away" car, one that needs to be delivered to a different city. Thus the name, "Drive-away Dolls."

The road trip gets complicated, there is a flat tire, leading to the discovery of a metal briefcase with surprising contents. There is a Senate candidate, a "family man" with a shady past, and Matt Damon is cast in that small but important role. There is lots of Lesbian activity, but it seemed to me to be a parody of sorts, for laughs.

So yes, its current rating across all audiences is understandably low, but for those of us who enjoy the strange, unusual, often dark humor of a Coen movie it is better than its rating would suggest.

Oh! And the several Linda Ronstadt songs are a bonus.

Logan's Run (1976)

Set in the year 2274, in a closed society you live to be 30.

[19 April 2024]

Through the modern magic that is DVD I managed to finally see this iconic movie, almost 50 years after in was filmed, incidentally in Texas, mostly in the DFW area.

It is set in the future, year 2274, in a time after the "outside world" has been made unlivable. The people here live in very large, interconnected domes. Large enough to have transportation systems inside them. Most of the people wear clothes made of brightly-colored, sheer fabric, and they move about in a happy, carefree manner. The women seem to have long ditched the idea of wearing bras. Skin tones are homogenous.

The old idea of marriage and family have long been discarded, as has birth of children by the old-fashioned way. And, as you turn 30, you and your group go to the carousel to be "renewed." But you are never seen again.

Michael York, who was so good as Tybalt in the 1968 "Romeo and Juliet", with that commanding stage-worthy voice is Logan, who is a Sandman, an enforcer. He and others in that role dress differently, in black uniforms, and carry weapons. Those who try to avoid the Carousel are deemed "runners." The story here is when Logan decides he will run.

Jenny Agutter is Jessica, she has signed up for a role as a sex worker in their world but decides she doesn't really want to do that. She and Logan end up forming a connection.

Agutter was famously in the 1971 movie "Walkabout", filmed when she was 18. She has a great swimming scene in that movie and in "Logan's Run" she has a similar scene in a similar pond at 1:15 into the DVD, joined by York. She was about as pretty as a 1970s girl could be.

Farrah Fawcett wasn't well-known yet, most of her acting was in TV shows and TV movies. A native Texan herself, she has a somewhat small role as Holly who works for a doctor who can give runners a different appearance.

Also fun was hearing Peter Ustinov recite some of T. S. Elliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" in one scene with lots of cats. This filming was done several years before Andrew Loydd Webber wrote his musical "Cats" based on the same source material.

Overall a very interesting and entertaining movie, how the 1970s viewed a possible dystopian future.

The Color Purple (2023)

Wonderful adaptation, making it a musical.

[18 April 2024]

It is sad to read some of the negative reviews, like those who question why this was made as a musical. My reply would be, "See the original if you don't like musicals, just don't watch this one then complain."

The story is a very dark tale of a young black woman in the early 1900s who was abused at home, had two children that were given away without her consent, and who was married off to an older man, "Mister", who also abused her.

Making it a musical does not take away from the plight of Celie but it does brighten up the whole movie and I thoroughly enjoyed, as did my wife. All the singing is top-notch, as well as the harmonies in many of the musical numbers.

Fantasia Barrino is the grown up Celie and, as a former winner of the American Idol competition is of course very good in the musical numbers plus she is a credible actress.

But my favorite is Taraji P. Henson who I know mostly for dramatic roles, as in the 2016 "Hidden Figures" where she was in the role of the mathematician who solved the orbital issues for NASA. But she is an accomplished singer too, for my tastes better than Barrino, and she plays the entertainer and "loose woman" Shug Avery.

Danielle Brooks is also an accomplished singer with a very strong voice, she is a key character Sofia.

To me Colman Domingo is the best actor here, as "Mister." He is a dangerous, unforgiving man, he has to play this part to perfection to complement the roles of the women and his adult son.

Overall a very good and entertaining telling of the "Color Purple" story, the title a reference to a line about noticing the purple flowers in the field among the other colors.

Spielberg directed the older movie, here he is one of the Producers, which means something regarding the quality of the movie.

My wife and I watched it at home on DVD from out public library.

Migration (I) (2023)

Non-migrating Mallards decide to go to Jamaica for the winter.

[16 April 2024]

At first glance this animated movie, not even 80 minutes long, is just mindless entertainment. With very good, very colorful animation. However it has a message, and almost the same message in the 1998 movie "Pleasantville." "Is it better to live a safe and predictable life, or is it better to takes risks and be uncertain of the outcome?"

We meet a family of Mallard Ducks, happy in their little pond. One fateful day a group of strangers, a different species of duck, stop for a rest in their little pond. It turns out they were headed to Jamaica for their winter migration. They were surprised to learn the Mallards, at least this family of Mallards, did not migrate. Papa Mallard was content to keep his family in the safety of their friendly little pond. They would tell the kids stories of young ducks that ventured out and were eaten.

However Papa Duck relents, the group of five take off for Jamaica, but having never been there got lost easy. One experience was an unscheduled stop in Manhattan. Another was a rescue. Then their luck changes when they meet a brightly-colored originally from Jamaica.

I don't think it tries to be profound but simply fun entertainment, and it does that. On DVD from my public library, my wife skipped, not in the mood for an animated movie.

It.

My Sailor, My Love (2022)

Complicated relationship movie in Ireland.

[14 April 2024]

Filmed and set in Ireland, James Cosmo, in his 70s, is Howard, former sailor and now retired to his remote home. His wife, who suffered from depression, died years earlier. He lives alone and his 40-something daughter, a nurse, checks on him periodically. He doesn't seem to welcome her visits and his home is a total mess.

So the daughter hires help, a local lady to come in two days a week. She is played by 60-something Brid Brennan as Annie. At first Howard makes it clear that he'd rather her not come, but eventually he softens up when he realizes she is good company.

The adult daughter is played by Catherine Walker as Grace. She too is having personal issues and she and her husband don't always have time to communicate properly.

As the story develops we see that there are some deep family issues, plus some issues Howard is having that he fails to share. It is all plausible, elderly parents and their adult children can have difficulty with issues that represent a wedge. In fact I have five adult children and there are wedges.

My wife and I watched it at home, streaming on Amazon Prime. Not a happy or uplifting movie but suitably interesting. The acting and cinematography are excellent.

Nature: Meet the Raptors | Raptors: A Fistful of Daggers (2024) Season 42, Episode 13

Raptors, birds of prey, from tiny to the very large.

[11 April 2024]

Before I watched this program the word "raptor" conjured images of a Bald Eagle, or an Osprey, birds of prey I watched the summer we spent in Montana on Flathead Lake. But now I have a much broader appreciation of raptors, from the largest to the tiniest. And including owls and vultures, plus a few others I had never heard of.

As with most, if not all, "Nature" programs there is a message of conservation, and this program has it but not as a main point. This is a really good program, it shows a number of different raptors in their natural environments and how they breed and hunt. And migrate.

One raptor has the ability to fly as fast as 70 mph in level flight. Another can dive as fast as 150 mph. Perhaps the largest one, an Eagle in Africa, weights up to 10 pounds and with a 6-foot wingspan. Another interesting explanation is how a dished face of an owl can help it hear faint sounds by amplification, similar to a dish catching sound.

There's a lot more, those are just a few examples. Like the Eagle that attacks and knocks small goats off the mountain, letting the fall do the hard work so that the raptor can clean up. This is a very well made program.

Episode #2 was broadcast one week later, on April 17th. It continued the narrative with a different set of raptors in different parts of the world. They need to do four things - hunt, eat, mate, and raise their offspring. That is in essence what the program covers.

Plus one case of modern evolution, involving the Snail Kite in Florida. Because an invasive species of giant snail was too large for most Snail Kites their numbers took a big hit. But the larger Kites selectively survived and reproduced and now the population of the Snail Kites is on the rise as they now can feast on the larger snails. Evolution, survival of the fittest, in just two or three generations of the bird.

On PBS. Good, interesting program.

A Brief History of the Future (2024– )

Good subject, I really wanted to like this, but ...

[11 April 2024]

The one "but" is Producer Ari Wallach. First off he turned me off with his speaking mode, frequently using 'kind of' or 'sort of', which are weasel words to avoid making a declarative statement.

Then there's the title - "history" of the "future" makes no sense. I suspect he was trying to coattail Hawking's "Brief History of Time" which does make sense.

Then after a brief introductory scene the program switches to a group of young adults in a room, like a conference room, around a table, and each is explaining their own take on what today is, and what the future might hold. Fine, that is a good approach.

But then, for no good reason, we see a participant for a few seconds, then we see Ari Wallach nodding "knowingly" as a person is speaking. Then a different person for maybe 5 seconds, then the camera moves to Ari Wallach's face, looking approvingly. And it continues this way.

What is with all the face shots of Ari Wallach? He is the least interesting participant. A good producer will try to stay mostly in the background but not Wallach, he seems to think this program is better if he gets his face in it constantly, even when he is not contributing.

I couldn't take it any more, a good subject that could be interesting but ruined by Ari Wallach's constant need to be the focus of the camera. It is an example, when you produce a 6-part series then you'd better be SURE that episode #1 starts great and makes potential viewers WANT to see additional episodes. This fails to do that. I did watch some of episode #3 but it didn't seem connected to anything, mostly random snippets from various movies that deal with the future in some way.

Sadly, a big miss, it doesn't do a good job of connecting with its purported subject. Also beware of the two quick "10" reviews, they have similar wording and are of accounts just established, and having only one review, for this program. While I would not accuse them of being shill reviews, it does raise that possibility in my mind.

The Marvels (2023)

Girl fight X 4.

[10 April 2024]

I browsed a few user reviews here before my wife and I spun up the DVD for this movie. It is funny, the viewers who have some sort of spiritual connection with the Marvel Universe and expected this movie to be totally serious were universally disappointed. Some give the movie silly ratings of "1" or "2" which of course is totally absurd and an insult to the hundreds of craftsmen and technicians who formed this movie is post-production and created the fantastic sound and visuals.

At the other end of the spectrum are folks like my wife and me, plain old 70-something retirees, who just look for an entertaining 90 minutes or so. The viewers who align with this outlook write positive reviews and give the movie a decent rating. No, probably not "10", but maybe 6, 7, or 8 when you compare it to other action movies with a humorous approach.

I won't mention specifics of the storyline here except it has Brie Larson as Captain Marvel and three other powerful young women who fight physically and psychologically for the fate of the universe. When the movie ended my wife said, "I liked the scenes with the cats." Yes, they are very special cats (and kittens).

Part of what makes this such an entertaining movie are the quiet scenes when the characters get to converse with each other, and the families. Plus, for those of us with a well-equipped home theater sound system, which includes a good powered subwoofer, this movie has a great sound track with body-shaking bass during battle scenes.

Entertaining movie! At home on DVD from our public library. No extras on the disc.

Música (2024)

Very entertaining, almost autobiographical.

[7 April 2024]

So, Rudy Mancuso wrote and directed 'Musica', and in it he stars as Rudy, a person with synesthesia, a perceptual phenomenon in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway. In this movie Rudy mostly experiences this in everyday sounds, kids playing ball, cooks tapping their utensils, bus and subway sounds, those sorts of things. But to him they are rhythms and music.

In real life this is Rudy Mancuso. In real life he is an accomplished musician, he is a puppeteer, so this movie is mostly autobiographical. The fictional part is having a 'gringa' for a girlfriend and realizing that they weren't really a good fit for each other.

Then one faithful day Rudy is picking up fish at the local market and gets hit on his face with a fish thrown by one of the workers. In that process he meets fellow Brazilian, Camila Mendes as Isabella. Continuing the reflection of real life, Rudy and Camilla met during the making of this movie and now, in real life they are a couple.

It also appears that Rudy's movie mother, Maria, is played by his real mother, Maria, although I can't find out anything about her.

All that aside, is it an entertaining movie? Yes, it is. While the bare-bones rom-com story follows a mostly familiar formula, the way the movie is made is unique and quirky. It was refreshing to watch a movie presented in a totally different manner.

My wife and I watched it at home, streaming on Amazon Prime.

Next Goal Wins (2023)

A Taika Waititi movie, based on real events about 12 years earlier.

[6 April 2024]

Here's the deal. The American Samoan football/soccer team was the worst in the world. In 2001 a record was set. For the worst defeat in an international football match. When Australia beat them 31-0.

This movie is set about 10 years after that, the Samoan team was still essentially non-competitive. Their bar wasn't set very high, they wanted to score one goal. If they could score one goal their program would be a success.

Along comes Michael Fassbender as temperamental soccer star Thomas Rongen, now retired and coaching. He was given a make or break chance, go to American Samoa, the small island nation in the Pacific Ocean, and turn the team around. Get them good enough to score a goal.

Now I admit that does not sound much like a scenario for a good, entertaining movie. But it actually is, in the hands of Taika Waititi who co-wrote the script, directed, and has the role of an American Samoan Priest. Yes, there is a lot of focus on soccer, and building a team. There is also a lot of focus on what happiness is, and how there is much more to life than a sport.

It was filmed in Hawaii, the actors are good, and the whole movie is entertaining.

At home, on DVD from my public library. There are no 'extras' but the end credits include some brief clips of the real people.

Dream Scenario (2023)

A professor starts showing up in the dreams of other people. Everyone is puzzled.

[5 April 2024]

This is a really strange story, I don't recall seeing any movie with a comparable theme. That is neither good nor bad, it all depends on the how it is developed and handled. I think for the most part it is handled well, and interestingly, but to me the final scenes and the developments in them are not as interesting as the concepts developed in the first half of the movie.

I always like Nicolas Cage as an actor, I don't always like the characters he plays. Here he is PhD Paul Matthews, a university professor. A sort of vanilla type of guy, short on fashion and short on personality. He doesn't stick out in any particular way, even to his wife and two teenage daughters. In my time all those years ago he might be called a 'square.'

Then we see a scene outside, a back yard, a swimming pool. The daughter is on a recliner, reading, when keys, then a shoe, and finally a body, drop from the sky and into the pool. Paul is there, next to the pool, he just observes dispassionately. No reaction, he does nothing. We wonder if a plane broke apart. At least I did.

Quickly we realize this was his daughter's dream. Then as others, some complete strangers, or some his students, he always just stands around, does nothing. That is the recurring theme. At first. Eventually dreams turn to increasingly darker situations.

Part of the story is the natural attempt for him and others to explain the phenomenon, but no one can. Then the story heads in the direction of the influence of social media. Paul becomes a meme. He becomes well-known for all the wrong reasons. And the outfall is all negative. He gets un-invited to important meetings, he gets harassed at a local diner, prohibiting teaching his class.

In the DVD extras Cage himself explains that he reads lots of scripts that he doesn't think would make a good movie but, when he read the script for this one, he "knew" he had to make it. Frankly, some of it passes over my head, like the book he eventually wrote or why so many turned against him even though he did nothing. They weren't his dreams. And maybe that is just the point, in this day of "cancel culture" it is intended to show how easily and quickly someone can be cancelled when hordes of others jump on the bandwagon even if the person did nothing wrong.

Anyway, my wife and I enjoyed it, at home of DVD from our public library. Nic Cage is great, he even shaved the top of his head to look like an old professor with male pattern baldness.