Silent Night is the latest from director John Woo, a director who hasn’t seen a hit here in the USA in quite some time. The wait will have to continue, as this film is more gimmick than substance. In a town in Texas dominated by gang violence, Brian’s young son is killed in a drive by, and when Brian chases down the shooters, one shoots him in the throat, destroying his voice. He rehabs, and vows revenge, spending the better part of a year working out, getting proficient in guns and handling a car at extreme speeds. Then it is time to carry out his vengeance. Brian sets out on a night to take down the head of one particular gang, and there will be blood (plenty of it). Unfortunately it’s one of those action films where you never really feel any of the tension they are trying to create. There’s nothing new in the car chases, nor the gun or knife fights. And Brian seemingly isn’t the only one who lost his voice. No one talks in this movie! Even the bad guys only communicate with body language or text messages. As I recall, the only voices I heard were from the radios here or there. Strange gimmick to run with, and it doesn’t work. Just makes the whole thing feel silly. ★

God’s Creatures put me back on track with great performance from Emily Watson. She plays Aileen, a woman at a small fishing village in Ireland. She and most of the women work at a seafood processing plant, while the men are out fishing every day. Aileen’s son Mark returns to the area after years away living in Australia, and she welcomes him back. Aileen is willing to do anything to help her son settle back home, including stealing oysters from her work so that he can use them to seed his oyster farming traps. A young worker at the plant, Sarah, sees Aileen doing it, but says nothing. Shortly afterwards, at a bar, Mark starts hitting on Sarah, since they once dated before he left and her marriage is currently on the rocks. The two of them stay at the bar while Aileen returns home, but in the next couple days, the police visit saying that Sarah is claiming a man attacked her that night. Aileen states that Mark came home with her, and of course the only people that know different are Aileen, Mark, and Sarah. Sarah doesn’t come to work for a few days and eventually loses her job, and when the town turns on her for “falsely” claiming Mark attacked her, Aileen is wracked with guilt. How far will she let her lie go, while it destroys Sarah’s life? The ending is glimpsed a mile away, but it is a worthy journey with some great acting and a gritty feel. Strong film about what a mother’s breaking point, when faced with the fact that her son is a monster. ★★★½

I recently loved a film (Amanda) so much that I immediately hunted down another from the filmmaker. Carolina Cavalli didn’t direct Fremont, but she did write it, and while the director (Babak Jalali) has his mark on it, it still shows a lot of Cavalli’s quirky humor. The film follows a woman named Donya, an Afghani immigrant who came to America on a special visa for helping the military during the war over there, as a translator. She is ostracized by fellow Afghanis in the area for being a “traitor,” and fears for her family left back home, who may face retaliation. Donya works at a Chinese fortune cookie manufacturer, first on the production line and, later, writing the fortunes that go in the cookies. She has a couple friends, more acquaintances than anything, but is extremely lonely. In a moment of poor judgement, she even puts a cry for help, with her phone number, in a fortune cookie. That message ends up at the owner’s party, but thankfully Donya doesn’t lose her job over it, when her boss goes to bat for her. Will she ever find something meaningful here in America? The film does a great job of getting you to hope so, and really root for her. Poignant, but also a funny film, with some quietly ridiculous moments, such as Donna’s therapist, who has a penchant for relating life to the novel White Fang. ★★★½

Passages is a great low-key international film with some recognizable faces, if you watch a lot of indie and foreign films. It revolves around a narcissist, a German man named Tomas. A young film director of some renown in the art scene, he controls his relationships like he controls his film sets. His husband is Englishman Martin, and they’ve been married for awhile and living in Paris for 6 years. However, their marriage seems to be on life support. Out celebrating the completion of Tomas’s latest film, they get in a fight and Martin leaves early. Tomas drifts towards a young woman on the dance floor, a Frenchwoman named Agathe. The two sleep together that night, and the next day, Tomas returns home extolling to Martin how he felt a connection with Agathe that he never felt with a woman before. The two men separate while Tomas pursues a relationship with Agathe, but it isn’t long before Tomas comes knocking on Martin’s door again. Tomas is extremely manipulating and worms his way back into Martin’s life, while keeping Agathe on the hook too. His balancing act can’t last forever, but hopefully Martin and Agathe wise up in time before Tomas can destroy their lives. Franz Rogowski and Ben Whishaw are terrific as the two male leads. Blue Is the Warmest Color notwithstanding, I’ve usually thought of Adèle Exarchopoulos as not much more than a pretty face, but she’s great too as Agathe. Very nuanced picture. ★★★½

I gotta admit, I ignored the reviews and watched The Royal Hotel because I liked the cast (always a fault of mine). Starring Julia Garner (Ozark), Jessica Henwick (Iron Fist and Game of Thrones), and Hugo Weaving (Elrond and Agent Smith himself), the film follows two American college girls partying up in Australia. When they run out of money, they apply for work permits, but not being citizens and it being late in season, job openings are limited. They end up taking a job at a remote outback town bar called The Royal Hotel, where the only customers are the miners (all men) who work nearby. It’s a rough and tumble locale, where the young women will face predatory men as well as a drunken boss seemingly intent on running the business into the ground. Strong acting from all, as you’d expect, but the film never really pans out. The tension isn’t as heavy as they want it to be, and it has an uneven feeling that never finds solid ground. Could have been something special, but instead is more of a B movie with better actors. ★★

• Book currently reading: The Butlerian Jihad by Herbert & Anderson

R.M.N. is the latest from director Cristian Mungiu, a lauded Romanian filmmaker, but this is the first of his films I’ve seen. I hope the others are better than this one, because I do not understand all the critical praise this thing has gotten. It follows a man named Matthias who leaves Germany to return to his hometown in Romania. He left Germany suddenly because he got in a fight with his boss at work after being called a gypsy, but back in his hometown with his estranged wife and neighbors, he pretends he left on his own accord and is “just in the area for a bit.” The town has seen better days. A nearby mine used to be the biggest employer, but it closed years ago, and most working men have left (like Matthias did) to work abroad for a decent wage. One local company is still active, a bakery, but they can only afford to pay minimum wages and no one is applying for its job openings, forcing them to take in immigrant workers from Sri Lanka. These new workers, who are not illegal and have the proper work permits, get the town in a tizzy, with all kinds of racial slurs being thrown around. You’d think that Matthias would side with the workers, having recently been targeted himself, but he almost refuses to take any side, only superficially aiding his lover (a manager at the bakery) but clandestinely siding with the good ol’ boys in town against the company. Against all of this backdrop, Matthias is also trying to make his young son “man up” after the boy saw something in the woods that spooked him, making him too fearful to sleep alone in bed or walk to school by himself. There’s some good moments here and there, but the town’s reaction to the workers is so over the top, in a region that is already multiethnic, that is almost seems too much (even though it is actually based on real events in the region in 2020). I try to believe that thinking like that doesn’t still exist in this world. The wild ending that you do not see coming almost makes up for the film’s shortcomings. Almost. ★★½

Amanda, on the other hand, hits it out of the park. A comedy drama with equal parts of both (will alternately make you laugh out loud and lean in towards the tv as it grips you), the film is about the 25-year-old eponymous young woman. Born into a wealthy family, she has reached her age without really doing anything with her life. To say she is a drifter may be putting it mildly; she doesn’t even drift. Very self-centered, but not in a narcissist way, she’s so wrapped up in her own problems that she doesn’t see what’s going on around her. When her family forbids the housekeeper from hanging out with her anymore, an act to try to force her to make a friend, Amanda finally decides she needs to do just that. Turns out, she may be able to find one. A neighbor’s daughter, Rebecca, is an isolationist who rarely leaves her room and never leaves the home’s compound. She and Amanda hung out as kids until Amanda’s family moved away for awhile. Now that they’ve returned to the area, Amanda is convinced that Rebecca is the longtime friend she’s always missed in her life, and sets out to make it happen. Of course, this is one thing she can’t just will into existence. A quirky comedy about people who all have a personality disorder (or 2), it’s a very funny yet also tenderly built film about finding your way without a map. Outstanding performance from lead Benedetta Porcaroli as Amanda, who gives off young Alicia Vikander vibes. ★★★★½

Fallen Leaves is the latest from Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, with whom I have a passing familiarity. Two main characters here: Ansa and Holappa, both of whom are struggling with employment and loneliness. Anna’s problems are out of her control, as she is bouncing from job to job because of poor bosses (never a good thing when one is arrested for selling drugs on payday). Holappa’s issues are self inflicted; he is an alcoholic who can’t stop drinking, even on the job. The two briefly meet at a bar one night, and afterwards, it seems fate continues to keep them in each other’s orbit, even when Holappa loses her phone number or even (gasp!) gets hit by a train. But Ansa, who lost a father and brother to drinking, won’t accept Holappa unless he can give up the bottle. Though it has been awhile since I’ve seen a Kaurismäki film, his style is instantly recognizable, with scenes using his preferred color palettes and his telltale stationary camera angles. A sweet and endearing film with just the right amount of laughs too. It doesn’t break any new ground, but it is beautifully told and acted. ★★★½

Unrest, however, has none of those things. Taking place in the 19th century in Switzerland, it follows 2 competing watch factories, one supported by the government (municipality) and the other run by anarchists, who are trying to increase influence in the area. Much of the film is focused on the production of the timepieces, and we see whole stretches of time devoted to the making of them. If that sounds boring, honestly it’s the best part of the movie (fascinating to me, anyway). The anarchists are presented as these happy-go-lucky people who are willing to sacrifice their wages to help those in need, and all they want is to work and live without a centralized, taxing government telling them what to do. Golly gee, those wonderful anarchists! Goes out of its way to show how ridiculous managers can be in their treatment of lowly employees, and felt like propaganda. Awful, wooden acting (if you can call it that, seemed like they were just rehearsing lines) is the icing on top. Complete waste of time. ½

Rimini has been on my radar for awhile, and I’m glad it finally started streaming on Mubi. The story is of a man in his 50’s (but it’s a hard 50, if you know what I mean) named Richie Bravo. A popular pop singer decades ago, he’s relegated to lounge singing for 60+ year olds who still remember him for what he was. He prostitutes for them on the side, and rents out his house to adoring fans, sneaking into empty hotel rooms to sleep at night. An attractive young woman shows up one day and Richie starts hitting on her, but she storms off without a word. Turns out it is his 18-year-old daughter Tessa, here to collect the $30k in back child support that he never paid. Having not seen her in 12 years, Richie didn’t recognize her, and of course he doesn’t have anywhere near that kind of money, having drunk it all away years ago. He scrounges for what money he can, and eventually comes up with it through a dirty scheme, but what she does with that money may surprise you. It certainly surprises Richie! Along the way, we learn about a deeply troubled man who carries around a lot of baggage from a very early age. In a twist right out of the Bible, we also see that the downside of Richie’s life may not be his fault, when we see that his ailing father, a man who often doesn’t know where he is, shows that he has devilish secrets in his past. A very much “sins of the father visited upon his sons” kind of thing. I loved this movie; sometimes it is easy to explain a man’s downfall as the bad decisions he made along the way, but that is often only half the picture, and this movie explores it all. The director, Ulrich Seidl, made a companion film, Sparta, about Richie’s brother, but that film was broiled in controversy and has questionable (to say the least) material, so I may not visit it, but as good as Rimini is, I’ll at least have to think it over. ★★★★

How did I make it to 2024 without ever seeing a single Twilight film? Well, they weren’t geared towards me as a viewer obviously (I was a 28-year-old guy when the first film came out in 2008), so I blew them off. I discounted the actors too, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized that both Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson are actually quite good actors. So, I thought I’d see what all the hype was about. Having read plenty of good and bad reviews online over the years, I sort of knew what to expect. The film follows a teen named Bella Swan who goes to live with her single father after her mother marries a minor league baseball player and goes on the road with him. In Bella’s new town in the far northwest, which never sees sun with all the rain, she finds a set of new friends fairly easily, but it is the loner Edward Cullen who draws her eye the most. His brooding demeanor oozes hotness, but he doesn’t reciprocate Bella’s attention, at least at first. As Bella gets to know him though, and he starts to open up, she realizes something is wrong about him. Turns out, you guessed, Edward (and his entire family) are immortal vampires. The family call themselves “vegetarian” vampires though, living off animals instead of human blood, but when a rival trio of vampires come through the area and one of them is intoxicated by Bella’s blood, Edward’s family decides to defend her for Edward’s sake, who has finally decided he loves her. Super cheesy teen drama (the music/soundtrack makes it even worse), the direction is subpar at best, and the editing is roughshod throughout, but putting production aside, the film is actually pretty good. I was into it anyway, for a new take on the whole star-crossed lovers theme. In this particular film, Pattinson has a way to go, but Stewart is already showing signs of what she will become. ★★★½

New Moon, unfortunately, is about what I was expecting from the series, and that’s not a good thing. Since his presence has put Bella’s life in danger, Edward decides to leave, and it is time for his family to move on anyway (since they don’t age, they can never stay in one school too long). In his absence, Bella starts growing closer to Jacob Black, a Native American who hints that his tribe have been at odds with the Cullens for generations. To make this series even better (?), Jacob and his tribe are werewolves, or at least, some are, as it is a gene that some get and some don’t. They and the Cullens, traditionally rivals, made a pact hundreds of years ago that they would keep a truce as long as the Cullens didn’t feast on humans in the area, a promise that has been kept. Now though, Bella and Edward are in love, and she is not wanting to age and die as he continues on as a young immortal. She wants to become a vampire, but in doing so, it would break the peace between the two groups. Not nearly as exciting as the first movie, the only real redeeming quality is the expansion of the lore of the families in the area. Jacob as a rival to Edward is just lame from the beginning, but we’ll see where this goes. ★½

Eclipse is… fantastic! Maybe it was lowered expectations after New Moon, but this movie blew me away. The sole living vampire of the trio in the first film, Victoria, has vowed revenge on Edward in the way that will hurt him most: killing Bella. To that end, she is building an army of vampires in nearby Seattle. By the time Edward and his family get wind of it, Victoria’s army is too large for them to handle on their own. They seek help from the most unlikely of sources: Jacob and his werewolf clan. For the good of the area, the werewolves agree to help, and they together hatch a plan to win the day. Also going on is, of course, Bella’s love life. She and Edward have agreed to be married after upcoming graduation, but Bella can’t help but admit that she has feelings for Jacob too, and Jacob isn’t willing to let her go so easy. Outstanding action and romance, with very dire consequences for the losers (of both the battle and the love!), I thought the movie was great. There’s even a good setup (which hopefully pans out in the final 2 films) where the Volturi, the head vampires who make the laws that all others are supposed to follow, show their cards that they aren’t happy with the way Edward’s clan has been carrying on. ★★★★½

Forget 1 step forward, 2 steps back. Breaking Dawn Part 1 is more like a couple steps forward, then turning around and walking a mile in the other direction. All of the build-up and tension and emotional energy from the last movie is gone. All we have left is CW-like teen drama about Bella getting married (30 minutes of longing looks and tender touching) followed by sexy vampire love on their honeymoon, where Bella gets pregnant unexpectedly, and the baby growing insider her at an exponential rate. This goes on for a solid hour. It’s the worst kind of teen who-gives-a-shit flick. And man oh man, when Jacob loses his shit when the unborn baby starts killing Bella, and he and the wolves gather and start talking in “wolf voices,” I almost turned it off. It’s beyond silly, it’s just bad. Terrible acting, atrocious dialogue… it really can’t be any worse. I followed through to the end, mainly just wanting to see how it ended and hoping (maybe vainly) that they can capture the magic of the last film and that the finale can deliver. ½

The finale is a bit better, even if doesn’t hit the heights that I would have liked. After 30 solid minutes of sappy love and Bella getting used to her new vampire body/powers, and coming to terms with her daughter Renesmee, who has a serious case of SORAS, we get into the nitty gritty. The Cullens hear wind that the Volturi will be coming for the child, thinking that she is a vampire too. It is forbidden to turn children into vampires; because they can’t be taught to control their hunger, in centuries past, child vampires would wipe out whole villages and thus cause humans to rise up against them. Edward and his family don’t think the Volturi will believe that Renesmee isn’t really a vampire, so they start bringing in friendly vampires the world around who will act as witnesses to try to talk the Volturi from their mission. Jacob gets all his werewolf pals in to help too, in case there is a battle. Of course the whole thing is leading to the fight, which is pretty good (even if the writers do cop out in the end with a bit of a “twist”). All in all, I was satisfied I guess. I can certainly see why, if I were a teenage girl when these books/movies were coming out, I could be in to them, with the romance and all that. Not my market, so as a whole the series (for me) had a couple highs, some really low lows, and overall was just about average. ★★½

• TV series recently watched: The Wheel of Time (season 2), The Diplomat (season 1), Reacher (season 2)
• Book currently reading: Dragons of a Fallen Sun by Weis & Hickman

Everyone knows the first thing a police officer is supposed to tell you during arrest, “You have the right to remain silent,” etc. The story of those “Miranda Rights” traces to the 1960s, and this film tells the forgotten story of the victim in Ernesto Miranda’s crime. In 1963, 18-year-old Patricia Weir is coming home from work late one night when she is grabbed by a man in a car, driven to a remote location, and raped. Shy and innocent from a sheltered upbringing, Trish can’t even accurately describe what happened to her. Her mother wants to hush it up and pretend it didn’t happen, afraid that no future husband will want Trish if she isn’t “pure,” but Trish’s older sister urges her to go the police. The police don’t do much to help rape victims in the 60s, but luckily Trish gets a resilient detective, who uses her description of the car to track down Ernesto. At the station under an hours-long interrogation, Ernesto confesses and is sentenced to prison, but later says that he was coerced. His appeal, where he states he never was told he could have a lawyer present, goes all the way to the Supreme Court, which rules that his confession must be thrown out due to not being told of his rights. Heartbroken that her rapist is set to go free, Trish has to put herself through a second trial, with little hope that Ernesto will be found guilty without a confession. The movie really makes you think who Miranda’s legacy is protecting: the truly innocent, or the guilty looking for get-out-of-jail-free cards. Strong acting from Abigail Breslin as Trish and a moving story all around. ★★★★★

You Resemble Me is a French film following a girl named Hasna. In the beginning, Hasna and her sister Mariam are inseparable, a bond forged through their terrible home life. Their father isn’t in the picture, and their mother only looks up from her stupor when she’s interested in something, leaving the kids to fend for themselves for food and comfort. 9-year-old Hasna and 7-year-old Mariam eventually end up running away together, but when picked up by the police, they are put in separate foster homes. Hasna cannot stay in hers, as the white family makes her straighten her dark, curly Arabic hair and forces her to eat pork (non-halal) food, so Hasna takes to the streets, where she is raped right away. After that horrific scene, we pick it up years later, but adult Hasna has not led an easy life. Craving something to believe in (and someone to believe in her), Hasna reaches out to her cousin Abdelhamid, who has become an ISIS terrorist. He lures her with promises of freedom, to fight for a cause, with paradise waiting at the end, but when she joins him, she finds it is not what was promised. The film is a fairly accurate portrayal of the 2015 Saint-Denis raid, where it was initially widely reported that Hasna was a suicide bomber. Directer Dina Amer was at the time a reporter for Vice News, and when it was later reported that Hasna was not the bomber but a victim herself, Amer felt horrible that she aided in spreading the initial narrative. She dove into the real story and made this film to tell Hasna’s life, about how society can fail someone to the point that being radicalized felt like her only escape. Tremendously touching and powerful film. ★★★★½

The Road Dance, based on a book, takes place in Scotland during World War I. In a tiny village of a dozen families out near the sea, Kirsty is the young lady every man covets, but she only has eyes for Murdo. Kirsty and Murdo share a love of literature and a dream for kicking the dust off their shoes and seeing the world. Murdo is currently on leave from fighting for England, though thankfully with his booksmarts, he has spent more time behind a typewriter than on the front. Home for now, he and Kirsty renew their promises to each other, but they will have to wait. The other 4 young men in town are conscripted, and they, along with Murdo, will be going to the front this time. To send off the young men, the town throws a Road Dance party, but what should be a joyous event turns to tragedy for Kirsty. When she wanders off alone, she is attacked and raped, but after taking a blow to the head during the attack, she cannot remember the man who did it. The next day, the doctor stitches up the gash on her head, and of course notices signs of her attack, but keeps her secret, knowing that (in that era) news of her rape would “ruin” her in public. The secret won’t be kept forever though: Kirsty is pregnant. As the months go by and she and Murdo continue to exchange letters, she keeps her secret from her mother and sister, wrapping her stomach tightly in towels and wearing long heavy coats as concealment. Everything will come to a head before long though, with ramifications for all. Absolutely incredible movie for the first hour-plus, solid 5 star territory for its picturesque landscape and engrossing acting from Hermione Corfield as Kirsty, but a big twist (which is heralded far too soon) comes off as too gimmicky, and the very last scene steals some of the anguish from the film. It’s too bad too, before all that fell apart, this was shaping up to be one of the best films I’d seen in awhile. ★★★½

Butcher’s Crossing’s main character is ostensibly Will Andrews, a young man who leaves Harvard in 1874 because he “wants to see the country,” but it really is the hunter named Miller, portrayed by Nicholas Cage, whose face is plastered all over the marketing materials. And honestly, that’s the only reason I watched it. Will leaves school and comes to a tiny bordertown in Kansas called Butcher’s Crossing and falls in with Miller on a buffalo hunt. For years, Miller has been trying to find a financier to fund his expedition into Colorado, where he says he has seen a herd of bison so thick that you can walk across the valley on their backs. No one believes him, so Miller has been scraping by in Butcher’s. The young, gullible Will is his meal ticket. Will breaks out the checkbook and he and Miller, along with a cook and a “skinner,” head out for Colorado. It is an arduous journey in the wild west, but the quartet does make it, and sure enough, there’s buffalo as far as the eye can see. They hunker down and get to work, but even when they’ve killed more than they can carry, and with winter coming fast, Miller refuses to leave until every animal is dead. Winter comes before they can leave, so they are forced to shelter until spring, with madness coming for more than one of them. Sounds exciting, but it mostly isn’t. Nicolas Cage is doing his Nicolas Cage-y thing, which sometimes works, but here it doesn’t, and the plot meanders along with no payoff in the end. For a supposedly wild western, it’s awfully tame. ★½

Dumb Money is one of those movies that is highly entertaining, but which will also get you riled up (unless you are a billionaire investor). It tells the famous story of the Gamestop short squeeze in 2021. Keith Gill is a middle class financial analyst who is tired of seeing stocks manipulated by hedge funds. He fondly remembers playing video games as a kid, and believes that Gamestop’s stock is purposefully being held down during the COVID pandemic, with hedge funds shorting it, expecting it to go lower. Keith has a small following on reddit and YouTube, and starts talking about his faith in Gamestop, sharing his beliefs about its true valuation and openly showing how much he is buying in (over $50,000, half of his net worth). His followers start buying in too, soaring the price in just days. All of these single investors start making money, from thousands to hundreds of thousands to, in the case of Keith, tens of millions. Meanwhile, the hedge funds obviously go the other direction, but they aren’t losing millions, they are losing BILLIONS. But they’ve got big government on their side, so if you aren’t angry by the end of this movie, then you probably fall in a higher tax bracket than me. A great movie about how the system is stacked against average-joe investors, with a great cast too (Paul Dano, Seth Rogan, Nick Offerman, Pete Davidson, Anthony Ramos, Sebastian Stan, Shailene Woodley, and others). ★★★½

• TV series recently watched: Fargo (season 5), The Artful Dodger (series), Mayor of Kingstown (season 2), Beef (season 1)
• Book currently reading: Dragons of a Fallen Sun by Weis & Hickman

Randolph Scott was once a big name in Hollywood, a leading man and a money draw for decades, especially in westerns, but he’s become almost forgotten in the ensuing time. Up today is a series of 7 films he made at the end of his career in the 50s, all directed by Budd Boetticher. Seven Men from Now isn’t your typical old western. The supposed “good guy,” Ben Stride, opens the movie by gunning down a couple people who seemed to be minding their own business, and we learn after awhile that he is hunting five more men next. After those murders, Stride comes across a married couple, John and Annie, who are struggling to get their wagon out of the mud on a journey to California. Strides helps and agrees to ride along for security for a little while since they are going the same way. Along the way, you can see that he and Annie start to grow close, under the eyes of Annie’s (unmanly) husband John. At a way station, the trio come upon some old “friends” of Stride, Bill and Clete. Looks like Bill and Stride have history, but they set that aside for the moment; Bill says he’ll go along with Stride in his quest, for now. Turns out Stride is hunting the men who killed his wife, and Bill wants to ride-with because those men stole a bunch of money too. This movie goes against the typical western themes of the 50’s: you have good guys doing bad stuff and bad guys doing good stuff. Even Ben openly tells Stride he’s only going along for the money, and when they get it, Stride will be the only person in his way. Great film with lots of true surprises and twists, and even the stuff you see coming plays out wonderfully. ★★★★

The Tall T is a classic, pre-revisionist western, when the good guys were good and the bad were bad. Brennan is a good natured cowboy with friends at every outpost, but he is the wrong place at the right time when a coach he is riding on is robbed. The others on the coach, a newly married couple, don’t have any money on them, but the woman is the daughter of a wealthy miner, so the would-be robbers turn towards ransom. Brennan is kept alive only as a backup plan, but he is ready to avenge some friends who were killed by these robbers earlier. He also will not let the lady come to harm, even if the same cannot be said for her new husband, who really only married her for the money. Some delightfully bad villains and a hero to root for — what more could you want? Not too deep, but beautiful vistas of the old west, plenty of gunfights, and a rescue of a damsel in distress, who is given the chance to fight for herself before the end. ★★★½

Decision at Sundown returns to the cloudy motives of the first film and ramps it up a notch, but you don’t know it in the beginning. Bart Allison rides into the tiny western town of Sundown with his buddy Sam, and he is on a mission: to find and kill a man named Tate Kimbrough. After 3 years, they’ve tracked Kimbrough here, and are coming in on Kimbrough’s wedding day. The town seems divided between those who like Kimbrough (mostly his lackeys) and those who don’t (the longtime residents of Sundown). Not a man to waste time, Allison opens the church doors, interrupts the wedding, and announces that he’s there to kill Kimbrough. Kimbrough sets his henchman on Allison, which gets him and Sam holed up in stable. They are stuck, but no one can come in without getting himself killed, so they are at a standoff. Outside, Kimbrough has to explain things to his would-be wife, as well as his longtime paramour (who he might actually love more), all while the residents of the town gather their courage to make a stand against Kimbrough too. And at the end, our supposed hero Allison may not have righteousness on his side after all. I liked the writer of this film turning the genre on its head, but not everything works. In a film where there is no one to root for, who can you root against? ★★

Buchanan Rides Alone finds Scott again playing the riding-through-town lonesome sort. This time he finds himself in a quick pickle when he stands up for someone. The town of Agry is right on the border between California and Mexico, and everyone of influence happens to sport the Agry surname, including the local judge Simon, the sheriff Lew, and the hotel owner Amos. Buchanan is just hoping to grab a bite, a drink, and a night’s stay, when another Agry, drunken Roy (Simon’s son) is called out by a Mexican man from just across the border. Juan is accusing Roy of sleeping with his sister, and shoots Roy dead. When the mob attempts to rough up Juan, Buchanan steps in and gets himself arrested too. Simon, never to look a gift horse in the mouth, puts a stop to the lynching/hanging, in order to use Juan as ransom for a big payday from Juan’s wealthy family across the border. You would think the Agry family would come together and get ready for riches, but instead, they all scheme against each other, with Buchanan in the middle, just trying to do the right thing. By the end, too many double crosses, too much back and forth, until my head was spinning. ★½

Ride Lonesome brings back the simplicity and gives a much neater tale. Ben Brigade is a bounty hunter who has recently wrestled down Billy John, a no-gooder with a reputation for shooting people in the back. Brigade is to bring Billy into Santa Cruz for his bounty, and stops at a way station on the way, where they encounter former outlaws Sam and Whit, and the way station setter’s wife Carrie, whose husband is missing and presumed dead by the local natives. Sam and Brigade have a past, but Sam has gone straight; he has enough money saved up to start a ranch, but needs to get the price off his head if he is going to do so. Taking Billy in would do that, as the bounty comes with amnesty as well, but Brigade isn’t about to let his charge go. So the trio at the station join up with Brigade and Billy on the road, with Sam hoping to change Brigade’s mind along the way. It isn’t long until Sam thinks Brigade has something else in mind than a simple bounty run. Brigade is taking a circuitous route to Santa Cruz, allowing Billy’s brother Frank, an infamous gunfighter in his own right, to catch up. Maybe Billy isn’t Brigade’s ultimate goal after all? No big twists and turns on this one, just a straight forward old fashioned western. It’s a fun one too, with a big gut punch in the end when you learn Brigade’s reasoning for wanting Frank. ★★★½

Westbound, however, is almost a little too simple. Along with no big surprises, there’s almost nothing that really moves you either. It does bring a different aspect than the above films though: the Civil War. Hayes is a Union officer tasked with supervising a new stagecoach line that will run from California to the east. Along with passengers, its most valuable cargo is gold, dug in California and to be used in the war effort. The south will be eager for that gold too, making the transports a hot target. Most of the residents around Colorado where Hayes sets up his headquarters are southern sympathizers, except for one man (Rod) who lost an arm fighting for the Union, and Rod’s wife Jeannie. Hayes’ main antagonist is Clay Putnam, a wealthy man who married Hayes’ former girl and is financing a team of thugs harassing the stagecoaches. We clearly know the good guys and the bad, so it’s just a matter of killing all the bad before the end of the film. Not terrible, but it falls into the trap that gives so many of these old westerns a bad name, namely that plots and tropes are recycled ad nauseam until you can predict the outcome of every scene as it starts. ★★

I think by the time this team made their last film, Comanche Station, they were out of fresh ideas. It borrows heavily from just about all of the above films. Jefferson Cody rescues a damsel-in-distress (Mrs Lowe) after she’s been kidnapped by comanches. Turns out there’s a hefty reward from her husband for her return. On the way back, Jefferson and Mrs Lowe come upon a couple outlaws who have a history with Jefferson, and they know about the reward too. They’d love to find a way to get Jefferson out of the picture, but need his gun as they traverse the dangerous Indian territory. And this time, the bad guys are even more diabolical: Lowe’s husband’s reward is for her return dead or alive. The outlaws are planning to kill Jefferson and the lady as soon as they get through the area safely, so there are no witnesses to their own crime. A deliciously tense film, and while the ideas aren’t new, it is presented well and is gripping to the end. ★★★

I didn’t rush to see Leave the World Behind at first, seemed a bit gimmicky for some reason, even though I do love myself a good apocalyptic film. Glad I finally put it on the screen, as I loved it! Written and directed by Sam Ismail (of Mr Robot fame), it gives off an M Night Shyamalan vibe, only, you know, good. In the film, husband and wife Clay and Amanda (Ethan Hawke and Julia Roberts) take their kids to a beautiful remote house for a weekend vacation. The first day goes fine, but that night, a knock on the door brings in George (Mahershala Ali) and his daughter, who claim to be the home’s owners and who rented the place to Clay and Amanda. George is saying the city had a power outage, so rather than try to make it to their New York apartment, they drove out to their country home, hoping to stay safe. Something seems off about him, and Amanda doesn’t trust him from the start. However, his story checks out once other weird stuff starts happening: they lose all phone and TV signals, and when George treks a couple miles over to a neighbor’s house, he finds it empty and ransacked. Once planes start falling from the sky and animals begin behaving weirdly, everyone knows that something serious is going down, even if we don’t know what that something is. Great film, with lots of tension in all the right spots, even if the weird camera movements/angles started to wear on me after awhile. The ending may be a bit too abrupt for some, but I had no problem with it. ★★★★

If the above film is great, Society of the Snow is perfection. Based on a true story, the movie tells the tale of the crash of an airplane in the Andes mountains in 1972, carrying 45 people. Many died in the crash and ensuing time afterwards, from injuries, avalanches, or cold, but 18 survived for over 2 months through the harsh mountain winter. There’s not much to say about the plot, it’s pretty simple, but it’s a film about the human will to survive, through unimaginable pain and suffering, with only your mental fortitude and the strength of your friends to get you through. The director’s capture of the picturesque scenery juxtaposed with the impossibility of the young people’s lives is magnificent. This event happened long before I was born and I stayed away from spoilers enough to not know if they survived or not, so maybe that made the struggle on screen even better for me. It’s a hard movie to watch, not only because the survivors had to resort to cannibalism when all other options were gone, but it’s well worth it for the power of its message. ★★★★★

The Passengers of the Night is the sort of authentic-feeling movie that you really have to be in the right mood for. Light on plot but heavy on character development and emotion, it begins in France in the year 1981, when the country has just elected a new president and there is joy in the streets at the coming change. Everyone is happy except a runaway teen named Talulah, who is at the train station picking a destination at random. After this short intro, the movie fast forwards to 1984 and we meet the other characters: recently divorced Elisabeth and her teen kids, Judith and Matthias. Newly single, Elisabeth is having to go back to work after a decade-plus of raising the kids, and her lack of skills bounces her from place to place. When she finally finds a permanent vocation, it is as a phone operator at a popular late night radio show. That’s where we catch up with Talulah, who has called in a few times and is now coming in to do a segment in person. She’s been homeless these last few years (it is hinted but never explicitly said why she left home), and Elisabeth immediately takes a shine to her. She takes Talulah home and gives her a spare room. Talulah grows close to the family and especially to impressionable 16-year-old Matthias, but when they have a sexual encounter one night, Talulah is spooked and runs away again. The film’s final act is 4 years later on, as the country prepares for another election (7 year terms at the time), and we see where the family is, as once again, Talulah’s path crosses with theirs. In the end, you don’t learn what happens to everyone; in fact, you don’t really learn what happens to anyone. It’s snapshots, moments in time, the kinds of moments that stick in our memory and can recall decades later. And while Elisabeth is the “main” character, we care equally for the kids and Talulah. We feel their joys and hurts. Very natural feeling and completely absorbing. ★★★★½

I’m not a big fan of documentaries, but Lynch/Oz combines David Lynch with The Wizard of Oz. What more could you want? The movie is interesting enough, but even for a big Lynch fan like myself, I found it very repetitive. This is mostly because it is broken up into half a dozen or so segments, each narrated by a different filmmaker, and they sometimes touch on the same subjects. It is advertised as a film about how The Wizard of Oz inspired, and continues to inspire, the films of David Lynch, but to fill out the movie, it finds a plethora of other films that were inspired by Oz as well. Really didn’t learn much, though it was interesting to see correlations between different films and whatnot. The narrators/presenters vary from dry to entertaining, but the best overall was director John Waters (who is always entertaining). People who are into docs may enjoy it more overall, but for me, ★★½

Killers of the Flower Moon is the latest Martin Scorsese epic, based on the book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. In the early 20th century, oil is found on an Oklahoma reservation owned by the Osage people. They are immediately wealthy, even though the government does everything it can to make it difficult for them to access their own funds. They need court-appointed guardians, white people only, to manage their money, because the indigenous people are considered “incompetent” no matter how intelligent they are. Enter into the scene William Hale, known as King Hale for his vast cattle lands. He is a rancher and claims to be a helper for the locals, as “it is their oil after all,” but he has hatched a plan to get his hands on that money the only way he sees how. His nephew Ernest has recently returned home from World War I and quickly marries an Osage woman named Molly, whose family owns oil headrights. No sooner is the ink dry on the marriage certificate that Molly’s family starts dying off, her sisters and mother coming to grisly ends. This has been going on for awhile, with oil headrights owners turning up dead for the last few years, and their rights passing on to their white guardians. Molly and Ernest love each other, so Molly doesn’t suspect a thing, even when we see Ernest engaged in terrible acts himself. The Osage Nation is pleading for anyone to help, but so far, the government has turned a blind eye. It isn’t until Mollly makes a trip to DC to talk to President Coolidge that they (the government) sends investigators to Oklahoma to see what is going on. This is a long movie, 3 1/2 hours, and fully the first 2+ hours are mostly exposition, dialogue, and setting up the action. Once the feds show up, stuff starts going down, but it is nearly too little too late. Readers of my blog know I like a good long movie, but I like them when they are long for a reason. This one just seems long to give the impression of an epic, when in reality, it could have been trimmed down quite a bit and felt more tidy. Brilliant acting from stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and especially Lily Gladstone, who recently won a Golden Globe portraying Mollie and should be on the short list to win more awards this season, but overall, it’s not one of Scorsese’s finest. ★★★

• TV series recently watched: Mr Robot (season 1), Echo (series), Batman: The Animated Series (season 1)
• Book currently reading: Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

Frybread Face and Me is a wonderful little indie film about a boy learning where he came from. Benny is 11 or 12, living in San Diego with his parents, when they announce that he’s going to spend the summer in Arizona with his grandmother. Grandma lives on a Navajo reservation and has refused to learn “the white man language,” so she and Benny can’t even communicate with each other, but thankfully there are a couple translators. Benny’s uncle Marvin still lives there, but he looks for ways to belittle Benny as he thinks Benny is soft. Benny’s one friend is his cousin Dawn, who everyone calls Frybread Face. She too jokes at Benny’s expense at first, since he knows no Navajo customs at all, but the two begin to bond over the ensuing weeks. Dawn is there because her dad’s in prison and her mom is uninvolved, and, as Benny eventually learns, he himself is there because his parents are getting a divorce in San Diego. It’s a sweet film about learning your roots, but also the passing of a way of life, as Grandma is the only one he still clings to the old ways. She drops subtle and not-so-subtle hints that she wishes some family would continue their way of life, but everyone has already moved on. Funny and endearing, it’s a very cute film. ★★★½

Under the Fig Trees is a quiet, unassuming film out of Tunisia, and sometimes it is films like this that come out better than they have any right to be. That is the case with this delightful film. All it is is a day in the life of the workers at a fig farm. Most are younger, and we see their relationships with each other, as well as the older (more staid) women who do the counting, and the bosses who lord over it all. There’s friendships, rivalries, love (and lost love), and all of the dynamics of a people bonded by work, but at odds with each other over other trappings of life. There’s not much of a plot other than the normal things you run into in your daily life, but it is enchanting. As the film was ending after just 90 minutes, I wanted more. Much better that than the other way! ★★★★

I’ll admit, as the The Holdovers was getting going, I didn’t think much of it. Taking place as 1970 is winding down, it follows a curmudgeonly ancient-history teacher at an all-boys boarding school outside of Boston. Everyone is getting ready to go home for the Christmas holiday, but there’s always a few boys stuck at school, and it is up to this old professor, Paul, to watch them this time. Paul is the least-liked teacher at school (what student would when he gives homework over the holiday and promises a test when they come back?), so not one of the students are exactly thrilled. Most are saved when one of the boys’ fathers picks them up (in a helicopter no less) to take to a ski resort for the rest of the break. That leaves just Paul and student Angus, whose mother is off honeymooning with her new husband and couldn’t be reached to give permission to leave. Angus is a bright kid, but he’s at risk of flunking out, and knows that his mom will send him to military school if he does, even though the country is currently fighting in Vietnam, all-but assuring Angus of ending up in battle upon graduation. Paul starts to see something of himself in Angus; a boy who goes to a well-to-do high school, with problems at home that may prevent him from reaching his full potential. Over the remaining break, the two bond, and (hopefully) come to terms with a lot of the emotions they have pent up. Seemed hokey in the beginning, but only because the film has a bit of a throwback kind of feel. It definitely grows on you, until you really care for these characters by the end. ★★★★½

Not exactly sure what to think of Maestro. A tale about the life of American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, it stars Bradley Cooper in the title role (who also directed), with Carey Mulligan costarring as Bernstein’s wife Felicia. The producer’s credits feature heavy hitters too, including Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. I don’t know, but with a group like that, I think I was expecting to be blown away. It’s good, but certainly not earth shattering. It follows Bernstein’s career rise and covers pivotal moments in his personal life. When he’s a young nobody in New York just making his way, he’s in a gay relationship, but knows that that lifestyle won’t fly once he starts getting a name for himself (in the 1940’s). So he “settles down” and marries Felicia and has a few kids. She is pretty wise to his closeted life early on, but (at least appears to) doesn’t care, as long as Lenny is discrete. As the decades go by, discrete is something he isn’t always, leading to fights at home, but when Felicia comes down with cancer, Lenny does drop everything to be at her side. The film has some nice moments and the acting by the two stars is fantastic, but I still felt that, at the end of the movie, I didn’t know Bernstein any more than I did at the beginning. Doesn’t seem like I got into who he really was or what made him tick, or what mattered to him most. And honestly, I’m getting a little tired of moviemakers who feel like they can put a film in black and white with a 4:3 aspect ratio and all of a sudden it is “artsy.” Decent, not spectacular. ★★★

Story Ave follows a teen named Kadir (Asante Blackk) who is dealing with the recent death of his younger brother. Kadir’s mother has understandably lost her footing, leaving Kadir to fend for himself. With no guidance, he falls in with a graffiti gang calling themselves Outside the Lines. Kadir, a budding young artist, is in it for the art, but he doesn’t realize that the gang will violently defend their turf, and it isn’t long before Kadir is in over his head. As luck would have it, the first person Kadir tries to steal from, as part of his initiation, is a man named Luis (Luis Guzmán). Luis doesn’t take Kadir at face value, that of a thug who is too far past saving, but instead sees the lost boy Kadir is. Luis takes him under his wing, opening his eyes to a life that isn’t yet worth giving up on. I wasn’t moved much by Blackk’s performance, thought it was a bit wooden, but the seasoned pro Guzmán drives this film and delivers as he always does. The film does a good job of, as Luis does with Kadir, turning the viewer’s thoughts on him from a hopeless wannabe gangster to a young man worth saving. ★★★½

• TV series recently watched: For All Mankind (season 3)
• Book currently reading: Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

A new David Fincher film starring Michael Fassbender? Sign me up! This is an absolutely incredible movie about a professional assassin (we never hear his name) on a job in Paris. There’s no major dialogue for awhile, other than The Killer’s thoughts, which we are privy to. This guy is very good at his job, telling us that he can’t claim a 100% success rate because one target died of a heart attack before he could be killed. The build-up to this newest target is fantastic, full of tension and a real look inside the mind of our anti-hero. However, the job goes awry when someone steps in front of the target just as The Killer takes the shot. He goes on the run, returning to his home in the Dominican Republic, but there are ramifications for not being successful at this level. He gets home to find his girlfriend has already been attacked and tortured; she has survived, but only through luck, and is in rough shape. Now The Killer is on a mission to hunt those who hired him, and who tried to clean up his mess. There’s some middling reviews online about this movie from fans expecting more of an action thriller, but that’s not what this movie is supposed to be (though there is one really incredible fight scene in the second half). The movie all about the psyche of a killer, his routines and mindset, and what happens when he deviates from that to protect the person he loves. I was enraptured from the very opening scenes, the total quiet that The Killer works in, with nothing but his thoughts. By the end, I was repeating the mantra that he regularly says to keep himself focused. Amazing film. ★★★★½

Nyad, on the other hand, lacks any kind of excitement or emotion, despite being a based-on-a-true-story film about an inspirational person. Diana Nyad was a world famous marathon swimmer in the 70s, swimming around Manhattan and from the Bahamas to Florida, but her goal of swimming from Cuba to the USA always eluded her. In 2010 and now in her 60s, she gets the urge to try it again. In the film she makes several attempts at doing so, until finally accomplishing the task in 2013. The swims themselves are fairly exciting, but what kills this movie is the absolutely awful, robotic dialogue, which never once sounds natural. Even a subplot regarding Diana overcoming childhood drama failed to move me. And don’t blame the actors (Annette Penning as Diana and Jodie Foster as her friend and coach Bonnie). All I can point the finger at is the directors and screenwriter, who don’t seem up to the task. I’m not always a fan of biopics as they can often be very dry, and this is one of those. I did stick it out to the end of the film, only because I wasn’t familiar enough the Diana’s story to know how it ended, but if I had, I probably would not have made it all the way through. ★

Every now and then a movie comes along with an absolutely standout performance by an actor, even when the movie itself doesn’t come together right. That’s the case for Reptile, a police procedural thriller starring Benicio del Toro. He plays a detective named Tom, who is assigned to a case where a woman was murdered in an empty house she was selling. The police have a couple minor leads but nothing great, so everyone is a suspect at first. There’s the woman’s husband Will (Justin Timberlake), her estranged husband Sam, and a stalker named Eli. The more Tom digs, the more questions come up. The movie starts great, with intense music that really adds to the intense feeling, but after awhile, I started to feel like the film was just spinnings its wheels. It really got to a point where the story was more convoluted that it needed to be, with the plot throwing everything against the wall to see what stuck. There’s even a couple amateurish “gotcha” moments. The one glue holding it all together though is del Toro, who is as good as he’s ever been. If anyone should get Oscar buzz despite not being in a very good movie, this is it. My rating is based on the movie itself, but I highly recommend seeing it just his performance alone, you won’t find better. ★★★

Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire is a film as unwieldy as its name. It’s no surprise that the idea for this movie began as a pitch from director Zack Snyder to Lucasfilm, as it looks very much like how Snyder would do Star Wars, and borrows heavily from it. The film begins on a remote planet at a peaceful farming village, where a woman, Kora, came 2 years ago as a refugee and has found a home. She was fleeing something, but what, we do not exactly know. Her peace comes to and when the Imperium, the war mongering rulers of the galaxy, come seeking information on rebels in the area, and threaten the village harm if they do not supply food to the soldiers. With a promise to back for grain soon, they leave a small contingent and depart. Kora will not watch the Imperium destroy her new friends and family, so she kills the soldiers and sets out to find like-minded people to help her protect the village, in a Seven Samurai/Magnificent Seven style. Her path takes her around the galaxy, recruiting a handful of powerful people who have a grudge against the Imperium, setting up a big battle in the end. The movie has style, but unfortunately that’s about all it has, and too often, Zack Snyder is doing his Zack Snyder-y thing with the constant slow motion action scenes. It grows old quick. The movie is lifeless, with a boring plot, which is exactly what you don’t want in a movie about revolution. Snyder has grand plans to produce an entire Star Wars-like franchise out of this, but he better produce a better sequel or it will be the shortest franchise in the history of film. A couple stars because it is pretty, but really not worth your time. ★★

May December is one of those films with a very uncomfortable subject, so while it will creep you out more times than you’d care for, it does feature outstanding performances by its 3 mains. From acclaimed director Todd Haynes, May December follows an actress named Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) who is in Savannah to interview the real-life person she’ll be portraying in her next movie. The subject of the film is the story of Gracie (Julianne Moore), who, 24 years ago, was arrested and sent to prison for seducing and marrying a 13-year-old boy. The boy, Joe (Charles Melton), married Gracie once he was old enough, and they went on to have kids and a life together. It very much looks like Elizabeth is a method actor, as she is basically becoming Gracie as the film progresses. She interviews everyone around town: Gracie’s ex-husband, her estranged kids from her first husband, her lawyer; basically anyone who has a Gracie story to tell. And Elizabeth gets conflicting views: Gracie is either an emotionally abusive power-hungry narcissist or a lonely, sad, victim of abuse herself. The film is a little on-the-nose sometimes, but the characters drive the story, and each is fantastic. Elizabeth will do anything to “become” Gracie, Joe is a man who never emotionally grew past that of a 13 year old and truly had his, not only childhood, but whole life stolen from him, and then there’s Gracie. Who is either the most vile or the most complicated person in the movie. If the plot sounds familiar, it is loosely based on a true story from the early 90s. ★★★★

Though I’m not a country music fan, I’ve always respected Dolly Parton as a person and artist, so I thought I’d start with her breakout film role, 9 to 5. She joined established actresses Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin as a trio of working women in the 1980’s male dominated business world. They work at a company as secretaries, where they must deal with their chauvinist boss Frank Hart, who doesn’t seem to do any actual work of his own, living off the ideas of Violet (Tomlin) while chasing skirt, his personal secretary Doralee (Parton). Judy (Fonda) is the new girl learning the ropes, but quickly sees the imbalance of power. United, the trio set out to right some wrongs. The movie points out some glaring problems in the work environment, but unfortunately anytime it delves deeply into a glaringly sexist issue, a minute later it turns to comedy (and often, silly comedy at that) which takes the bite out of its social commentary. I think this was done on purpose; supposedly the film was originally a drama but was thought to be too feminist (probably by a man in upper management) and it was rewritten as a comedy instead. I would have liked to see the original version. As it sits, it has great moments but as a whole is very uneven. Still, Parton stars and the film is worth seeing for her energy alone. ★★½

I probably don’t need to say much about Young Guns; outside of myself, I bet most film watchers have seen it. Somehow I missed it though. Released in 1988, it seems like nothing more than a way to take some of the men of the Brat Pack-ers and make a western with them. Loosely based on the Regulators, the posse that made Billy the Kid famous, the movie tells their tale from how they came together up through Battle of Lincoln, basically major events of the Lincoln County War. It stars Emilio Estevez, brother Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, and a host of others (including established old-timers like Terence Stamp and Jack Palance). In the movie, rancher John Tunstall has a soft spot for young men who society has given up on, and he teaches them how to work hard but also how to read. Tunstall has rung afoul of another rancher though, Lawrence Murphy, who has Tunstall killed. Tunstall’s boys vow revenge, and set out to bring the killers and Murphy to justice, old west style. The movie is ok, nothing spectacular, and unfortunately has an 80s soundtrack that is distracting and takes you out of a real western feel. While the actors are, for the most part, no more than pretty faces, there’s enough there to keep you watching to see how it all ends. The movie was meant to be a one-and-done, and gives a narration at the end to tell you how all the characters lived out their days, but did well enough that a sequel was made a couple years later. ★★★

While director Francis Ford Coppola was adapting SE Hinton’s The Outsiders to film, he was also putting together another, lesser known Hinton film adaptation. Coppola would meat with Hinton on Sundays (when The Outsiders wasn’t filming) to work on Rumble Fish, and would ultimately film it back-to-back once The Outsiders was completed, with some of the same cast and most of the same crew. However, it is a much different movie. Called “an art film for teenagers,” Rumble Fish follows teenager Rusty James. Rusty James is a tough guy in the neighborhood, always getting in fights and always in trouble in school. His girlfriend Patty wishes he would stop fighting, but where Rusty James comes from, that’s all he knows. His father is an alcoholic, and his mother is rumored to have gone insane, having abandoned the family long ago. Rusty James idolizes his brother (never named, and called only The Motorcycle Boy), who may be following their mother’s footsteps, as far as sanity goes. Nothing is good enough for Rusty James’ brother; he carries himself always in a cool, calm, and collected way, above the minutia going on around him. The Motorcycle Boy left the family himself for a time, traveling to California and supposedly running into their mother, but is back now, stirring up trouble through no fault of his own. After all, people like to tear down those that are better than them, and everyone sees it. As much as Rusty James worships his brother though, he himself may be more like this father than his mother. Outstanding, thought-provoking film, with elements of noir and coming-of-age, with an amazing cast of future stars as teens, including Matt Dillon, Mickey Rourke, Diane Lane, Nicolas Cage, Chris Penn, and Lawrence Fishburne, as well as some established actors like Dennis Hopper and even a small role for Tom Waits. ★★★★

I stumbled upon Border Radio and thought it sounded kind of early Jim Jarmusch-y, so thought I’d give it a whirl. After watching it and prepping to write this, I read some reviews, and apparently it’s not very well liked, but I didn’t think it was terrible. Not great, but not terrible. The movie takes place in LA and is portrayed as a quasi-documentary at times, with the story revolving around a local musician (Jeff) who has stolen something from a club owner and is now on the run. We don’t learn what he has taken until later in the movie, but it was important enough that the club sent some goons over to try to rough him up and get the item back. Unfortunately for them, Jeff hit out of town quickly, and went to Mexico, leaving his wife and kid behind. The wife doesn’t know what is going on, so she starts asking around town to unravel the mystery, while also taking the opportunity of Jeff’s absence to sleep with his friend. As the movie winds down, the mystery is solved (and it is a pretty weak mystery after all that), and the film shifts to a tale about the demise of the punk rock scene in LA, as bands are signing record contracts and leaving the city to go tour. Filmed on a super-low budget using actual local musicians as the actors, the movie gives off a Clerks-like vibe (years before Clerks), but with even worse acting and less entertainment. However, I did like the feeling of a bunch of friends just getting together to film a movie, and the soundtrack, put together by local rock bands at the time, is fantastic. Not sure I’d watch it again, but it isn’t as awful as you may read online. ★★½

I’m cheating a bit on The Bodyguard; not 80s obviously, being released in 1992, but with leads who became stars in the 80s. And I’d never seen it, and it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want to. Should have left this one off the list, as it certainly feels like pure 80s cheese. Kevin Costner plays a former secret serviceman named Frank Farmer, who never forgave himself for not being there the day Reagan was shot. He now hires himself out as a personal bodyguard, but usually stays away from celebrities because they are high maintenance and not worth the hassle. He is begged to take the job to protect superstar actress and singer Rachel Marron (Whitney Houston in her film debut) by her manager, after Rachel has received death threats. Unbeknownst to Rachel, someone snuck into her house one day, left a note, and masterbated in a guest room; her handlers haven’t told her in order to not scare her. Not knowing how serious it is, Rachel pushes back against hiring Frank, but eventually acquiesces. As Frank makes the home more secure and implements rules that Rachel and her hangers-on must follow, the two of them begin to grow closer, even as Frank knows that getting into a relationship with her will distract him and hurt his ability to keep her safe. Despite a solid performance by Houston and that big song that was a staple of 90s radio (you know which one), the movie just isn’t very good. Wild twists and turns that could only come from an 80s movie, with flimsy plot points that don’t hold up under scrutiny. If you’ve managed to avoid this movie to this point, don’t bother rectifying that. ★½

• TV series recently watched: Mayor of Kingstown (season 1), Slow Horses (season 3), What If…? (season 2)
• Book currently reading: Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan

Depending on your generation, you’ve either read the original book by Roald Dahl, seen the first film with Gene Wilder, or the later version with Johnny Depp (or all 3!). Rather than retelling the same story again, Wonka is an original film telling Willie Wonka’s origin story: how he came to be the king of chocolate that we all know.

In the beginning of the movie, Wonka (Timothée Chalamet) is returning to Europe after traveling the world gathering ingredients to be the best chocolate maker ever. However, he is met with immediate resistance from the 3 big chocolate companies in the region, who get the police on their side to harass Wonka at every turn. To make matters worse, Wonka finds himself indentured to a shady boarding house owner, who forces him to clean laundry in the basement. Thankfully Wonka makes a friend there, Noodle, who sees the passion he has for his chocolate and agrees to help him achieve his goals. But the chocolate lords will not make it easy.

The film has fun, catchy tunes (it is indeed a musical), and Chalamet is charming as the titular character, but it is the magic that he spins that makes this film so wonderful. I was mesmerized, transported back to my childhood, and it is easy to feel like a kid again watching this movie. Highly recommended for the young and young-at-heart. ★★★★½