The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry is a cute little film about a man on a mission. Harold is an older man living with his wife Maureen in England when he hears news that an old friend, Queenie, is dying from cancer. He pens a rather lame letter to her, obviously at a loss for words, but can’t bring himself to mail it. He walks past the local mailbox to a bigger center, but can’t drop it there either. He walks to the nearest post office, but still can’t drop it in the receptacle. Seemingly on a whim, he starts walking to Queenie, who is in hospice 450 miles away. He doesn’t even call his wife until he is on the road, and she does not take it well. It is implied that Queenie may have been an old romance or perhaps even an affair at some point, but the truth isn’t revealed until near the end of the film. Along Harold’s way, his story spreads online from people he passes, and he becomes a local celebrity. People start walking with him, until eventually he has a whole crowd making the trek, but as is the case when movements get too big, the journey itself begins to overtake Harold’s original goal, to the point that he eventually has to sneak away in the night to continue on his own. When he finally gets to Queenie, all is revealed and we learn a lot about Harold, resolving mysterious flashbacks he was having along the way about his estranged son David. Jim Broadbent has a room full of awards from his decades in acting, but he’s pretty sedate in this one, perhaps to make Harold seem so unassuming, but it’s hard to connect with him as such. Some cute moments but I felt the big reveal wasn’t enough to bring it all together. ★★★

I’m a sucker for movies like Hard Miles. Even though I know how it is going to play out, and I recognize every trope as they are coming, I can’t help but become a blubbering mess by the end. Inspired by a true story (which is different than based-on, if you want to cut hairs), it follows a teacher named Greg Townsend who works at a juvenile facility, working with last-chance teens. Greg can relate to what many of them have gone through in their lives, because he too was bullied and emotionally/physically abused by his father growing up, and his own brother is in jail too. To let out his inner anguish, Greg took up cycling a long time ago, and is looking forward to a 700+ mile ride during his upcoming vacation, a ride that ends at the Grand Canyon. In his training, he gets the idea to make a cycling team out of some of the kids at the facility, as a team building exercise, but also to hopefully open their eyes to a wider world out there if they can just escape the gangs and bad influences in their lives. One kid in particular, Woolbright, seems hellbent on becoming a lifer, though he is definitely at the end of his last rope: any more infractions and he is going to adult jail. After fighting the powers-at-be, Greg is finally given permission to take 4 boys, and while they have no competitive cycling experience, he turns them into a team who work together to cross the long miles. Along the way, Greg is fighting his own demons, as his father is dying and has asked to see him, something Greg is unable or unwilling to do. Everything you’ve ever seen in movies like this is on display, so you can either roll your eyes or buy in, and I bought in. I was cheering them the whole way and hoped each young man would make the right decision when faced with a possibly life-altering choice. Probably not a great movie, but a great movie for me. ★★★★

After loving Evil Does Not Exist recently, I chased down another film from the director, 2018’s Asako I & II. Gotta say, very underwhelmed. The film begins following a pretty young woman named Asako, who is strolling the streets of Osaka and meets a young man named Baku, and the two seem to fall in love-at-first-sight. They go from 0 to 10 overnight, despite Asako’s friends warning her to slow down, because Baku has a reputation for loving-and-leaving. Asako isn’t having it, as she’s got it bad. One evening, after Asako has stayed the night, Baku goes out to buy some bread and never returns. His buddy says that is par for the course, that Baku will disappear for hours or days or weeks at a time, but he always comes back. Two years later, Asako is working at a coffee shop in Tokyo when she sees a professional businessman who is Baku’s doppelgänger (the two are played by the same actor). The man, Ryohei, is confused about this woman who keeps staring at him and calling him Baku, but he likes her and tries to get with her. At first, Asako keeps Ryohei at arm’s length, trepidatious about her confused feelings since he and Baku look so much alike. Eventually she gives in, and 5 years later, the two are living together and are very happy, talking about marriage and kids. But things go crazy when Asako sees an ad one day, and there’s Baku, now a famous model who’s just gotten his first acting gigs too. Asako was able to bury those old feelings when she could pretend Baku didn’t exist anymore, but that is no longer the case. There’s some good moments here, the movie isn’t awful, but the end really fizzles and the characters are all one-dimensional, and each of them has tunnel vision. Maybe I’ll try another one from director Hamaguchi next time. ★★½

What You Wish For is a very good low budget thriller/horror film, and a notch above your standard hack-and-slash flick that is often seen in this category. Ryan is a very good chef but he has a habit of racking up gambling debts, so he has fled to Latin America to avoid those to whom he owes money. He’s there ostensibly to visit his friend Jack, a buddy from culinary school. Jack isn’t as talented as Ryan, but his career has gone a lot better. He currently caters to a very rich crowd, who fly him around the world to prepare high class meals. Ryan and Jack hang out for a day or two while Jack awaits his newest clientele, but one morning Ryan wakes to find Jack has hung and killed himself. Poking around Jack’s stuff, Ryan sees he is worth a lot of money, and devises a way to finally pay off his creditors. No rest for the weary, as the next day, “the agency”’s representatives show up to help “Jack” put together the upcoming meal. Ryan impersonates him, but as it turns out, the diners have a very macabre palate, the whole reason Jack was paid so well for his skills and why he had so much self-loathing in the end. Now Ryan needs to provide a stomach-churning meal, as police detectives sniff around the place and one of Jack’s friends (and possible early targets) shows up for a visit. It’s some great, grisly fun, with some surprisingly strong performances from the cast here and there. ★★★½

I don’t often go back to older films in my blog, but was recommended Excalibur by a buddy, who couldn’t believe I’d never seen it. I do love a good adventure and fantasy film, so armed with a warning that the film may look dated, I went in. I was pleasantly surprised. The film follows the entire Arthurian legend. There’s Uther Pendragon, Excalibur and the Lady in the Lake, Merlin, Lancelot and Guinevere, Morgana and Mordred, and Perceval and the Holy Grail. The whole kit-and-caboodle. Honestly, it’s a lot to cram in 2 hours, and it definitely feels rushed. The plot speeds along at a breakneck pace, with no time at all allowed for character development. And since the knights are all wearing full armor (including visors) sometimes I got lost as to who was who. The acting leaves a lot to be desired, especially Merlin, though actor Nicol Williamson was, by all accounts, very well thought of on the stage. At times the film seems to be a bunch of people play-acting and hamming it up, but maybe I can chalk that up to the times. Having said all that, the movie is better than it has any right to be. I very much enjoyed it, and though I knew most of the legend, it was nice seeing it told from start to finish in an engaging way, and honestly, despite coming out the year after I was born, the special effects are respectable. I had a good time! ★★★½

• TV series recently watched: Evil (season 4)
• Book currently reading: The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan

Every now and then I am completely blown away by a film and don’t understand why more people aren’t talking about it. That’s the case with Daddio, a 2-person drama starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn (who proves he still has it after all these years). Nearly the entirety of the film takes place in a car, sort of like Locke (must-see for Tom Hardy’s performance); this one has less tension but just as much emotion. Johnson plays Girlie, a woman arriving home to JFK airport after a trip to Oklahoma, and fate puts her in a cab driven by an unnamed man played by Penn. Their long drive across the city, hampered by traffic as night descends, becomes a look at humanity and what makes people tick. The driver is your stereotypical cabbie, he’s been around the block in more than just his car, and has insight into what people want. Over the course of 90-ish minutes, he and Girlie have conversations about what drives men and women, which at surface value seems a bit dated, but it still makes a whole lot of sense. For awhile, Girlie is getting explicit texts from a man whom she seems annoyed with, and the cab driver picks up that there’s tension there, and is able to get her to open up about what is going on in her life, including by the end, what took her to Oklahoma and back. It’s not a one-way street though, as Girlie gets a peek into her driver’s personal life. The director (Christy Hall in her directorial debut, though she was also a screenwriter on It Ends With Us) knows whats up and lets her star actors act. There’s nowhere to hide in a cab and no were to hide with a camera in your face, so we see the subtlety of our actors and, especially with Penn, are reminded just how brilliant they are. You will be moved, disgusted, and, hopefully by the end, understanding of this crazy experience we call life, and the connection a human can make with another human if you just try, and are willing to be vulnerable and open up. ★★★★★

Ok Mom, here’s one for you and Dad to enjoy. Thelma is a 93-year-old woman whose husband died 2 years ago, leaving her alone for the first time since they got married when she was 23. She’s alone but not lonely, as she has a caring daughter and son-in-law and a very loving adult grandson who drives her wherever she wants to go and will sit and have meals and conversations with her all the time. One day, Thelma falls victim to a phone scam that swindles her out of $10k. Her family is upset but have no idea what to do about it, but Thelma, inspired by having recently watched Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, wants to get to the bottom of the scam and get her money back. She’s not going to be jumping buildings or dodging bullets like Cruise, but she has her own challenges commensurate to her age: battling hearing aids, scooters, staircases, and thinking she knows every old person she comes across (“Where do I know you from? You look so familiar.”). There’s a lot of cute, funny moments which I think are targeted just a bit above my age bracket; I’m middle-aged, still aways off to old age, and while I chuckled here and there, I think the older crowd would probably bust a gut. There’s also some poignant moments, like when Thelma and her friend visit someone they haven’t seen in years, only to find her sitting in a big empty house all by herself, surrounded by roaches and fuzzy memories, a dark reminder of what could await people if they outlive all their friends and family. It’s a decent enough film, a little hokey at times, but enjoyable. ★★★

He doesn’t receive much recognition, but C Thomas Howell (Red Dawn is my personal favorite, but let’s not forget The Hitcher and The Outsiders) has been doing this a long time, and his latest is Ride, a western-ish film about a family facing hardship. John is a former rodeo star, and he and his wife Monica (sheriff in their little town) are trying to stay afloat amongst rising medical bills for their 12-year-old daughter Victoria’s cancer treatments. The local hospital can no longer provide the top-notch care that she needs, so they recommend a fantastic clinic. The only problem is that place charges $40k just to get in the door, and there’s no way John and Monica can afford that. While this is going on, their oldest son Peter is getting out of jail, where he’s been for four years after his reckless driving caused the death of his girlfriend at the time. His family never visited him in jail, partially over resentment because a younger Victoria was also in the car that day. Thankfully she was ok, and in fact it was the check-up afterwards in the hospital that found her tumors. But in any case, Peter is getting out, and his first stop afterwards is a drug dealer. With no money, Peter promises to pay with future earnings from the rodeo, and wouldn’t you know it, he wins on his first time out. Having learned of his sister’s predicament though, Peter gives the money to his dad, landing him in serious trouble with the dealer. Afterwards, when John confesses just how much money they need, Peter knows exactly who to rob to get that kind of cash. With John at the end of his rope, he reluctantly agrees to help, but will Monica be able to look the other way, or worse, aid in the coverup, once evidence points to her son? The movie is awfully predictable and has just about every movie trope under the sun, but it isn’t terrible, just very unremarkable. Neowestern film lovers will probably find plenty to enjoy. ★★½

His Three Daughters has been called a “showcase” for its three co-lead actresses, and it is certainly that, making it must-see if you just want to see superb acting. Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, and Natasha Lyonne play Katie, Christina, and Rachel, who have gathered together in their father’s (Vincent’s) apartment as he has entered at-home hospice from cancer. These sisters all have issues of their own that have kept them from being close to each other, and some are harboring some severe baggage. Katie is the oldest, and she has typical oldest child syndrome, trying to run and micromanage everything in her life. She has been unable (or, more likely, unwilling) to face her father’s worsening condition, and despite living close by, hasn’t visited in months. Middle child Christina lives across the country and the other sisters always thought her life was so perfect with a husband and family, but she has issues. The youngest is Rachel, who had a different father after their mother remarried, but he died when she was 4 so Vincent has always been the only “father” she ever knew. In fact, for many years she has shared the apartment with Vincent, becoming his caregiver as he has deteriorated. She resents the other sisters for this, but as the youngest child and always feeling a bit left-out (mostly due to Katie’s needling), she has kept all that to herself. With Vincent in his last days though, the girls will have to face each other and look into themselves. Through all of the drama, Vincent’s imposing presence is felt all over the apartment, even though he is never seen, living out his final moments in his bedroom offscreen. It is a tour-de-force from each of the women, you won’t find much better. ★★★★½

Man oh man, movies like Evil Does Not Exist make me rethink my rating system. I loved a couple of the movies above, but this one is on a whole other level. It’s director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s followup to his massively successful Drive My Car a couple years ago, and it makes me want to look up some of his older stuff! In a sleepy mountain town, a small community is up in arms about a company wanting to come in and build a glamping site (glamorous camping for the older crowd out there 🙂 ). The residents voice legitimate concerns about how the company will handle human waste from visitors, since the businesses and townsfolk rely heavily on local spring water and wells as their primary water source. The company representatives, who are in town to present the plans for the site, are in over their heads and ill prepared to answer the tough questions. They are willing to learn though, and spend some time with one resident in particular, Takumi. Takumi lives in a cabin, with just his young daughter (the mom has died). He enjoys cutting firewood, gathering spring water for a local restaurant, and the quiet life. The two glamping site reps spend a day with him and see just how nice this community is. The end will surprise and baffle you if you aren’t paying attention (hint: pay attention to all the seemingly minor dialogue about the local deer throughout the film), but it is a rewarding film if you are picking up on the clues along the way. A movie I could easily watch again and again, and probably find more to enjoy each time. Beautiful camerawork throughout and a quietly intense movie from start to finish. ★★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Star Trek Next Generation (season 2), Voltron Legendary Defender (season 2), Batman Beyond (season 3)
• Book currently reading: The Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan

I’ve been doing this blog so long that even when a sequel takes nearly a decade to come out, I have the original back in the bowels. Inside Out was an instant classic, so it’s no surprise Disney returned to it at some point. Set two years later, the sequel picks up on 13-year-old Riley on the cusp of big changes in her life. Her 5 emotions (Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness, and Joy, who sort of runs things) have been cruising comfortably, as Riley’s life has been pretty good of late. But then the Puberty Alarm goes off, and things will never be the same. New emotions just show up one day, including Ennui, Embarrassment, Envy, and their ringleader, Anxiety, who will play an important role in teenager Riley’s life for a little while. Riley gets an invite to a hockey camp, run by the high school varsity coach. Riley jumps at the opportunity to make an impression. Inside, her emotions are a wreck. Anxiety is exerting more and more influence, harming Riley’s “sense of self,” hopefully not irreparably, while in the real world, Riley starts alienating her longtime friends in an effort to “be cool” to the older high school girls at the camp. Joy and the original emotions need to fight back before Anxiety takes it too far. It’s a very good movie, cute and funny and still feeling fresh with the new emotions, and it does a good job of portraying the crazy emotional roller coaster that is being a teenager. Great for kids and adults alike. ★★★★½

Rebel Ridge is a fantastic action film currently on Netflix, and it’s one that will make your blood boil in anger and frustration from the very beginning. Terry (Aaron Pierre with a tremendous performance) is biking through a little town when he is pulled over by a local cop. “Pulled over” is a bit understated, as his bike is rammed from behind, throwing Terry to the ground. Being black in a predominantly white area, Terry is cool, calm, and collected, and doesn’t escalate the situation. He is respectful and complies with all orders. Two cops search him, turning up over $30k in money, which obviously raises eyebrows, but Terry has a good excuse: he sold his car and his minor stake in a restaurant for the money to bail his cousin out of jail (there’s a very good reason for that mess too, which comes later). Rather than let him go his way, the cops seize the money and tell Terry to get out of town. Terry is not leaving without his cousin though, so he goes to the courthouse to explain his side, and when that goes nowhere, he goes to the police station to tell his side to the police chief. They railroad him at every step, threatening him until it seems the whole world is out to get Terry. Still, he doesn’t resort to violence until much later in the film, long past when any rational person would just lash out in resentment at the biased system. And Terry, being a marine who taught classes at the academy in hand-to-hand combat, certainly has the skills to take care of himself. When it’s good, it’s REALLY good. Like blood pressure-rising, heart quickening, edge-of-your-seat good. But it does bog down in some of the dialogue and mystery-unraveling sections, as to why the police are so headstrong to keep things off the books, killing some of the momentum at least a couple times throughout the film. Still, I think it is a highly rewatchable film for the action and excitement. ★★★★

Gotta admit, I didn’t run to see Young Woman and the Sea when it first hit Disney+. Despite great reviews, I wasn’t a fan of another based-on-a-true-story film about a swimmer (Nyad, which also got good reviews), so bad on me for lumping this one with that one. This film is fantastic. It stars Daisy Ridley as Trudy, who lives in New York with her Jewish-German immigrant family. The film begins in 1914, when little Trudy is on death’s door from the measles. She survives, but is left with diminished hearing, and the doctor tells her parents to keep her out of the water for fear of infection that could make it worse. Trudy isn’t having it, as she has fallen in love with swimming. 10 years later, she has become one of the premier women swimmers in the country, but her conservative father is planning her future and arranged marriage with little thought for what she wants. Trudy is able to get to Paris in the 2024 Olympics, but a poor trainer doesn’t have her ready and she fails to medal, derailing the entirety of the sport for women. Just when she is about to give up and marry whoever papa picks, she meets Bill Burgess, an Englishman who successfully swam across the English Channel. He motivates her to try the feat herself, but again, her trainer hampers her attempt. All seems lost, and Trudy returns to NY. Don’t despair, as she will get her chance to try again. I knew nothing about Trudy before the movie, and didn’t know what was going to happen. If it had been an indie film, I would have half expected Trudy to die there in the sea, but being Disney, I figured this one was going to have a happy ending. What I wasn’t ready for was how emotional it was going to be. Outstanding performance by Ridley in the lead, and it’s a great feel-good story that I could watch again and again. ★★★★★

LaRoy, Texas takes place in the fictional tiny eponymous town and follows a man named Ray. Ray is submissive and you can tell he’s never been particularly popular or good at anything in life; even when shown evidence that his wife is cheating on him, he just sort of shrugs and says, “ok.” But his life is about to get exciting. He buys a gun and pulls his car off the road, to commit suicide, but just before he does, a stranger pops into the passenger seat to his car. The stranger hands Ray an envelope of cash and says that he (Ray) must kill his target the next day; he’s obviously confused Ray with a contract killer he was supposed to meet right here, and Ray picked the wrong spot to park. Ray decides to do the job, hoping that the money will lure his wife to stay with him, and that decision will start a zany story involving blackmail, double-crossing, and lots and lots of death, because the real killer is around, and he wants his promised money. There’s some funny side stories, because in a little town like LaRoy, everyone knows everyone, so paths cross a whole lot in the first hour or so of the movie, but ultimately it tries to be too smart for its own good. By the time the third or fourth backstabbing hits, I was almost rolling my eyes. No big stars in this one, but lots of familiar faces, including John Magaro, Steven Zahn (and who doesn’t love Steve Zahn?!) and Dylan Baker as the killer. ★★½

IF looked like a very cute movie from its first trailers, and, for the most part, it delivers what you’d expect. 12-year-old Bea (Cailey Fleming, young Judith from The Walking Dead) is living with her grandmother in an old apartment in New York while her dad (John Krasinski, who also wrote and directed) is in the hospital. Grandma tries to show Bea old pictures and art she (Bea) did when she was young and would visit, but Bea isn’t having it, as “she’s too old for that kid stuff.” But apparently she’s not too old to see imaginary friends, as she soon learns. Turns out she’s one of very few who can see these characters, “IF’s” as they like to be called, first meeting a large furry creature named Blue and an old-timey Betty Boop-looking drawn girl named Blossom. The only other person that we know who can see them is an adult named Cal (Ryan Reynolds), who has been unsuccessfully trying to get these IF’s to new kids, as they’ve all been abandoned by their original kids once those children grew up. Bea decides to help out, so her and Cal set out to find new homes for all the IF’s in the area. It is indeed a cute little film, with plenty of color and childlike laughs for the kids, but some nostalgia for kids-at-heart who may fondly remember playing with nothing more than your imagination when young (is that even a thing for today’s generation?). Not a stellar movie, and the acting from the lead isn’t great (sorry Cailey fans), but not terrible and certainly a fun movie for family film night. ★★★

Kinds of Kindness is the latest from director Yorgos Lanthimos, one of my favorites. I’ve liked a lot of his films but his last couple didn’t hit it out of the park for my tastes. This newest film rights the course, even if it hasn’t been a homerun for others. It’s a strange film, that’s for sure. It’s a film of three sections, not really related except for one character (with initial R.M.F.); the other characters are portrayed by a group of actors who take on new roles in each section. In the first, “The Death of RMF,” Robert (Jesse Plemons) lives a life of servitude to his boss Raymond (Willem Dafoe). Raymond makes every choice in Robert’s life, from what time he wakes up and goes to bed, to what he eats, to when he can sleep with his wife. Raymond even picked Robert’s wife for him! The film deals with what happens when Robert refuses an order one day. In the second section, “RMF is Flying,” Plemons now plays Daniel, a police officer whose wife Liz (Emily Stone) recently went missing. When she is found alive, Daniel starts to suspect she isn’t really his wife, due to little things like she liking chocolate cake when she didn’t before, her feet are the wrong size, etc. Liz is determined to convince Daniel she is who she says she is, and is willing to go to extreme lengths to do so. In the last, “RMF Eats a Sandwich,” Plemons and Stone play Andrew and Emily, members of a cult headed by Omi (Dafoe). They are tasked with finding a woman who can raise people from the dead, but things go sideways when Emily visits her former husband and daughter, a big no-no by Omi’s rules. This is a very weird film, with lots of WTF moments that are meant to elicit laughs and revulsion, and it does both equally well. I loved every minute, and the cast (including Margaret Qualley, Hong Chau, Mamoudou Athie, and Joe Alwyn) are up to the task of taking on new roles in each segment. Not going to be for everyone, as the reviews show; it is either a love-it or hate-it film. I’m in the former camp. ★★★★½

I’ve been a fan of Rachel Sennott for a few years now, since her breakout in Shiva Baby, but since then, she’s usually played more quirky roles in straight-forward comedies. She gives a little more range in I Used to Be Funny, where she plays Sam, a stand-up comedian dealing with the aftermath of a tragic event in her life. The movie is told in current day, when Sam is struggling just to leave the house, and in flashbacks showing how she got there. It started when she became a nanny to a teen named Brooke. Brooke’s mom is in the hospital and dad Cameron needs help watching her. Brooke is old enough to think she doesn’t need a nanny, and Sam is smart enough to try not to be one, and becomes instead a good friend. But something happens along the way, because we quickly see that, in the present day, Brooke and Sam are not on speaking terms, and we know it has something to do with why Sam has shut herself off from the world. It’s a strong film, at turns funny and emotionally heavy, but unfortunately it heralds the big event in Sam’s life that leads to all of her problems, so that the viewer knows the big impending climax long before it is shown, which steals a lot of the film’s thunder. Still, Sennott is great and definitely shows more than she has in her last couple films. ★★★½

Touch is a deeply moving international film, the kind that moves along at a relaxed pace but which you don’t mind, because of how beautifully it is told. In 2020 in Iceland, Kristofer is an old man who is facing a diminishing mind, so much so that his doctor advises him to tie up loose ends while he still can. There’s one in particular in Kristofer’s past that he wants to revisit, so he sets out from his own country, right at the cusp of the pandemic. He first travels to London, and here we start seeing flashbacks to when Kristofer was a student there in the 60s. A socialist (as many were in the 60s), he clashed with the conservative heads at college. When he says he’s just going to quit school, his friends joke with him that he should be a true proletariat and get a common man’s job; to put his money where his mouth is, Kristofer does just that. He walks into the first place he sees, a Japanese restaurant, and applies to be a dishwasher. That spontaneous decision will change his life, as he falls in love-at-first-sight with the owner’s daughter, Miko. Unfortunately Miko currently has a boyfriend, whom Miko’s dad Takahashi obviously doesn’t approve of, so the viewer knows Kristofer may have a chance after all. This seems even more possible as Kristofer and Takahashi become friends, as Kristofer makes an effort to learn Japanese, how to cook in the traditional ways, etc. But what lead to him and Miko separating later, and why Kristofer is hunting for her now all these years later, is a mystery you’ll have to unravel as the film goes along, as the older Kristofer follows the trail of bread crumbs from London to Tokyo. Wonderfully subtle storytelling and a genuinely lovely film, it’s just all-around great moviemaking. ★★★★★

The Teacher’s Lounge is another foreign film, this one out of Germany, and tells a story of how a teacher’s good intentions can blow up in her face. Carla is a young teacher of a 7th grade class, and seems to be good at her job. The school though has had a problem with money going missing from both students and teachers. A couple students insinuate it may be fellow student Ali doing the stealing, but Carla is against interrogating the boy from the beginning, as there is no proof, and the optics of going after Ali (the son of immigrants from Turkey) are not good. When Ali is proven innocent, whispers remain, so to try to catch the thief in the act, Carla puts some money in her coat pocket and leaves it hanging over a chair, with her laptop camera trained on it and recording. When she reviews it later, she doesn’t see a face, but does see a very recognizable blouse and thinks the thief is actually fellow teacher Ms Kuhn. When confronted, Kuhn denies, even as the school sides with Carla and puts Kuhn on leave. Unfortunately that’s not the end, as Kuhn’s son Oskar is in Carla’s class, and the other kids start bullying him. Carla tries to put a stop to it, but everything she seems to do makes it worse. Eventually Oskar starts pushing back too, upset at his fellow students but also at Carla, for getting his mom in trouble. That little snowball only gets bigger as it rolls downhill, until an explosive finale. I really liked this movie, even if some of the fellow teachers were a bit one-sided and awfully narrow-minded, more than you’d hope your average teacher to be. ★★★★

I gotta stop taking movie advice from some of my friends. After being told that Conan the Barbarian was a favorite film, I decided to revisit it, as I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid and honestly didn’t remember it too well. I needn’t have wasted my time, as it is just as bad as I would have guessed. Before Predator or Terminator, this was the film that put Arnold Schwarzenegger on the map in 1982. It recounts the tale of Conan: his childhood when his parents are killed by a warlord, and his quest for revenge when he grows up and becomes a badass. For an action film, honestly I was pretty bored through a lot of it. Some boobies came out here and there, so maybe my teen or 20-something self would have a bit interested in those scenes, but a 40-something like myself, who watches a lot of art films, has been desensitized, so that even those were boring. The acting is worse than awful, and the film just feels like a glossy low budget B-movie. Sorry buddy, I’m going to stop trusting your movie takes. ★½

• TV series recently watched: Voltron Legendary Defender (season 1)
• Book currently reading: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I loved the original Beetlejuice movie in the 80s. It was one of those movies I watched a million times and can practically quote it line for line. I was excited to see the sequel, all these years later. In the new movie, Lydia Deetz is all grown up. With her power to see ghosts, she has become a popular talk show host, where she visits haunted houses and helps people get through their supernatural problems. The only problem is her own daughter, Astrid, doesn’t believe her, and thinks it’s all a sham, and the two are estranged ever since the death of Astrid’s father.

Lydia gets a call one day from her stepmom Delia, with the sad news that her dad Charles has died (that’s an easy way to keep actor Jeffrey Jones out of the film). The family gathers back at the old house from the first movie to have a memorial. While all this is going on, the Juice himself is having his own problems in the afterlife. Everyone remember the scene in the first film when Beetlejuice is trying to marry Lydia and pulls a ring off a chopped finger, claiming, “She meant nothing to me.”? Well, that woman is back, and she has got revenge on the mind. As she hunts Beetlejuice in the netherworld, Beetlejuice is still trying to get hitched in the world above as a way to come back to life.

There’s some good laughs here and there amongst all the silliness (and it does indeed get very silly at times), but there’s not enough there, and there’s some serious problems in the plot. It plays up Beetlejuice’s ex as a major villain, until, all of a sudden, she’s not. There’s a nice subplot involving Astrid and a boy she meets, until suddenly, it resolves itself in a flash. After awhile, it seemed like director Tim Burton was just throwing ideas around and couldn’t pick one to stick with. Michael Keaton is fantastic as Beetlejuice, but the rest of the cast, and there’s some respected names in there, are middling-to-downright awful. I’m giving it 2 1/2 stars, but the reality is some of that is based on my own personal nostalgia. It’s really not that great of a movie. ★★½

I was a big fan of the first two A Quiet Place films, and went into this one with high hopes. For the most part, it delivers. As the title states, we see more of what went down when the aliens first arrived, unlike the short flashback we got in the last film. This time too, it’s in a big city (New York) and not in a remote area, so there are way more killer aliens taking down a much larger population. The main character is Sam, who is dying of cancer and who is living in hospice when she and the others go for a day trip to a marionette show in Manhattan. Afterwards, with the nurse/director trying to get everyone on the bus amid news reports of weird things happening in the city, the group starts seeing what looks like meteorites falling from the sky. Sam is knocked unconscious when one crashes close, and when she awakens, she’s inside the theater with others urging her to be quiet. The aliens have arrived, and people have quickly learned that any noise will draw them. The rest of the movie is pure thriller. An army helicopter overhead relays a message to survivors to head to the river, where boats are awaiting (the aliens apparently can’t swim), so Sam joins the throng of people going in that direction, but of course a large group of people moving together can’t be completely silent, so it isn’t long before aliens attack and the situation becomes chaotic. In hiding after, Sam meets Eric, a young man with anxiety issues, and the two, along with Sam’s cat, start trying to work their way to the river. I do wish the film would have spent more time exploring the chaos of learning about the aliens and their abilities (Sam “slept” through all of that), but the thrills are great and just as exciting as the first two films. Nice ending too. ★★★★

I went ahead and saw The Watchers despite its terrible reviews, solely because the trailer, when I first saw it quite awhile ago, looked fantastic. Trailers aren’t movies though, and this one disappoints. Written and directed by M Night Shyamalan’s daughter Ishana Night Shyamalan, the film very much feels like one of her dad’s movies. And that’s not always a good thing. Dakota Fanning plays Mina, an American living and working in Ireland, when she is given a job to deliver a valuable bird to a remote zoo. Mina’s car breaks down in a gloomy forest along the way, and she walks until she finds a strange bunker and its inhabitants, Madeline, Ciara, and Daniel. Madeline explains that this is “the coop,” where they must take shelter each night, when the watchers come out. Inside the coop, which is just a single large room with beds, a TV, and a pot to piss in in the corner, there’s one strange feature: a 2-way mirror covering one whole wall. This allows the watchers to view the occupants every night. Madeline and the others also explain the rules: the watchers kill anyone outside the coop at night, you can’t turn your back on the mirror, and they must never enter the burrows, which are tunnels in the ground around the forest. And there’s no way out; a previous inhabitant has placed warnings half a day’s walk from the coop in every direction as a “point of no return;” going past that you can’t make it back to the coop before dark. Mina will not just accept this situation for the rest of her life, so when an opportunity arrives to leave, she grabs it. The explanation for what the watchers are isn’t awful, and there’s decent thrills here and there, but much of the film comes off as silly, and it even has some of Shyamalan’s awful dialogue thrown in (guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree). The final 20 minutes of the film just gets idiotic. ★★

The Secret Art of Human Flight is one of those absolutely great films that no one seems to be talking about. A tiny indie film, the movie follows a young man named Ben, who is dealing with the sudden tragic death of his wife. In his grief, he is browsing the web one night and impulsively sends $5k to a spiritual man named Mealworm, who promises to teach believers how to fly. A few days later, Ben gets Mealworm’s handwritten book in the mail, with weird instructions like “you must lose 18 pounds, no more, no less” and to paint his living space to resemble the clouds. Ben follows all of the instructions, and he has help when Mealworm inexplicably shows up at Ben’s front door, Winnebago parked out front (don’t called it an RV). Mealworm become’s Ben’s spiritual guide, continuing to give strange advice and guidance. Throughout all of this, a persistent police investigator is hanging around, with unfounded suspicions that Ben killed his wife for the insurance money. Lots of laughs thanks mostly to Mealworm (played wonderfully by Paul Raci, who you’ll remember from his Oscar-nominated role in Sound of Metal a couple years ago), but the film isn’t really a comedy. It’s about Ben’s journey, not to flight, but in dealing with his unfathomable grief. In flashbacks, we see his relationship with his wife, warts and all, and get to know them personally. You can tell it is a super-low budget film, but it wasn’t long before I stopped noticing and became completely involved in the story. I laughed and cried, which is all you can hope from any good movie. ★★★★½

Crossing is about a woman looking for someone who may not want to be found. Lia is a retired teacher living in Georgia (the country), and who is trying to fulfill her dead sister’s wish to find Tekla, Lia’s missing niece. Tekla was kicked out of the house years ago for being transgender, for fear of the shame that would bring to the family. First, Lia goes to a house on the edge of town, where Tekla was known to hang nearby, and there meets Achi, who used to be one of her (Lia’s) students. He remembers Tekla as “that girl that used to hang out with the tranny’s” and offers to help Lia locate her. Achi is eager to get away from home, where he lives under his older brother’s thumb. Lia and Achi head across the border to Turkey, to Istanbul, where rumor has it that Tekla has relocated. Their journey will take them to an underworld of transgender people trying to find a voice, shown by spotlight in the role of Evrim. Evrim has recently graduated from law school, but before she can practice, she has to get a group of professionals to sign off, and she’s also trying to get her new state ID as a female, both of which will take convincing with all of the prejudices still prominent in the city. But what Evrim does have is a big heart, and she does what she can to help Lia and Achi find Tekla. For much of the film, I was like, “who cares?” but it all comes together nicely in the end. While it may not satisfy people who like clean, tidy endings, it is a very emotional film and is well acted. ★★★½

I skipped The Fall Guy in theaters because it looked a little too silly for my tastes, and after seeing it on streaming now, it is pretty much exactly as I expected. A reboot of the classic Lee Majors TV series (which I enjoyed in reruns as a kid), it stars Ryan Gosling as stunt man Colt Seavers, who is in a relationship with cameraperson Jody Moreno (Emily Blunt). Colt is one of Hollywood’s best stunt men and has been standing in for A-list action star Tom Ryder for 6 years, but a stunt goes tragically wrong on their latest film and Colt breaks his back. 18 months later, Colt is now parking cars for a living when he gets a call from Tom’s film producer Gail, asking Colt to come back one more time, with the incentive that Jody is getting her big chance as a first-time director. Colt and Jody had a falling out after the accident and Colt is ready to try again, so he accepts and flies to Australia for filming. Colt will be filling in for the previous stunt man who has suddenly disappeared. Also missing on set is Tom Ryder, so Jody has been filming all the stunt scenes until Tom can be found. Colt is walking into a powder keg, and it isn’t long before the previous stunt man’s dead body is found, and villains start coming out the woodwork to silence Colt too. Thankfully he knows a thing or two about how to talk a fall, and is able to get along just fine, as the mystery behind the death and Tom’s disappearance slowly unfolds. Really good action in this movie, with lots of good old (non-blue screen) stunt sequences, but as I feared, it borders on the silly and far too often comes off as unbelievable. Not all the comedy is bad, I did manage a few laughs here and there, but some of the ridiculousness was just too much. ★★½

• TV series recently watched: Battlestar Galactica (season 3), Mayor of Kingstown (season 3)
• Book currently reading: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini was a complicated guy. His movies are often critically acclaimed but many faced a lot of censorship, and his outspoken views rankled many, probably what led to his abduction, torture, and murder in 1975 at the age of 53. I’ve seen a number of his movies but recently picked up the excellent Criterion box set, so I’ve got 7 films from him today, all dating from the 1960s.

Pasolini was credited as writer on a handful of films in the ‘50s, but Accattone was his directorial debut in 1961. Accattone is the nickname of Vittorio, a street level pimp in Rome. He and his buddies are always up to no good, refusing to work and even belittling Accattone’s little brother for holding a job. Thus, they are always looking for the latest scam, but never really getting anywhere in doing so. Accattone’s income is mostly from pimping out a young woman, Maddalena, but after she is attacked one evening by some potential customers, it is she who is jailed for false testimony after her attackers are able to come up with some fake alibis. This takes away Accattone’s source of income, and leaves him broke. After trying to weasel money out of his abandoned wife, who lives in a slum with her father and her and Accattone’s small son, Accattone decides to find himself a new prostitute to bankroll him. His target is Stella, a pretty, young, innocent woman, but unfortunately for Accattone, he falls in love with her himself. Things don’t get any better for our anti-hero, leading to his downfall in the end. It’s hard to root for a scumbag but Pasolini makes it easy, as Accattone is so darn likable, even as he commits heinous acts. The director’s views are clear throughout, being very anti-capitalist and pro-humanism, and he delivers a starkly bleak film about those on the fringes of society. ★★★★½

As I said in the beginning, Pasolini was complicated. I think the stereotypical Marxist thinks little of religion except as a tool to exploit the poor, but while Pasolini was an atheist as an adult, he was raised Catholic and many of his films have religious undertones (even many references in the above Accattone). His 1964 film The Gospel According to Matthew may be one of the most biblically accurate films ever made. He picked this book because “John was too mystical, Mark too vulgar, and Luke too sentimental,” and it is a faithful adaptation. The dialogue is lifted straight from the Bible with nothing else thrown in, and the film follows along the Gospel from Jesus’s birth to death to, yes, resurrection (though I expected the director to cut it short before he rose, Jesus does indeed come out of the tomb in the end). If you think about it, Jesus’s story can be painted as a strong parallel by a young Marxist director wanting to tell a story about lifting up your common man and calling out hypocrisies of the ruling class. But the film, on its own merit, is extremely well told. Filmed in the countryside of rural Italy to look like the Middle East, with many non-professional actors and locals to fill out the large cast, it has an authentic feel, and features lasting, memorable scenes throughout. ★★★★

The Hawks and the Sparrows is a rare comedy from this director. In the film, a father and his adult son, Toto and Ninetto, roam the countryside of Italy and see some strange sights, one of which is a talking crow, described to the viewer as a “left wing intellectual.” The crow relates a tale of hawks and sparrows. The same actors play two friars who have been tasked with teaching the Gospel to birds. Obviously to do so, they must first learn the language. The elder plants his feet in the dirt and doesn’t move for a year, in observance and meditation, until he is able to communicate with the hawks. He teaches them of God and love, and then spends a year learning to converse with sparrows, so he can teach them too. Almost immediately afterwards, he and the younger friar are walking through a field when they see a hawk attack and kill a sparrow. The men are aghast at the hawk’s brutality after the sermon, but the hawk can only explain that it is what it is. The friar’s leader gives a very Marxist point of view, that the powerful hawks will always lord their power over the weaker sparrow, which will always struggle in life. From there we return to Toto and Ninetto, who have more adventures along the way. There’s lots of humor in this film, but most is delivered in a heavy handed way. Pasolini can’t help himself but to make every scenario political. Entertaining if you can wade through the proselytism. ★★★

Oedipus Rex is an adaptation of the famous Greek play, and one of my favorite Pasolini films to date. It begins in close-to modern day Italy, where a boy is born but who’s father becomes jealous of the attention the baby gets from the mother/wife. The father has the baby taken out to the desert to be killed, and here the film’s setting changes to ancient Greece (actually filmed in Morroco, so very desolate). The baby is rescued and given to barren parents Polybus and Merope, King and Queen of Corinth, who name him Oedipus and raise him as their own. But as a young man, Oedipus finally hears the rumors that he was a founding, and he sets out on a journey to the Oracle of Delphi to learn who he really is. The Oracle gives him the famous prophecy, that Oedipus will kill his father and bed his mother. Afterwards, Oedipus wanders the desert, coming upon a troupe of soldiers protecting a man. Oedipus antagonizes them, eventually killing all of the guards and the man they were guarding, with only a servant getting away. Oedipus then finds himself in Thebes, where he kills the Sphinx and wins the marriage of the Queen, Jocasta. Of course, we know that Queen will turn out to be his mother, and the murdered man in the desert his father. This is just about the perfect film. It is gorgeously shot in 1.85:1 widescreen color and Pasolini makes use of it, showcasing a starkly beautiful country and people, with fantastic acting by all, especially Franco Citti in the lead. Certainly lives up to its reputation as one of the all-time great Greek tragedies. ★★★★★

Pasolini gets into surrealism with 1968’s Teorema. This is a weird one, and I’m not exactly sure what it is all about, but it is very interesting. At a bourgeois estate in Italy, a family is visited by an unnamed man who just sort of moves in and hangs around. No one seems to mind him, but he begins an intimated relationship with every person in the house. He sleeps with the devoutly religious maid, then the timid and unsure college-aged son, then the sexually repressed wife. He doesn’t sleep with the dad, but does give him intimate massages to help alleviate his stress and daily pain. He doesn’t sleep with the daughter either, but does become a confidant, guiding her through a tough time. Then suddenly, the visitor leaves, and his abrupt disappearance throws each family member into chaos. Each person has to face those things that they were previously unaware of, and it doesn’t go well for any of them. For example, the maid leaves the house and returns to her remote village. She begins to perform miracles, but is consumed by sadness for the hole in her life. The daughter becomes catatonic and is sent to an institution. The others, I will leave for you to enjoy, should you watch the film. It’s a very good film. I don’t get it, but I so desperately want to get it, if that makes sense. As some reviewers have said, was the visitor an angel, there to guide them through tough times, and the family can’t live without him, or was he the devil, starting them down the road to hell? Great stuff, and the more I think about the film, the more I like it. ★★★★½

Medea is based on another Greek play, and as much as I loved the first, I was excited to get into this one too. It’s not as good, but still decent, telling the tale of Medea, but starting at the beginning with Jason. Jason was rightful heir to the city-state of Iolcus, but his father was removed from power by brother Pelias, and baby Jason was taken into hiding, raised from a child by a centaur. Years later as an adult, Jason sets out to reclaim his throne, but his uncle Pelias will only give it up if Jason retrieves the golden fleece. Jason teams up with the Argonauts and heads to Colchis, where the fleece resides, and there is aided by Medea. Media is queen of Colchis, and has mystical or sorcerous powers. She falls in love with Jason and flees Colchis with him. Jason brings the fleece back to Pelias, but the king reneges. Jason replies he no longer wants the tiny kingdom, as he has discovered a greater world out there. He and Medea settle in Corinth, and have a couple children together, but before the end, Jason decides to marry a Corinth princess, Glauce, in order to further his ambition. The jealous Medea will not let this go down, leading to an explosive finale. Another great Greek tragedy, but it’s honestly a bit hard to follow. There’s dream sequences that you don’t know are dreams until they are over, and a lot of the finer points of the plot/story are left for you to figure out as it goes along. Still, who doesn’t love these old Greek stories? ★★★

Lots of good movies today, but unfortunately finishing on a dud. Pigsty follows two narratives, one in the middle ages in a barren countryside in Italy, and the second in a bourgeois estate in Germany in the 1960s. In the first, a loner wanders the hills eating bugs, but advances later to cannibalism, picking off people here and there. He is joined by others who grow to have the same morbid appetites, allowing his growing group to attack larger parties. That is, until the nearby town has had enough, and put together a posse to put a stop to the man and his followers. In the second story, Julian is the son of a former Nazi officer who has escaped prosecution and is living well. The dad is a businessman, but Julian seems content living an aimless life, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend who wants him to show some ambition. Like the man in the first story, Julian has a dark secret too, going into pigpens in the evenings for a little animal loving. In both stories, the degenerates do not come to good ends. A disturbing movie, I’m not sure there was much of a point other than the debauchery of man. ★

• TV series recently watched: Star Trek Animated Series (seasons 1-2), Hit Monkey (season 2)
• Book currently reading: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

In Aisha, Letitia Wright (who broke out in Marvel’s Black Panther films) plays the title character, a Nigerian immigrant trying to eke out a living in Ireland. She came there after her father and brother were murdered back home, and she’s been working and sending money back to her mother, who is trying to save up enough to make the trip. Asylums were created just for people in Aisha’s position, as she’d face danger if she returned to Nigeria, but still, the system is set against her. She lives in public housing, and the managers at each place (they bounce her around a lot) always seem to have it out for those under their care, setting silly rules that need to be obeyed “or else.” Aisha is even sent out to a remote housing facility one time, far removed from anywhere she could work (she has a legal work permit), so she is unable to send money to her mom. The one bright spot in her life is Conor (Josh O’Connor), a security guard at one of the facilities, but she can’t focus on her friendship with him with the growing threat of losing her asylum case and being sent back to Nigeria. Stellar acting from those two, in a deeply heartfelt film. The right loves to scare everyone with tales of immigrant hordes coming for your jobs and safety, but the reality is there are people like Aisha who just want a break. If you expect her to get one in this film, don’t hold your breath. It’s a downer from start to finish, but an important movie. ★★★★

Femme is another emotional film, and probably another that many will find objection with. In London, Jules is a gay man who performs in a drag show. One night, Jules is attacked by a group of testosterone-heavy young men for making a crack that one of them was eyeing him up earlier (which is true). Jules is badly beaten and left traumatized, unable to leave his apartment after healing up. When he finally does, he goes to a gay sauna to unwind, but rebuffs offers of a tryst, until he spots the man who attacked him. Jules approaches the young man, Preston, who doesn’t recognize Jules without his drag attire. Turns out Preston is a closet homosexual, but puts on a brash exterior for fear of reprisal from his gang of buddies. Preston and Jules begin a sexual relationship, with Jules having an ulterior motive: secretly recording Preston during a sex act in order to publicly “out” him and get his revenge. Things obviously take some dark turns, if it wasn’t already dark enough for you. It’s a complex movie, and the ending will give you plenty to think about. Outstanding performances from Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and George MacKay in the leads. ★★★½

Accidental Texan is one of those movies that isn’t really a great film, but it is plenty entertaining. Erwin is an actor who’s been struggling in Hollywood for several years but has finally landed his first leading role in a movie, to be filmed in New Orleans. He drives cross country and shows up on set ready to go, in awe of having his own trailer and star treatment. Unfortunately for Erwin, his shoot on the very first day goes horribly (and hilariously) wrong, and he is fired on the spot. Driving back to LA that night, his car breaks down in middle-of-nowhere Texas. Broke, Erwin is left with no options but to find help in the local small town. As luck would have it, an oil driller, Merle, takes a liking to Erwin and hires him to help on his latest, last venture. Merle is deep in debt and has 30 days to find and secure a new oil well, or it’ll be the end of his family-run business and the handful of employees who have stayed faithful to him. The big oil companies have been trying for years to force him out, but there are still a couple leads on untapped oil reserves in the area, and it is up to Merle and Erwin to get those land rights secured and the drilling done in time. Some big names in the cast here, including Thomas Haden Church, Bruce Dern, and Carrie-Anne Moss, with relative newcomer Rudy Pankow in the lead, but the strength of the movie is in the occasional laughs, though it’s not really a comedy per se. The story of underdog vs goliath is tried-and-true and works again. ★★★½

Ezra is a movie that works better on paper than in the telling. It stars Bobby Cannavale as Max and newcomer William Fitzgerald as Max’s son Ezra. Ezra is on the autistic spectrum and has been having a hard time at school and in life in general. Ezra’s mom and Max’s ex-wife Jenna (Rose Byrne) wants to take the school’s position of drug therapy, but Max has been steadfast against that, wanting Ezra to learn to “blend in” and be able to live and interact with normal people without drugs. It comes to a head when Ezra overhears Jenna’s boyfriend make a snarky crack about “taking care of Max” and Ezra freaks out, thinking he really means to harm his father, and runs out into the street in front of oncoming traffic. Not having the whole story, the school thinks Ezra is a danger to himself and wants to expel him if he doesn’t start taking medicine. Rather than see this happen, Max kidnaps Ezra and heads out on the road, but it will not be easy for either of them. There’s some corny humor here and there, and while I applaud the decision to cast a young person with real autism in the lead as Ezra, it makes for an uneven viewing experience. Plot is a bit all over the place too. The supporting cast includes Rainn Wilson, Robert De Niro, and Vera Farmiga, but the whole of the group can’t bring it all together all of the time. ★★

Not sure how I feel about The Beast, the newest film from French director Bertrand Bonello. I watched this one a couple days ago and have been thinking about it here or there since; sometimes I think I love it, sometimes I think I hate it. It stars the great Léa Seydoux as Gabrielle, and being completely transparent, it takes the viewer awhile to figure out what’s going on. Sometimes Gabrielle is in the future, talking to an A.I. about acting out a scene with a beast intent to kill her. Sometimes Gabrielle is in the past, early 20th centrury-ish, at a dance and talking about fears of a beast hunting her, a recurring nightmare since she was a child. Later, Gabrielle is in present day, where she is house-sitting a mansion in LA. In all three time periods, she encounters a man named Louis (George MacKay again, he’s all the place today!). Little spoiler here, so you may want to stop if that would bother you—>. We finally learn that, in the future, Gabrielle is trying to get a better job, but humans must go through “purification” in order to erase certain emotions, in order to make them better, more productive workers. This involves reliving emotional moments in past lives, and softening those memories out. Gabrielle and Louis have crossed paths several times in their past existences, with varying outcomes, in a star-crossed lovers kind of way. It’s very muddled but does eventually make a bit of sense, but I’m not sure the payoff was worth all the confusion I had throughout the movie. So I’m going to give it a solid 3. Maybe a second viewing would raise my feelings on it, but not sure I want to put myself through that again anytime soon. ★★★

• TV series recently watched: Cobra Kai (season 6.1), Batman Caped Crusader (season 1), Batman Beyond (season 2)
• Book currently reading: Glacier’s Edge by RA Salvatore

I’m a few days late to the party, but finally got out today to see the newest in the Alien franchise. Alien: Romulus is a sequel to the original Alien film from 1979, and takes place before its 1986 sequel Aliens. Thus, it’s great for moviegoers who’ve only seen the first film, with no deep learning curve to get into the action.

The action does come, but there’s quite a bit of setup to get there. On a mining planet 65 light years from Earth, Rain is an older teen living on her own, her only companion a synthetic human (android) named Andy. Rain’s parents died in the mine and that will be most likely be her fate one day too, so when an opportunity comes to leave the planet, she takes it. Her friends have a plan to board a derelict, drifting space station that has come into the planet’s orbit, in order to grab some cryostasis chambers. This would allow the friends to go to sleep over the journey to a better world. Unfortunately, the station is empty for a reason, and of course we all know why.

Things go wrong right away. The cryo chambers lack the power they need, and in searching for juice, the group wakes up some facehuggers. In the ensuing frenzy, the space station’s decaying orbit is accelerated, pushing it towards the rings of the planet below. Whereas they thought they had 36 hours, now they have less than 1 before the station crashes into the rings. The station’s android, Rook (another version of the Ash model in the original Alien film, thanks to computer-aided technology to bring back his face in this film) comes online and wants to continue its agenda, to get the Xenomorph’s DNA back to “the company” for further study. When the shit really starts to hit the fan and everyone starts dying, the action and thrills ramp up.

After a slow start, the movie gets going and is very exciting in the second hour. It’s downright scary at times, and *feels* more like the original Alien films than the last couple (though unlike many, I actually enjoyed Alien: Covenant). And contrary to the last movie, this one is making lots of money, so it should set the franchise back on the map. Here’s hoping. ★★★★

Never heard of It Ends With Us, but saw it recently with the wife, who read the (extremely popular) book by author Colleen Hoover. It stars Blake Lively as Lily Bloom, who, at the start of the film, is at her father’s funeral, unable to find anything good to say about him. We learn why as the film goes along. Lily meets Ryle, a suave doctor who is used to getting his way, as well as Ryle’s sister Allysa, who goes into business with Lily to open a flower shop. Ryle doesn’t date, opting for one-night-stands, but Lily is having none of that, and the two eventually do start a relationship. He is loving and kind, which is just what Lily needs, because we finally learn that her father physically abused her mom throughout her life. In flashbacks, we see the violence in the home, and also of Lily’s first love, Atlas. Atlas was a homeless young man from their town, who was kicked out for fighting back when his own mom’s new boyfriend got violent with her as well. Their tale ends up being a sad one too, as the viewer learns later, but in a twist of fate, Lily and Ryle have dinner in a hip new restaurant in town one evening, and there is Atlas. Seeing him brings back all kinds of memories for Lily, but if you think this will have a typical romantic-drama ending, you’ll be surprised. Going in blind, the surprise was indeed a shock to me, so if you can avoid spoilers, it creates a much better film. Blake Lively is (maybe surprisingly?) very good as Lily, and while the film can’t help but be a little too “middle aged woman romance novel” in its feel at times, it’s still better than I was expecting, and a decent date night flick. ★★★

The Forgotten Battle is based on a true story and takes a look at a key moment in World War II, a battle of which most people have most likely been unaware. In the late summer 1944, as Allied troops are pushing into France and heading towards Germany, they need a port where they can resupply troops. Antwerp, in northen Belgium, is an obvious choice, but the Germans have dug in there and along the waterways connecting it to the North Sea. The local Dutch resistance have been trying to get info on German troop locations and movements, in hopes of getting the data to the Brits, but spies have been caught, tortured, and forced to give up their cohorts. While all this is going on, a British plane has crashed nearby, and the survivors are doing what they can to aid the war movement from behind enemy lines. Even when the Germans do start to pull out, there’s still plenty of dangers for citizens and allied soldiers trying to beat the Nazis. It’s an “ok” movie, nothing really wrong with it, it’s just… fine. It doesn’t stir the blood, and while the whole thing is probably taught in Belgium as an important moment in their history, not every battle needs to have a movie made about it. ★★½

Fresh Kills presents a mob film from a new perspective, one often ignored in typical mafia films and shows, namely, that of the women attached to the mob. Joe is high up in the family, but the movie doesn’t follow him; instead, it is from the perspective of his daughters, Connie and Rose, and from a lesser view, their mother Francine (Jennifer Esposito, who also wrote and directed). Even from a young age, Connie buys in to the idea of “the family,” using her fists to do the talking when other students at school make jokes about crime bosses or things of that nature. Rose is more tight lipped and is haunted by a scene as a child when she overhears her dad talking about “taking care of someone.” But no matter how hard Rose tries to distance herself from her family’s path, which takes place over decades as the sisters grow into adults, she is always brought back into the fold. I really wanted to like this movie, because it puts a unique twist on the (often paint-by-numbers) mafia film, but the acting is very uneven in the lead role (Emily Bader as Rose), distracting from an otherwise well-done film with plenty of powerful moments. Rose is just alright, but Bader isn’t able to deliver the nuance than the role requires. Still, Esposito is fantastic as mother Francine. A longtime actor, she is definitely up to the task as a first-time writer/director. Put a better actress in the lead and this film would have been a knockout. ★★★

Sometimes I ignore the reviews and it bites me in the ass. Jeanne du Barry didn’t exactly light it up with the critics, but it is an historical drama, which I have a propensity to enjoy, so I gave it a whirl. It really isn’t very good. A biopic about the scandalous life of Madame du Barry, it begins with her as a girl. Jeanne Bécu was born out of wedlock and raised with nothing, but her good looks always help her out of situations. As a teenager, she catches the eye of the wealthy Count du Barry, who takes her as a mistress and whores her out to other wealthy nobles and elites. Jeanne doesn’t seem to mind, but she has her eyes on a greater prize, and eventually it comes to be when she is invited to court one evening. There, the king of France, Louis XV, becomes smitten, and Jeanne finds herself as his newest private mistress. To keep with French tradition, the king is not supposed to have a mistress who is unmarried (which might legitimize any children they have; if she’s married, offspring can at least have the guise of belonging to the husband), so Jeanne marries Count du Barry on paper and moves into the Palace of Versailles. It’s a good life, until Louis’s heir, the dauphin and future Louis XVI, finds a wife, Marie Antoinette. As the future queen, Marie exerts influence over the court, and begins pushing Jeanne out. If it sounds like a lot of intrigue, it should, but unfortunately it is better on paper than on screen. The movie treats itself like a history lesson, seemingly more interested in pointing out all of the old customs and court rituals than providing a compelling narrative. Maïwenn is passable as the lady du Barry, but Johnny Depp (in his film return after the whole Amanda Heard incident, and in a French movie no less! Who knew he could speak French?) seems like he is just going through the motions as the King of France. Pretty boring film, which should be anything but considering the woman at the center. ★½

The Bikeriders follows the rise of a motorcycle club in Chicago called the Vandals. At the start of the film, a young man is interviewing Kathy because he’s writing a book about the club, and Kathy is married to one of its members, Benny. She tells how the club started when its founder, Johnny, was watching Marlon Brando’s The Wild One, and got a whim to “go outlaw.” Johnny, and many of the club’s early members, weren’t your typical biker gang: they were married men with families, but they loved motorcycles, and formed the club to get together, work on their bikes, and hang out. Benny was an outlier, as he was younger than many of them, single at the time, and a definite rebel. While the group was fiercely loyal to each other and weren’t afraid to violently protect one another if others tried to mess with one of their own, for the most part the Vandals were just normal guys. The beginning of the end comes when they start allowing new chapters to form, separate satellite groups who would purportedly still follow Johnny as head, but would form their own charters under the Vandal name in other cities. The Vandals yearly get-togethers become much larger afterwards, and some of the newcomers are a lot more rough-and-tumble. Kathy becomes afraid of some of the former soldiers who have returned home from Vietnam addicted to drugs, and other younger men who are looking to join up just because they are full of anger. It’s a wonderfully gritty film, and while the story might not lead to any surprises, it is told very well and the actors are top-notch, including Norman Reedus, Austin Butler (Benny), Jodie Corner (Kathy), Michael Shannon (albeit in a small role), and at the head of the table, Tom Hardy as Johnny. And anything with Tom Hardy is worth the price of admission. I’m bordering between 3 1/2 and 4 on this one, but bumping up due to the incredible performances. ★★★★

• TV series recently watched: Battlestar Galactica (season 2), The Boys (season 4), Star Trek Next Generation (season 1), 3 Body Problem (season 1)
• Book currently reading: What This Comedian Said Will Shock You by Bill Maher