Category Archives: Movies

Family First

5 November 2017 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Shot Caller  (2017)  Rated R  Runtime: 121 minutesM Shot 2017

Genre: Action-Mystery-Suspense-Thriller-Crime-Prison

els – 7.0/10

IMDb – 7.4/10

Amazon – 4.5/5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 6.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 3.9/5

Metacritic Metascore – 59/100

Metacritic User Score – 7.1/10

Directed by: Ric Roman Waugh

Written by: Ric Roman Waugh

Produced by: Jonathan King, Michel Litvak , Gary Michael Walters , Ric Roman Waugh

Music by: Antonio Pinto

Cast:  Nikolaj Coster-Walau, Jon Bernthal, Lake Bell

Jacob ‘Money’ Harlon, played by Nikolaj Coster-Walau, destroys his life, his family, and his friend, in a split second of inebriated inattention, tumbling him towards the gates of hell and hell’s masters. Harlon evolves from a successful stockbroker to a calculating gang member inside the go along or die, walls of prison.  Jacob on the outside; handsome, kind, likable, becomes Money on the inside; branded, stoic, brutal, shrewd; ultimately resolving all consequential moral issues bichromatically, there is no grey in staying alive, no grey in protecting his estranged wife and son from the callous wrath of the gangs; who operate with impunity, mockery, and charter, inside and outside the profane houses of correction.

Coster-Walau (whatever happened to the studios giving actors simple, pronounceable names) plays his part with feverish intensity, a resoundingly believable act dramatizing the ruthless lack of humanity that is our prison system.  He realistically reveals the absolute horror of living a life bound to a criminal tribe’s hellish code of control, unchained from any sense of compassion or mercy.

Ric Roman Waugh, as director and writer, brings a flawless, no tricks, script to life with a dual track film that unfolds Jacob’s trek to Money, and Money’s odyssey to redemption. A story of a lost life, a story of finding honor, a story of emancipation, a story of family.

Good Ape — Bad Ape

4 November 2017 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

War for the Planet of the Apes  (2017)  PG-13  Runtime: 140 minutesM War Apes

Genre: Drama-Action-Adventure-SciFi-War

els – 7.0/10

IMDb – 7.6/10

Amazon – 3.5/5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 8.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 4.1/5

Metacritic Metascore – 82/100

Metacritic User Score – 8.1/10

Directed by: Matt Reeves

Written by: Mark Bomback, Matt Reeves

Produced by: Peter Chernin, Dylan Clark, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver

Music by: Michael Giacchino

Cast: Andy Serkis, Woody Harrelson, Steve Zahn

M Ape 1968War for the Planet of the Apes is the third, and unlikely the last for Cornelius is just a young monkey, installment of the Planet of the Apes reboot series, or if you are keeping track, the eighth movie since the original 1968 Plant of the Apes film. Keeping the story front and center, director-writer Matt Reeves, and co-writer Mark Bomback have created a compelling drama with just enough action-adventure-war added to maintain the tempo and interest in this 2 hour and 10 minute epic about biblical-type survival, family, and revenge.

Caesar played by Andy Serkis delivers a compelling performance of a compassionate angry ape, succumbing to baser instincts of survival, eventually finding peace through the delicate innocence of a mute little girl; enabling him to assume the mantle of Moses, leading his people from bondage. It might be a tad much to have both Caesar and Moses on the same stage, but it does seem to work.

Woody Harrelson, playing the hard, single vision, blinders on, Colonel, finally has found a role, post Cheers, to showcase his talents. Harrelson produces a highly believable persona of a driven man that allows the survival of his species to obscure the other options available to this other-wise intelligent character.

Bad Ape played by Steve Zahn provides the comic relief that so far has not entered into this franchise.  A short 2007 song by Bad Religion seems to provide some predictive pathos for Bad Ape and the movie as a whole.

Murder
Bad Religion – written by Brett W. Gurewitz and Greg Graffin – 2007

If you didn’t know your world’s a pile of s—
Listen to a riddle that’ll tickle every bit of it

Ha ha ha!

Ape shall not murder, ape wasn’t so sure
Bad ape, you made a mistake
Annihilation in a cannibal war
Well, cultivation might have served you
Might have raised you up unscathed
If you had called that f—– by its name…

Did you listen to the arbiter’s beck and call?
Did you find what you were looking for or not at all?

Not at all!

Ape shall not murder, ape take the cure
Bad ape you made a mistake
Annihilation in a cannibal war
Culture might have cured you
And raised you up unscathed
If you had called that f—– by its name…

Say the name!
Say the name!
Say the name!

The film is not a must see, but it is a worthy addition to the trilogy.  The title sells the movie as something that it isn’t: a war movie; it’s a drama about survival-family-revenge with some battle scenes thrown in to quicken the pace.

Confronting Demons

31 October 2017 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Book of Henry  (2017)  PG-13  Runtime: 105 minutesM Henry 201`7

Genre: Drama-Mystery-Suspense-Thriller

els – 6.0/10

IMDb – 6.5/10

Amazon – 4.0/5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 4.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 3.5/5

Metacritic Metascore – 31/100

Metacritic User Score – 4.4/10

Directed by: Colin Trevorrow

Written by: Gregg Hurwitz

Produced by: Carla Hacken, Jenette Kahn, Sidney Kimmel, Adam Richman, et.al.

Music by: Michael Giacchino

Cast: Naomi Watts, Jaeden Lieberher, Jacob Tremblay

Henry, Jaeden Lieberher, an adolescent genius, is unable to convince the adult world that there is a monster living next door. Running where the adults will not tread, he takes the only road available —until he can’t. Lieberher in Midnight Special was competent, but I simply loved him as Henry in this movie. He is fated for greatness if Hollywood doesn’t totally mess this kid up before he reaches adulthood.

The critics see this movie as a jumbled mess of genres, an excess of ideas smashing into one another, phony and boring, poorly written, directed, and acted: I saw an emotional and passionate presentation of difficult issues that took the movie in unexpected directions, a satisfactory finish, acted and directed superbly, with only the writing coming up short. The writing stumbles mainly with presenting a prodigy capable of doing anything and everything,  amazingly, and then developing, in the end, a rather pedestrian solution to a complicated problem.

Ignore the critics, ignore the written bumps in the road, and see this movie.  Bring a box of Kleenex.

Multitudinous Mummy Movies

16 October 2017 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
M Mummy 1932

The Mummy 1932

Five score and 3 years ago our movie producers, directors, and all of that artsy crowd, brought forth on this planet, a new genre, conceived in horror and comedy, and dedicated to the proposition that all mummies are created with white wrappings…

…To you who are the sons and brothers of the dearly departed mummies, I see that the struggle to emulate them will be an irresponsible one. For all men praise the dead, if they stay dead, and, however preeminent your virtue may be, I do not say even to approach them, and avoid awakening their rivals…, but when a mummy is out-of-the-way, back in its tomb, the honor and goodwill which it receives is usually misbegotten…

Apologies to Lincoln and Pericles.

Below are fifty-eight mummies of horror, laughs, action, and occasional distracting romance, captured on film for your eternal mummyificent enjoyment.  Included in the list are feature films, short films, made for TV films, campy movies, low-budget movies, high budget movies, movies made from real events, and to wrap up, movies mostly in the English language but Spanish ones are also included, if only for their amusement value. Myriad big names in Hollywood have lent their talents to the making of successful, and not so successful, mummy movies, including: Boris Karloff, The Three Stooges, Lon Cheney, Charlton Heston, Raymond Burr, Tony Curtis, Christopher Walken, Louis Gossett Jr., Brendan Fraser, Jet Li, Danny Glover, Tom Cruise, and as sure as Egyptian tombs have mummies, the future will bring other stars plying their craft on hip new mummy movies.

No attempt was made to make a complete list of all known mummy movies; foreign language and made for TV mummy movies are copious, many worth watching, but for the most part, are not included here.  The list below is ranked by popularity, best films first, as determined from taking the average of IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes Critics, Rotten Tomatoes Audience, and Amazon ratings. The name of the movie is listed first followed by the year of release then its average rating.

M Mummy 1959

The Mummy 1959

  1. The Mummy, 1932, 7.8/10
  2. We Want our Mummy, 1939, 7.6/10
  3. The Mummy, 1959, 7.6/10
  4. Bubba Ho-Tep, 2002, 7.6/10
  5. Mil Mascaras vs the Aztec Mummy, 2007, 7.6/10
  6. Under Wraps, 1997, 7.4/10
  7. The Monster Squad, 1987, 7.2/10
  8. Curse of the Mummy, 1970, 7.1/10
  9. The Mummy, 1999, 7.1/10
  10. The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb, 1980, 7.0/10
  11. The Mummy’s Hand, 1940, 6.9/10
  12. The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb, 1964, 6.9/10
  13. Abbot and Costello Meet the Mummy, 1955, 6.8/10
  14. The Mummy Returns, 2001, 6.8/10
  15. The Mummy’s Curse, 1944, 6.5/10
  16. The Mummy’s Shroud, 1967, 6.5/10
  17. The Awakening, 1980, 6.5/10

    M Mummy Bubba

    Bubba Ho-Tep 2002

  18. The Egyptian Mummy, 1914, 6.3/10
  19. Blood from the Mummy’s Tomb, 1971, 6.2/10
  20. The Mummy Lives, 1993, 6.2/10
  21. The Mummy an’ the Armadillo, 2004, 6.2/10
  22. The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals, 1969, 6.1/10
  23. The Mummy’s Revenge, 1975, 6.1/10
  24. The Mummy’s Ghost, 1944, 6.0/10
  25. The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, 2008, 5.9/10
  26. The Mummy, 1912, 5.8/10
  27. The Mummy’s Tomb, 1942, 5.8/10
  28. All New Adventures of Laurel and Hardy in For Love or Mummy, 1999, 5.8/10
  29. The Mummy’s Kiss: 2nd Dynasty, 2006, 5.8/10
  30. Mummy’s Kiss, 2003, 5.7/10

    M Mummy Squad

    The Monster Squad 1987

  31. The Curse of King Tut’s Tomb, 2006, 5.7/10
  32. The Mummy, 2017, 5.6/10
  33. The Eternal: Kiss of the Mummy, 1998, 5.3/10
  34. Ancient Evil: Scream of the Mummy, 1999, 5.2/10
  35. The Eyes of the Mummy, 1922, 5.1/10
  36. Tale of the Mummy, 1998, 4.9/10
  37. Dawn of the Mummy, 1981, 4.8/10
  38. Attack of the Virgin Mummies, 2004, 4.8/10
  39. The Attack of the Aztec Mummy, 1957, 4.6/10
  40. 7 Mummies, 2006, 4.6/10
  41. Frankenstein vs The Mummy, 2015, 4.3/10
  42. The Robot vs the Aztec Mummy, 1964, 4.2/10
  43. Legend of the Mummy, 1998, 4.2/10
  44. Curse of the Aztec Mummy, 1957, 4.0/10
  45. El Macho vs the Canadian Mummies of Mars, 2003, 4.0/10

    M Mummy 1999

    The Mummy 1999

  46. Wrestling Women vs the Aztec Mummy, 1964, 3.9/10
  47. Mummy Maniac, 2007, 3.5/10
  48. Day of the Mummy, 2014, 3.5/10
  49. Mummy Raider, 2002, 3.4/10
  50. The Kung Fu Mummy, 2005, 3.0/10
  51. American Mummy, 2014, 3.0/10
  52. The Mummy Resurrected, 2014, 3.0/10
  53. Attack of the Mayan Mummy, 1964, 2.5/10
  54. Isis Rising: Curse of the Lady Mummy, 2013, 1.9/10
  55. Wanted, a Mummy, 1910, NR
  56. The Mummy and the Cow Puncher, 1912, NR
  57. The Mummy and the Humming Bird, 1915, NR
  58. The Mummy of Tutankhamun, 2017, NR

Set for Cruising

12 October 2017 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Mummy  (2017)M Mummy 2017

els – 6.0/10

IMDb– 5.5/10

Amazon – 3.0/5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 4.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 2.8/5

Directed by: Alex Kurtzman

Written by: David Koepp, Christopher McQuarrie, Dylan Kussman, Jon Spaihts,        Alex Kurtzman, Jenny Lumet

Produced by: Sarah Bradshaw, Sean Daniel, Genevieve Hofmeyr, Alex Kurtzman, Chris Morgan

Music by: Brian Tyler

Cast: Tom Cruise, Sofia Boutella, Annabelle Wallis, Russell Crowe

The Egyptian God Set, possibly the really bad guy in this installment of mummy movies, is a god of the desert, storms, chaos, violence, sometimes a good guy; brother to Osiris, Isis, and Nephthys; husband of Nephthys; father of Anubis: generally an unfathomable god useful to script writers when an all-purpose villain, or hero, is needed.

Set needs to occupy a human form to realize his full potential, eventually settling on Morton (Cruise) for that honor: before that occurs though, a little background. The movie begins apace, slightly slower than that actually, from a pact Set made with a pharos’ daughter Ahmanet (Boutella), he gets to be a god in human form and she gets to be a pharos, which is a god in human form; but the pact is discovered and fails, since the movie needs a plot; forthwith she is killed, mummified, and buried far away from Egypt in Mesopotamia.  Enter Morton, a little closer to present day, who is in Iraq for a war or something, who discoveries the tomb of Ahmanet, ships it off to London to pair it up with some old artifacts; ostensibly to keep the plot from freezing up.  After a few twists and turns, Dr. Jekyll (Crowe) materializes to assist with the coming climatic scenes.

The critics, and the audiences, have panned this movie mercilessly, but what I saw was a fairly decent B action movie with some fair attempts at humor.  Cruise has taken the brunt of the critical abuse; such as being too old for action movies, much in the same vein as Harrison Ford’s last Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; the credibility to perform the action stunts is strained.  Cruise plays a brash, in it for himself, unsympathetic character, which critics felt wasn’t a plausible part for him; maybe, but it worked in Top Gun.  The best line in the movie occurred when the plane carrying Morton and his conquest, Halsey (Wallis), is approaching the ground, burning, at more than safe angles and speed; in which Morton gives the only parachute to Halsey, pushes her out of the plane, and saves her life.  Morton crashes with the plane, but survives.  Later Halsey thanks Morton for magnanimously giving her the only parachute, at which he sheepishly replies, “I thought there were two”.

This is a better movie than what the critics have told you.

8 x Fast and Furious = 6

6 October 2017 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The original The Fast and the Furious was intended as a motorized take on West Side Story, a star-crossed love story of forbidden fruit, and a remake of Point Break, a story of an undercover FBI agent trying to bust a bunch of surf boarding, bank robbers, but the criminal elements slowly drift into the background as the franchise progresses, leaving bits and pieces of the love and passion popping up sporadically, usually as a distraction, through all 8 movies. The high-speed, adrenalin fueled action is the inducement drawing the audience back, again and again. The franchise grows money from where the rubber meets the asphalt; every buck in production spending, returning over $5 in revenue.

Having spent the last week or so watching the movies, I, pretentiously, offer my rankings, for better or worse, listed in order of good to not so good. The franchise has produced 4 very good movies worth seeing over and over, 2 that are ok, and 2 that I can’t fathom how the series survived their release.

  1. The Fate of the Furious   (2017)  els-6.8/10;  IMDb-6.8/10;  RTC-6.1/10  8
  2. Furious 7  (2015)  els-6.8/10;  IMDb-7.2/10;  RTC-6.6/10  7
  3. Fast Five  (2011)  els-6.6/10;  IMDb-7.3/10;  RTC-6.4/10  5
  4. The Fast and the Furious: The Original (2001)  els-6.0/10;  IMDb-6.7/10;  RTC-5.4/10  1
  5. Fast and Furious  (2009)  els-5.7/10;  IMDb-6.6/10;  RTC-4.5/10  4
  6. Fast and Furious 6   (2013)  els-5.5/10  IMDb-7.1/10;  RTC-6.2/10  6
  7. 2 Fast 2 Furious  (2003)  els-5.4/10;  IMDb-5.9/10;  RTC-4.7/10  2
  8. The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift  (2006)  els-5.0/10;  IMDb-6.0/10;  RTC-4.8/10  3

The Fast and the Furious: The Original (2001)

els – 6.0/10M F and F 1

IMDb – 6.7/10

Amazon – 4.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 5.4/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 3.4/5

Directed by: Rob Cohen

Written by: Gary Scott Thompson, Erik Bergquist, David Ayer

Produced by: Neil H. Moritz, et.al.

Music by: Brian Wayne Transeau

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster

Hijacking 18 wheelers, and the daring theft of their electronic cargo, by street wise, street racing, thrill seeking, loveable gang of incorrigibles, led by Dominic Toretto (Diesel); pursued by a team of FBI agents, including Brian O’Connor (Walker) who is more interested in capturing the heart of Dominic’s sister Mia (Brewster) rather than making a case for arresting the thieves, starts this franchise off on a great set of wheels.

2 Fast 2 Furious  (2003)M F and F 2

els – 5.4/10

IMDb – 5.9/10

Amazon – 4.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 4.7/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 3.1/5

Directed by: John Singleton

Written by: Gary Scott Thompson, Michael Brandt, Derik Hass

Produced by: Neil H. Moritz, et.al.

Music by: David Arnold

Cast: Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Eva Mendes

Vin Diesel takes a pass on a tired storyline, leaving Paul Walker with not much of anything. O’Connor (Walker) and Roman Pierce (Gibson) go undercover for the good guys to bust a drug smuggling bad guys in Miami, how original…not.  Amazingly, this movie didn’t kill the franchise.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift  (2006)M F and F 3.jpg

els – 5.0/10

IMDb – 6.0/10

Amazon – 4.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 4.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 3.5/5

Directed by: Justin Lin

Written by: Chris Morgan

Produced by: Neil H. Moritz, et.al.

Music by: Brian Tyler

Cast: Lucas Black, Sung Kang

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker take a pass on this film, leaving the franchise, regrettably, with a teenage B movie. Set in Tokyo featuring the underground drift racing circuit; an American teenager makes enemies and friends in the world of fast cars and gangsters.  The racing is fascinating and fun, Han’s (Kang) ‘Cool Hand Luke’ acting is refreshing, but the for the rest of movie, it’s a drag.

Fast and Furious  (2009)M F and F 4

els –  5.7/10

IMDb – 6.6/10

Amazon – 4.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 4.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 3.7/5

Directed by: Justin Lin

Written by: Chris Morgan and Gary Scott Thompson

Produced by: Neil H. Moritz, Vin Diesel, Michael Fottrell, et.al.

Music by: Brian Tyler

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster

Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are back and the excitement comes with them, producing some of the best and glorious car racing, car chasing scenes yet.  Not much new in the story line, good guys chasing bad guys who sell drugs, yawn, but the action is fast and furious.

Fast Five  (2011)M F and F 5.jpg

els – 6.6/10

IMDb – 7.3/10

Amazon – 4.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 6.4/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 4.0/5

Directed by: Justin Lin

Written by: Chris Morgan and Gary Scott Thompson

Produced by: Neil H. Moritz, Vin Diesel, Michael Fottrell, et.al.

Music by: Brian Tyler

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson

Dwayne Johnson joins the franchise, bringing the testosterone level up to 17, as the badass good guy, Luke Hobbs, comes after Toretto (Diesel) and his gang of extraordinary lug-heads, in Brazil, for the alleged murder of federal agents. The Fast and the Furious gang seeks revenge for a job gone bad, going after the most powerful gangster in Rio, with a possible retirement, potential payoff of $100 million.

Fast and Furious 6  (2013)M F and F 6

els – 5.5/10

IMDb – 7.1/10

Amazon – 4.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 6.2/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 4.1/5

Directed by: Justin Lin

Written by: Chris Morgan, Gary Scott Thompson

Produced by: Neil H. Moritz, Vin Diesel, Clayton Townsend, et.al.

Music by: Lucas Vidal

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson

Hobbs (Johnson) on the heals of dastardly mercenaries, entices the Fast and the Furious speed sportsters to join in on the hunt by promising to clear their criminal records, and re-uniting them with the, back from the dead, Letty (Rodriquez). Letty was always a distraction to the franchise, bringing her back strains the storyline, and plot, to a point of breaking and adds nothing in return to this otherwise most excellent adventure.

Furious 7  (2015)M F and F 7

els – 6.8/10

IMDb – 7.2/10

Amazon – 4.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 6.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 4.1/5

Directed by: James Wan

Written by: Chris Morgan, Gary Scott Thompson

Produced by: Neil H. Moritz, Vin Diesel, Clayton Townsend, et.al.

Music by: Lucas Vidal

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Kurt Russell

Living the good life was just not to be for our lovable carsters.  Deckard Shaw (Statham) steps into the franchise to exact retribution for the hurt the hyper-horsepower crew of Fast and Furious inflicted on his brother.  Mr. Nobody (Russell) also jumps in to offer a healthy dose of levity, black-ops, and spy craft.

The Fate of the Furious  (2017)M F and F 8.jpg

els – 7.0/10

IMDb – 6.8/10

Amazon – 4.5/5

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 6.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 3.8/5

Directed by: F. Gary Gray

Written by: Chris Morgan, Gary Scott Thompson

Produced by: Neil H. Moritz, Vin Diesel, Chris Morgan, Michael Fottrell, et.al.

Music by: Brian Tyler

Cast: Vin Diesel, Dwayne Johnson, Jason Statham, Charlize Theron, Kurt Russell

Nefarious Cipher (Theron) compels love struck Toretto (Diesel), to turn his back on his adrenalized gang of acceleration fanatics, ensuing a globe hopping race of speed and mayhem.

No Remorse – No Acquittal

16 September 2017 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

The Promise (2017)M The Promise

els – 9.0/10

IMDb – 6.0/10

Amazon – 4.5/5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Critics – 5.6/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience – 4.7/5

Directed by: Terry George

Written by: Terry George and Robin Swicord

Produced by: Eric Esrailian, William Horberg, Mike Medavoy, et.al.

Music by: Gabriel Yared

Cast: Oscar Isaac, Charlotte Le Bon, Christian Bale

The defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First Balkan War in May of 1913 resulted in the loss of 85% of their territory and signaled the end of the Muslim sultanate in Europe. The Balkan nations, at the end of the war, expelled 100s of thousands of Muslims from their newly liberated lands, to lands within Anatolia, which at the time, were mostly inhabited by Christian Armenians. The resettled Muslims resented their inferior status along-side their more affluent Christian neighbors, adding fuel to the smoldering hatred of all things not Muslim and Turk.

At the outbreak of WWI in July of 1914, the remaining fragments of the Ottoman Empire joined the Germans in battling the Russians, with the hope of regaining past glory and territory. Blaming the Armenians for the Balkan War defeats, the Turks used WWI to light the match to their smoldering contempt for Armenians, igniting an inferno of maniacal, murderous elimination that was to engulf the Christians for the next 7 years. The match struck in April of 1915. The Turks arrested and eventually murdered almost 300 of the Armenian elite in Constantinople. The Pogrom would continue through 1922 resulting in the deaths of 800,000 to 1.5 million Armenians.

The critics panned this movie for insufficient plot development concerning the romantic triangle between the 3 protagonists. Well, ok then.  Getting lost in the reeds of sex while the rivers run red with the blood of a thousand, thousand innocents, suggests that the proctors of art criticism are not even remotely up to the task.

Yes, The Promise is a love story, as a sub-plot, within the main story of telling the horrific events of the genocidal Armenian murders by Muslim Turks.  Numerous Turk methods of depravity are chronicled here, marching Armenian women and children into the Syrian desert sands to die of dehydration, cruel enslavement of the Armenian men to build infrastructure until they drop dead of starvation, injury or murder, the burning of Armenian towns and the mass execution of the towns inhabitants, and at the utmost limits of debasement the request for the payouts from Armenian’s life insurance policies after the Turks have killed them.

To this day Turkey refuses to acknowledge the death of the Armenian Christians as genocide; the current, unremorseful, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan prefers to refer to it as the Event of 1915.

Enough Already

5 September 2017 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Alien ConvenantAlien: Covenant

Theaters:  May 2017

Streaming:  August 2017

Rated:  R

Runtime:  120-122 minutes

Genre:  Action – Adventure – Fantasy – Horror – Science Fiction – Thriller

els:  2.5/10

IMDb:  6.5/10

Amazon:  2.9/5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  6.3/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  3.3/5

Metacritic Metascore:  65/100

Metacritic User Score:  5.9/10

Awards:

Directed by:  Ridley Scott

Written by:  John Logan and Dante Harper, screenplay; Jack Paglen and Michael Green, story

Music by:  Jed Kurzel

Cast:  Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterson, Billy Crudup

Film Locations:  Australia and New Zealand

Budget:  $97,000,000

Worldwide Box Office:  $240,900,000

The year is 2104, a little more than a decade since the ill-fated Prometheus was destroyed, denying humanity’s creators from undoing the birth of man, and the Weyland Corporation is sending another ship: the Covenant, carrying several thousands humans, to populate another, distant planet.  The ship has all its human occupants in stasis for the trip and all are watched over by a new and improved version of the psychopath David: Walter.  A starburst, looking a lot like a meteor shower, pierces the ship’s hull and kills the captain while he sleeps in his stasis chamber.  Walter wakes up the 14 members of the ship’s crew, including those married to each other to repair the ship.  The newly revived crew receives a human-like transmission from a nearby planet that appears to be a perfect place to start a new colony, better than their original destination.  The new captain, with the commonsense of a milk cow, diverts the ship putting in motion a series of explicable bad decisions that endangers everyone, the ship’s crew, the ship’s occupants, and the ship.

Samuel Coleridge, author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, stated that a written unbelievable narrative that was shown to have a “semblance of truth” could be enjoyed by the reader or audience by suspending judgement on the implausible parts. This is usually stated as the willing suspension of disbelief or to believe the unbelievable.  J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, took this concept in a different direction by suggesting that the narrative could have a secondary belief system within an inner consistency of reality.  Tolkien believed that suspension of disbelief was only required when the story’s plot line does not maintain an internally consistent fictional world.

Alien Covenant fails not because of poor direction or bad acting but because the writers of the story and screenplay put forth an unbelievable and implausible plot that destroys everything else the movie has to offer, and that’s before you even discover it is a complete rehash of the five previous Alien movies (I refuse to add in the Predator vs Alien movies).  The writers, mainly John Logan, somehow believe that the Peter Weyland Corporation is willing to put up a fortune of bitcoins and pieces of eight to build, outfit and send off a colossal starship, containing thousands of human embryos and adults, capable of traversing the vast parsecs of empty space, to find a suitable planet for human colonization; then staff the running of the ship with unintelligent and irrational beings that are incapable of assessing risk or following protocols, all the while compounding the silliness of their decision-making by having spouses or significant others amplifying their emotional buffoonery.  Gads, why not just leave it to Mother, Father, David or Walter.  With computers or androids running the show the writers can at least insert some plausible scenarios for illogical scenes that don’t have to rely on the characters and or audiences being absolute morons.  If  all else fails maybe the space faring chimps: Albert, Ham and Gordo have some offspring that are up for the task.  Hopefully Logan will return to writing plays and leave science fiction to those that can formulate plausible plots.

Alien Covenant goes where the previous Alien movies have already gone. Good androids, bad androids. Sniff and closely examine all gooey eggs, repeat endlessly. Find the Alien, lose the Alien. Burn, nuke, melt, freeze, shoot, chop, slice, dice, mince, atomize the Alien. How about we just bury the concept so deep that all the Alien acid combined will not be able to uncover it again.

Zombies — or Not

4 September 2017 By in Movies Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

PredestinationPredestination.jpg

Theaters:  March 2014

Streaming:  February 2015

Rated:  R

Runtime:  97 minutes

Genre:  Drama – Mystery – Science Fiction – Thriller

els:  8.0/10

IMDb:  7.5/10

Amazon:  3.9/5 stars

Rotten Tomatoes Critics:  6.9/10

Rotten Tomatoes Audience:  3.7/5

Metacritic Metascore:  69/100

Metacritic User Score:  8.0/10

Awards:

Directed by:  Michael and Peter Spierig

Written by:  Michael and Peter Spierig (screenplay) Robert A. Heinlein (story- All You Zombies)

Music by:  Michael and Peter Spierig

Cast:  Ethan Hawke, Sarah Snook, Noah Taylor

Film Locations:  Melbourne, Australia

Budget:  $NA

Worldwide Box Office:  $5,386,852

Ethan Hawke, temporal agent and bartender, must find and eliminate the Fizzle Bomber before he explodes one last devastating bomb that will take thousands of lives.

For the child of God, time is linear and unidirectional; we are born, we live, we die; the beginning, the middle and the end are all planned out except you can choose what to do with God’s offered grace.  Predestination, the doctrine, the outcome is a certainty; Predestination, the movie, the outcome is in doubt.  For predestination versus free will, the doctrine, is not a contradiction because, for God, time is immaterial, all moments are present in their immediacy. For predestination versus free will, in this movie, it is not a contradiction because time is circular and the protagonist can Keep On Keeping On until he selects good over evil, death over life (Live Die Repeat and Groundhog Day).

The Spierig brothers are identical twins born in Germany, living and working in Australia, creating movies from the ground up.  They write, they direct, they produce, they create the music, but they don’t act. Predestination is their 3rd feature film.

Predestination is a faithful rendition of Heinlein’s All You Zombies with enough temporal displacement to develop a very twisted noodle. The movie provides enough clues that you should figure out the plot well before the end credits roll; but knowing the plot ending neither diminishes the fun nor un-scrambles your brain.

The directing, writing and acting are all superb, but the story is what puts it on my to watch again list.