I went into Pet Sematary, the 2019 remake of the classic movie based on a Stephen King novel, ready to be scared.  Unfortunately, I came out to judgy.

Don’t get me wrong, Pet Sematary was very scary and intense of a film.  What I was judging was the people who were in the theater with me.  There were at least two families in this theater with kids that were under 10 (if not younger).  All I have heard is how scary this film was, so why are these “parents” bringing their young and impressionable children to see it?  Selfishness is all I can think of because the parents wanted to see the movie and so they brought their kids.  There is no little kid who sees the ads for Pet Sematary and think that this would be a great time at the cinema.

And I am not even talking about teenagers, some of which would not be bothered by this (though it was very tense), but these little kids will clearly be having nightmare about this film because it was filled with gruesome images and violent scenes surrounding death and darkness.

As an adult, I found the movie to be engaging and it certainly kept me on the edge of my seat, and I will recommend the movie to any ADULT who wants to see it.  Maybe even some teenagers, depending on their outlook.  But parents, for goodness sake, leave your little children at home.

Jeté Laurence plays Ellie, the daughter of a couple (Jason Clarke and Amy Seimetz) who are looking to get away from the fast-paced world of Boston and have moved into the country, to a house on the outskirts of a forest. Before too long, they notice weird things happening and discover a pet cemetery on their property.

Ellie meets neighbor Jud (John Lithgow) who has lived in this area his entire life and knows some of the magical characteristics of the land.  And when the beloved family cat gets killed, Jud leads Jason Clarke to a powerful place to bury the cat.

This is the biggest issue I have with the film was the reason Jud had Jason Clarke bury the cat there since he seemed to know that when the animals come back, they are not the same.  The same thing happened to his dog when he was younger.  The excuses he makes really do not play well and this is the biggest weakness of the story.

If you can get past that, the story is one of loss and pain and what grief can do to you, what steps it might make you take.  And, of course, if you mess with those forces that you cannot understand, things rarely go well.

That cat was very creepy throughout the entire movie.  So was Jeté Laurence, who has a remarkable performance as Ellie.  She is a big reason why this film works and why you believe the odd twists that happen in the third act.

While not as successful of a remake as It, Pet Sematary was creepy and moody, with some disturbing imagery that makes it worthwhile if you are a horror fan.  And very unsettling if you are under 10 (shame on you, parents).

4.1 stars

Gloria, you’re always on the run now.
Running after somebody, you gotta get him somehow.
I think you’ve got to slow down, before you start to blow it.
I think you’re headed for a breakdown, so be careful not to show it

-Laura Branigan, Gloria

Julianne Moore stars as the energetic titular character Gloria Bell who seems to have a ton of problems dropped in her life. Still, she finds the will to dance.

The film was a decent movie, but I have to say I did have some issues.  First of all, and probably most of all, there really is not a story here. Gloria Bell is more like a series of events that happen to this woman loosely strung together.  And when I say loosely, I mean some without any transition at all.  There were some times when switching scenes felt very jarring and took me out of the movie.

Having said that, this film is based on the strength of Julianne Moore’s performance and she brings it here.  Julianne Moore is absolutely the reason to see this movie as she brings so much energy and heart into this character and you empathize with her at every turn.

Gloria’s relationship with John Turturro was fascinating as well.  At first, you think that this guy is the perfect fir for the free-spirited Gloria, but as the film goes on, his warts begin to show.  I was rooting for them right up until the final end.

The music was great.  Seeing Gloria singing these sappy love songs as she drives her car was a funny way to move between scenes.  Music obviously plays a big role in her life and the soundtrack is filled with some epic disco and pop music.

Brad Garrett makes a funny appearance as Gloria’s ex-husband, but his part is fairly small.  He is strong though for each time he is on screen.

In the end, this was an enjoyable film mainly because of Julianne Moore and her free wheeling performance.  I would have liked more story though and to have the events of the film fit together more than just something happening to Gloria.

This one will stick with me for a while.

The story of the true life attack on the famous Taj Hotel in Mumbai, India from 2008, Hotel Mumbai spares no level of violence or terror in its attempt to show the story of the evil being wrought by the terrorists and the heroism of the staff of the hotel among others.

The day is like many others for hotel worker Arjen (Dev Patel), except he is running late for work.  Delivering his child into his pregnant wife’s arms took long than expected, and so he was in a rush.  So much so that he does not realize that he had dropped his work shoes, a problem that nearly got him sent home from work by head chef Oberoi (Anupam Kher).  Arjen talked his way out of being sent home.  Little did he know what was about to happen.

American David (Armie Hammer) and his Muslim wife Zahra (Nazanin Boniadi) arrive with their newborn baby and the nanny Sally (Tilda Cobhan-Hervey) for a visit at the Raj Hotel.

None of the guests or the staff knew that a small group of radical Muslim terrorists were preparing to strike across multiple targets around Mumbai, including the Taj.

This was very difficult to watch, because it was so realistic and so violent.  The brutality these men committed with little to no empathy was wrecking.  Without any previous knowledge of the event, I was grabbing onto certain characters that I wanted to survive the siege and the connection was tense.  I was on the edge of my seat the entire time with stress over what was happening.

Dev Patel was amazing.  I was not a huge fan of his in the film Lion, though everyone else seemed to love him there.  However, this was just unbelievable.  The heroism that this man showed int he face of such horrendous odds was inspiring.  My favorite scene of all of the film was when he approached a woman in the survivors who had expressed concerns over Arjen’s beard and head covering.  Instead of approaching the ignorance of the woman with anger and frustration, he came over to her, showed her pictures of his family and spoke kindly and straightforward to her.  After which he still offered to remove the head covering and beard if it would make her more comfortable.  She told him he did not have to and that she was just afraid.  This really showed how ignorance can be overcome with kindness and honesty.  It was a quiet scene in a very bombastic movie but it stood out more than any of the violence.

Armie Hammer was also great in this film.  We kept waiting for the tall, blonde American to step up and become that action hero that we are used to in the movies, and when that did not happen, I was not sure how to feel.  The tragic nature of the film really hit hard when Armie’s fate was revealed.  In fact, I kept looking for the big action hero to step up and do something and when it did not come, it challenged my idea of what the film would be.

Perhaps the terrorists were a bit underdeveloped here though the film did try to provide us with some motivation for them.  In particular, Imran (Amandeep Singh) was shown with a tad more depth than his co-terrorists.  I will admit, though, the attempt to humanize Imran and show why he was involved and to show how deep his religious beliefs were held did not work to keep me from wanting that guy to pay for his involvement.  I found his fate to be very satisfying.

There was such an intensity with this film that I was physically uncomfortable watching it and I desperately hoped for a positive result.  Though it may not have been a completely happy ending, Hotel Mumbai was a devastating film to watch.

4.75 stars

While there were sections of the new live-action Dumbo movie that were good, I have to say that it felt as if something was missing. I am not sure that the variable that is missing is anything intangible or if it is just lacking some magic.

Tim Burton directed the new take on the flying elephant and you can see those Burton-esque moments (especially in the second half of the film), but I have been having a difficult time putting my finger on why this movie just did not grab me the way I was hoping it would.

In the updated story, soldier Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) returned from war with a missing arm to find his two children Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins) who had just recently lost their mother to an influenza outbreak.  Circus folk, Holt was sad to see that the owner of the Medici Brothers Circus, Max (Danny DeVito) had sold the horses Holt used in his act to keep the doors of the circus open.  Holt was given the role of elephant wrangler, which included the soon-to-be-born baby.

When the baby was born and had gigantic ears, Max was angry and tried to make the best of the situation.  Milly and Joe took to the elephant quickly and discovered that the large ears gave the elephant a certain advantage… an advantage of flight.

When the elephant first started to fly, dubbed Dumbo, Max made a deal with entrepreneur V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton) to partner with him in a new deal…a theme park called Wonderland, with Dumbo the flying elephant as the main attraction.  Soon, though, it is revealed that Vandevere does not have the best interest of the circus performers at heart.

I had heard the rumors before, but I could not believe it was the case, but, after seeing this, Dumbo is absolutely the story of Disney taking over 20th Century Fox and Michael Keaton and Disney is portrayed as the villain in the piece.  How subversive that is of Disney to put out a film that can be interpreted as painting them symbolically as the ruthless corporation that wants what it wants and discards the rest.  Dumbo represents the Fox intellectual properties here such as the X-Men, the Alien franchise, the Fantastic Four etc.  It was a weird feeling with this thinly veiled allegory happening.

The whole Wonderland = Disneyland narrative was the second half of the film, but I was having issues with the first part as well.  A lot of what happens in the first part of the story felt forced and did not make much sense.  The inclusion of a character named Rufus Sorghum (Phil Zimmerman) is part of the problem.  This character was so one note and villainous that I just could not believe it was a real person.  The character, which plays a big part in the original inciting incident, is just too much of a cartoon villain.  He may as well have been twirling his mustache.  So much of the initial set up was tough to accept and that made the whole movie a challenge.

I cannot believe I am going to write this, but I was so disappointed with the character played by Michael Keaton.  This character was so over the top that he was also hard to believe in.  Normally Michael Keaton is great in whatever he did, but this performance just seemed to stick out like a sore thumb and it was not good.

The rest of the cast was fine.  I’ve heard some negative comments about the kids’ performances, but I thought they were fine.  They did not have to carry the film and what they did was competent.  Colin Farrell was decent too.  I liked Eva Green’s performance as Colette and I thought she dominated every scene she was in.  While I did enjoy Green’s performance, I could have used some more interactions between Farrell and his kids over the loss of his wife/their mother.  Farrell seemed to be moving along fairly quickly.  There was one little scene near the end and I would have liked to examine that more.

Danny DeVito was the best of the live actors in this movie.  He was tremendous throughout as Max Medici.  DeVito was the best part of the first half of the movie and the most consistent part of the second.

The CGI of the film was great and Dumbo looked fantastic.  The flying scenes were all just wondrous and came the closest to capturing the emotion and the magic that you would expect from a Disney movie like this.  The first time we see Dumbo fly may be the best few minutes of the movie.

Unfortunately, most of the rest of the film fell pretty flat for me and failed to build on these amazing visuals of the movie.  There are scenes that were great in this film, but there just was not enough of them to make me feel the power that I thought it should have been.

2.8 stars

Mötley Crüe is the next band to receive the biopic treatment, this time on Netflix, and the film certainly highlights the band’s misbehavior over their long career in music.

The film did not shy away from the negative aspects of these men’s lives, as the drugs, the sex and the faltering relationships took center stage.  After watching this, it is amazing to know that Mötley Crüe was ever able to take the stage and perform on a nightly basis.

The film was narrated by the band itself, breaking the fourth wall several times to address the audience.  They also recorded voice overs for their individual sections.  I thought this technique worked effectively here.

The acting was solid.  Machine Gun Kelly was engaging as drummer Tommy Lee.  Daniel Webber stole the show as Vince Neil, especially in scenes with his little daughter.  Douglas Booth brought a humanity to Nikki Sixx that you did not think that he could have.

Having said this, these characters spend a lot of time in this movie being unlikable and downright jerks.   This is a true story, but it would have been nice to have a reason to cheer for them more than what the film gave me.  It also felt as if the movie brushed through the biggest parts of their lives to go back to showing the bad behavior.  It seemed as if they had more drama available to the filmmakers who passed it up for some more comedic scenes.

I could have lived my entire life without seeing the Ozzy Osbourne (Tony Cavalero) scene by the pool.

This is certainly an adult film.  There are a lot of scenes of sex and drug abuse that are detailed and disturbing.  Still, you get the feeling that this is exactly what the life was like for Mötley Crüe.

I was very interested in the story surrounding guitarist Mick Mars (Iwan Rheon) and the disease that he had that was leading to spinal problems.  I could have used more about that aspect of Mötley Crüe’s world, because watching him grimace throughout the film just made me wonder why he continued to rock on so hard.  The film touches on this theme, but does not dive into much depth.  It touched on it just so you know it is there, but not enough for you to understand what is driving the man.

The music is fun and rocks hard.  The rock star lifestyle is shown here, and we see some of the consequences of that choice, but perhaps not as much as we should have seen.

Still, as a Netflix film, this is a good watch and kept me entertained for the run time.  It even stirred some emotions watching it, in particular, near the end.  I was never a huge fan of Mötley Crüe, but you do not have to love them to enjoy this movie.

3.7 stars

I got the opportunity, thanks to Fandango, to see the new DC movie, Shazam two weeks prior to its release.  I was very excited about the later afternoon showing and I have been looking forward to it.  DC seems to be starting down this path as I also saw Aquaman early.

At this point, after only seeing Shazam once, I am preparing to make a serious claim.  That claim is that Shazam is my favorite DCEU movie to date, moving past Wonder Woman for the top spot.

Separated from his mother as a child, Billy Batson(Asher Angel) spent years in foster homes and running away from foster homes, still hoping to find his birth mother.  After a run in with the police, Billy wound up going to a new foster home with a large new foster family.  It was during this time when Billy was discovered by a wizard named Shazam (Djimon Hounsou), who gave Billy his powers so he could become his new champion.

Meanwhile, Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) was desperately trying to find the wizard once again.  Sivana had met the wizard as a child, but failed to prove his worthiness to become his champion.  Driven by power and revenge, Sivana took in the power of the Seven Deadly Sins.  He wanted more power …he wanted the power of Shazam.  You can understand why Sivana does what he does after seeing his back story and this helped create a well rounded villain.

This movie is really fun, has an amazing sense of humor and has more heart than any DC film prior to it.  There is more happening here at a smaller level, a level of family, that we have not seen yet in a DC super hero movie.  There is not the large, grandiose must-save-the-world type situation in Shazam.  It is more of a personal, smaller story, though at times it felt like more than a character story.

Asher Angel was fantastic as Billy Batson, but the film was in danger of being stolen by Jack Dylan Grazer.  Grazer, who played Eddie in the remake of It, played Freddy, one of the foster kids at the new home, and he is tremendous.  Freddy is not only the comedic sidekick to the super hero, but he is also the voice of the audience.  He also has an extremely emotional arc all his own to handle during the movie.  Grazer delivers everything he is asked to do wonderfully and really shows that he is one of the most solid young actors working today.

The entire crew at the foster home were good.  It was cool to see Jerry from the Walking Dead, Cooper Andrews in the film as the “father” of the foster home. Marta Milans did great as Victor’s wife Rosa in a limited amount of screen time.  Faithe Herman was the other major standout in the foster kids as Darla, who you just love immediately.

So much of this movie really works as the “Big Red Cheese,” Shazam (played by Zachary Levi) goes about discovering what he can do and trying to wrap his head around what he has to face.  While Zachary Levi is in the super hero role, Asher Angel gets the bigger dramatic beats in the movie, especially the subplot with his mother.  Angel showed that he is another young star to keep an eye on.

The CGI was great as well.  The villains, which has derailed DC movies before (hello Steppenwolf), look great and have a distinct character about them.  They are frightening and look to really be a threat to our characters.  These are more than just the normal CGI from DC.  Aquaman’s CGI had made distinct improvement and Shazam seems to have taken it a step further.

It was also very funny to hear how the film bounced different names around for the character in the film. Obviously, he can not call himself Shazam, because if he does, he changes form.  They cannot call him Captain Marvel as they used to do so it became a running joke from everything from The Red Cyclone to Captain Sparkle Fingers.

My only gripe with the film is with Zachary Levi.  While parts of the time I liked him as Shazam, I did not like how he yelled all the time.  There are a lot of actors who seem to yell as a fall back point, and I did not like it here.  I would also say that in the Shazam form, Levi did not feel like he was the Billy Batson character in a larger body.  Billy (Asher Angel) seemed way more competent than Levi did.  They felt too different at times.

Other than that, I really enjoyed this movie.  I even enjoyed the third act, which is something that I have never liked in a DC movie.  Even Wonder Woman’s third act was a dramatic downgrade from the rest of the film.  Man of Steel’s third act tanked the whole movie for me.  Shazam, though, had a strong third act that even shook off many of the typical super hero genre cliches that you see in the final battle.  Everything here worked very well.

Shazam had a great deal of themes, but the theme of family was at front and center.  It was powerful to see how both Billy Batson and Thaddeus Sivana had parental issues (surprise, parental issues in a super hero) and how they each dealt with it.

There are several meta moments too, as Shazam exists in the world with other heroes but understands his place.  This is a movie where the kids are front and center and that brought an air of freshness to this film that was welcome.  There is a unbelievably funny homage to Tom Hanks’ movie Big as well that worked on all levels.

Shazam is a heck of a good time and I am excited to have a chance to see it once again.  It is over-the-top in every positive way and has more humor and heart than any DC Comics movie ever before.

4.75 stars 

Jordan Peele had a huge hit with 2017’s Get Out and Us has been the highly anticipated follow-up for the director.  Jordan Peele has become one of the top directors in Hollywood and the horror film Us cements that for him.

In Us, a family of four head to their summer home for a vacation.  Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), her husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and their two children Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) arrived at the house and Gabe wanted to go to the beach.  Adelaide was frightened about something that happened in her childhood when she got lost for 15 minutes and came across a girl in a fun house mirror who looked exactly like her.

Sure enough, after the trip to the beach, Adelaide was starting to freak out.  When a mysterious family showed up at their home at night, the family realized quickly that their was danger facing them.  And when they realized that this family was nearly exact copies of them, the weirdness leveled up.

Lupita Nyong’o was absolutely fantastic here, as she had to play the dual role of Adelaide and Red.  Both characters were the same, but also totally different.  Red’s voice was one of the creepier aspects of the movie.  The rest of the cast was great as well.  Shahadi Wright Joseph was amazing and was totally brutal throughout the movie.  Young Evan Alex had a seriously physically taxing role as Jason and Pluto.  And then there was M’Bako from Black Panther himself, Winston Duke, playing a character much different than the warrior from Wakanda.  The film intentionally creates Duke’s Gabe as a lesser physical threat despite the largeness of the actor.

I realized immediately that this family was very smart.  One of the worst parts of horror movies is how stupid people get as they are in danger.  Not this family.  As I am watching, I am thinking to myself what these characters should be doing and, more times than not, they did either what I was thinking or something that I thought was a great move.  For example, there was a scene with Zora and Jason walking through a house where there had just been a violent murder and she walked past an open door.  She stopped and, before she moved on, she shut the door.  I thought to myself, “That’s a good move.”

I was not as scared as I thought I might be from the film.  It was more of a uncomfortable feeling of tension as scenes developed.  They did not resort to the cheap jump scares.  When the jump scares appeared, they were earned.  The tone was brilliantly set with the darkness of the shots and the wonderful score that created such a nervous wonder.

The biggest problem with the film was the gigantic exposition drop in the third act.  Though delivered exceedingly creepily by Lupita Nyong’o, I feel like it derailed a lot of the suspense and the uncertainty of the plot.  I did not need to know all of these specific details of what was going on.  A little bit of mystery goes a long way.  I would have preferred them to leave a lot of what was included here to the imagination.  The scenes were still effective, but I think it hurt the film overall.

The direction of the movie was pitch perfect, though.  Shot after shot was so well developed and so perfectly placed that it is obvious that Jordan Peele has earned the glowing praise that is being heaped upon him.  This is less of a social commentary than Get Out (although there is a message here too) and more of a straight horror film, but he never loses the exceptional movie making to go for the easy bit.

Without spoiling, the twist at the end is a fascinating idea (that I did consider during the film’s run so the twist does not come out of nowhere) and it actually makes you reconsider some of what we know about the entire family at the center of the movie.

Are there some plot holes?  Sure, there always will be, but there is nothing glaring that will stop me from truly loving this movie.  I do wish they would have kept some of the answers to themselves, but the info is delivered so effectively by a superior actress that it only bothered me for a little bit.  It looks to me that Jordan Peele has another huge hit on his hands and that, if he wants to continue in the horror genre, he could really elevate it to another level.

4.25 stars

I always enjoyed Cole Sprouse as Riverdale’s Jughead, so I found it intriguing to see him as a co-lead in this Fault in our Stars-esque rip off.

It is not cancer this time that is bringing the two teens together.  It is cystic fibrosis (what they refer to as CF the whole film).  These two are both in the hospital at the same time and they strike up a connection.  Stella (Haley Lu Richardson) is a control freak and can’t stand by while angsty teen Will (Cole Sprouse) refuses his treatment regimens while sketching everything around him.  They spend time together, despite not being allowed to come withing five feet (the film consistently says 6 feet, which was odd considering the movie title) of each other in fear that they would give each other the infection of their type of CF.

The closer they become, the more they are willing to flaunt the rules and place themselves in jeopardy.

While both Richardson and Sprouse are charming and easy to like, the film does not provide much for them outside of the typical cliches found in these dying teenage film genre.  The film does no favor to either of their lead actors as the situations become more unlikely as the film progresses and the plot is not developed past the surface level of manipulative tear-jerker.

I would say that both Richardson and Sprouse are stars in the making.  I was thinking about what Marvel character they could play.  I thought Sprouse would be great as Bobby Drake, aka Iceman in the upcoming X-men-in-the-MCU discussions and I considered Richardson perfect for Kitty Pryde.

You can tell that I was not as invested in the movie’s story since my mind was wandering to the MCU.  It is not a bad movie and there will be a ton of teenage girls who will love this movie, but the melodrama is at a high pitched level for me.  Charismatic young future stars aside, Five Feet Apart is just another forgettable dead teen film.

2.5 stars

A strong cast drew my attention to this new film on Netflix.  When a film can boast a cast including Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam and Pedro Pascal, you know there will be some attention.

Triple Frontier is a heist film, mixed up with a survival tale, with a sprinkle of the Expendables.  Violent and tense, the film does a great job of taking a simple story and making a compelling movie.

Five ex-special forces soldiers reunite to do one final mission which includes stealing millions of dollars from a reputed drug lord in the jungles of South America.  Unfortunately, problems begin happening to the group and suddenly, they begin to question the morality of their actions while trying desperately to survive.

The five characters are played well, and there are concepts that are touched upon, but much of the really deep choices are left out of the script, like bags of money at the bottom of a ravine in the Andes.  I have a feeling that the actors brought much of the character traits to the film themselves and that the script may not have fleshed them out as much as it could have.

However, there is a lot of great action beats here and the group is likable enough to form a rooting interest.  There is a surprise that happened about two-thirds through the film that caught me off guard and really laid out the situation for the group.  I liked the twist, but it did feel that there was not the sufficient pay off for the situation as it should have been.

I enjoyed the film although it is not quite as awesome as it could have been,

3.5 stars

Wow, this really shows how great a filmmaker Stanley Kubrick was.

Just kidding.  Of course, the conspiratorial rumors of the actual moon landing being faked and filmed on a stage set have been around for years, but I do not know how anyone, even the most conspiracy theorist, could deny the fact of the moon landing after watching the wonderful documentary by director Todd Douglas Miller, that took us where many movie viewers wanted First Man to go… following the lead up and the eventual moon landing of the astronauts of Apollo 11.

This is the 50th anniversary year of the moon landing and this documentary gives you an amazing look at everything as it happened, from the day of the launch right down to the splash down back on earth.

Apollo 11 depends on archival footage, much of it unseen, instead of interviews, recreations and voice overs.  Because of this, this documentary had a feel to it as if you were watching a news account of the event that shaped history for this country at the end of the 1960s.  And none of the visuals used were weak.  It was crisp and clear and made the storytelling that much more effective.

The music in the background of the film was amazing.  It was something that really stood out in most of the scenes in the doc.  The music truly helped audience members feel what was going on in the film, connecting even more than just the nostalgia of the moment in time.

This helps show the three astronauts, Neil Armstrong and pilots Buzz Aldrin & Michael Collins, as the true heroes that they were.  One of the biggest things I noticed was seeing how much of a celebrity these men were at the time and how big of a deal this launch was.  The footage of the people coming out to watch the blast off really tells you how important that was.  I could not shake the thought of how much the space program has fallen over the years with the public as any launch over the last 20 years or so was greeted with apathy.  Such a shame.

This documentary does not fail to show you a great story and provide the pride of a country in a race to reach the moon before any other country.  Let’s put the conspiracy theories about the moon landing to rest.

3.85 stars

I was not going to go to see this film because the reviews were low and I have been known to skip the poorly reviewed animated movies.  I am not usually their targeted audience.  However, there was an open space of time between Apollo 11 and Captive State so I decided to watch this instead of just sit in the lobby and wait.  I made the right choice.  This film was better than I thought it was going to be, but it was not one of those animated films that will transcend the age of the audience.

June (Brianna Denski) was a creative and active young girl, who was constantly building things for a model of an imaginary theme park called Wonder Park.  Her mother (Jennifer Garner) was very supportive of her child, even when her most recent construction leveled a good chunk of the neighborhood.

However, June’s mother took sick and needed to go away to try and get better, leaving June alone with her somewhat bumbling father (Matthew Broderick).  The angst over her mother’s illness put a halt to her creativity and her imagination as she obsessed with keeping her father healthy.

When she winds up in the woods, something magical overtakes June and she finds herself in the actual Wonder Park, but it was anything but how she knew it.  It was run down, broken and consumed with darkness.  June teams up with the personification of her stuffed animals to try and stop the darkness and return the park to its glory.

The story was painfully predictable, but might not be for the young children in attendance.  There was some nice colors and character designs, the villainous chimpanzombies were cute, and there was some decent voice work, especially from HBO’s John Oliver as a porcupine named Steve.

The story itself though felt extremely rushed and crammed together and, because of that, did not deliver the emotional response most of the time that it was looking for.  Some of the early parts of the story with June and her mother were good and the very ending in the park, while predictable as can be, felt as if it carried a little bit of weight.  Unfortunately, most of the rest of the movie was basically fluff without the depth that could have elevated the idea here into something more than a way to waste 90 minutes with the kiddos at the theater.

While I found this more entertaining than sitting and looking at my phone in the lobby of the theater, Wonder Park is not a great movie by any stretch.  I do think it has some value for the very young movie goers and it flies rapidly through to prevent the parents from being too bored.  Of course, that very rush in storytelling will also make it challenging for the parents to be entertained.

2.6 stars

I was looking forward to this movie because I had really no knowledge of what it was.  There aren’t too many films that hit the theater where I was uncertain about what it was going to be.

And then I saw this film.

Honestly, I hated this movie.  I was bored within the first ten minutes, I had absolutely no connection to any of the main characters and they kept bringing other people into the film that I had no idea what their purpose was for.  The story was disjointed and confusing and I really was not sure what was going on.  And not in a good way.

John Goodman was here.  He was a Chicago detective after the aliens had arrived and taken over the world.  Chicago was walled off and became a craphole.  There was a resistance inside Chicago, I think, and they were trying to do something.

Vera Farmiga, who I love and never gives a bad performance, is totally wasted in this role.  She has like two throwaway scenes and then ends up in a convoluted climax that tries to tie everything up in a nice little bow so everyone left the theater knowing what was happening.

I came very close to walking out of this movie on several occasions but I made it through to the ending.  The guy snoring loudly in the row behind me made it through as well, but he did not see as much of this travesty as I had to endure (plus, he was with a girlfriend/significant other… can’t you elbow him when he is snoring that loudly?  Geez, you want to snore, go the #@#$ home).

Hated this one.  Skip it.

1 star

Vincent D’onofrio directed this new Western featuring the legendary encounter between Billy the Kid (Dane DeHaan) and Pat Garrett (Ethan Hawke).

This encounter has been shown on film before but this time, the main focus of this film is on a different Kid than Billy.  Rio Cutler (Jake Schur) is a young adolescent boy who shot and killed his father as his father was beating his mother to death.  Running from his vengeful uncle Grant (Chris Pratt), Rio and his sister Sara (Leila George) accidentally come across Billy the Kid and his gang.  Unfortunately for them, this is just prior to Sheriff Pt Garrett’s arrival and capture of Billy.

Spinning a yarn about why they were there, Rio and Sara accompany Garrett as he is on his way to take Billy the Kid back to stand trial and to be hanged.

Along the way, Rio struggled to deal with what he had done, while seeing the two Western icons as potential role models.

The Kid is quite violent and bloody in many spots as the consequences of these bullets are obvious to the audience.  The film does not shy away from the idea that actions have consequences and the main theme of it is important of what you do next is a key one.  There are some strong ideas at play here, some covered better than others.

Dane DeHaan is excellent as Billy the Kid. He is charismatic and likable and, with this portrayal, you can understand why the young outlaw was able to accomplish what he did.  Ethan Hawke is very strong as he always is as Pat Garrett.  Hawke shows his struggles with doing what is right while sticking true to his core values.  The relationship between these two characters is one of the more intriguing parts of the movie.

What did lack at times was the relationship between the two icons and the boy, Rio.  I can see Rio as idolizing them and connecting himself with both of them, but, especially with what occurs, I am not sure that the relationship from the adults really fit well.  And it felt as if it were just a plot contrivance when Rio goes to Garrett to confess.  I am not sure I believed that they had a close enough relationship for Rio to take the chance he did.  Maybe he felt as if he had no other option.

Certainly, Billy the Kid sees himself in Rio and perhaps he wishes that he could be at a place in his life where he could have chosen another path.  Garrett did not seem to have the same connection with Rio outside of a caring adult to a child.

The sister becomes nothing more than a plot point though.  At first, she is the one getting in Rio’s head about telling what happened, and then, after she is taken away, she becomes the MacGuffin for Rio.  On the same weekend as Captain Marvel flies high with female power, The Kid does not have much of its own.

D’onofrio does a great job with the shots of the film, bringing that feeling of an authentic Western to The Kid.  The shootouts are dramatic and filled with tension and the message is strong.  I enjoyed the film for the most parts, though it felt as if there were some connective tissue missing in the plot and between the characters.  It was a decent Western to watch on a rainy afternoon, though.

3.3 stars

There has been a lot of controversy online surrounding Marvel Studios’ new film, Captain Marvel, starring the lovely Brie Larson.  I have heard the hatred of the trolls trying to review bomb Rotten Tomatoes before ever seeing the film.  I heard initial reviews being highly positive, but followed by reviews, from a lot of online reviewers that I respect and listen to, saying the movie ranged between okay and meh.  BY this point, I had no idea what I was getting into.

Sorry haters, but I loved this movie.

Brie Larson, known at first as Vers, is training with Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), friend and mentor with the Kree Empire.  She had no memories of her past, and she pretended as if that did not bother her, but it was affecting her decisions and her ability to grasp the training.  Upon a mission to rescue a Kree spy, Vers and Yon-Rogg, along with a group of Kree warriors, is ambushed by their sworn enemies, the shape shifting Skrulls.  After this conflict, Vers winds up in the Skrulls’ control and finds herself on the way to earth, where, strangely enough, many of her memory flashes seem to be from.

Once on earth, she meets up with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the two try to discover the mystery of Vers’ past as Carol Danvers and how she is connected to a scientist named Larson (Annette Bening).

I know some people might claim that the beginning of the film is slow and takes a long time to get going, and I would agree with that assessment.  However, I would disagree that it was a bad thing.  I really liked the slow burn at the beginning of Captain Marvel, and I believe that it was a must.  Marvel Studios threw a lot at us in that opening part and all of the set up needed to be in place for this film to work.  And I really thought all the stuff with the Kree and their planet of Hala worked well.

Oh, and by the way, I had tears in my eyes in the first 20 seconds of the film.  No spoilers, but it was perfect.

The relationship between Nick Fury and Carol was great and Samuel L. Jackson was the best version of Nick Fury we have had since we have met the character.  Before all the horrors of the world brought him into the pessimistic super spy that he was before he was dusted, this version of Nick Fury was funny, quick witted and, certainly, a cat lover.

And speaking of the cat… Goose the Cat is an absolute scene stealer and a huge part of this film.  Look for this character as one of the break out characters of Captain Marvel.

Going back to Samuel L. Jackson, the de-aging technology they used on Jackson was freaking unbelievable.  He was not just in a few scenes.  Sam Jackson was a co-lead.  And never once did I think, oh look… they CGI’ed his face.  It was an astonishing piece of technological marvel.  Unfortunately, Clark Gregg, who played Phil Coulson here, was not as lucky.  Coulson’s de-aging was okay, but nowhere near as perfect as Jackson.  For Coulson, you could tell they had done work on him.  It was still nice to see Phil make his MCU return and to see the connection between him and Fury.

I did not see the story going the way it went, and, even after the story took a turn, I did not know what to think.  There was a point where I thought to myself, “I really don’t know what is going to happen” and that was awesome.  There were some real surprises for me and I was shocked that they chose to go in that direction a couple of times.  I really appreciated those decisions.

I have heard a lot of people complaining about Brie Larson and claiming that she was miscast as Carol Danvers, and I could not disagree more.  I found her to be wonderfully charming and a perfect fit for the character of Carol.  I have always liked Brie Larson, so maybe I was predisposed to liking her in this role, but I truly thought she was the Carol Danvers that I knew from the comics to a tee.

Ben Mendelsohn as the Skrull leader, Talos, was brilliant as well.  I loved this villain and he was such a surprise with a much deeper story arc than I ever believed he would have.

Some of the 90s references were a bit ham-fisted.  It did seem as if the film was trying pretty hard to hit you over the head with the fact that this film was going on in the 1990s.  I am not sure the nostalgia bits of Captain Marvel worked very well.

As I am speaking about the parts that were not my favorite, I must say that I was not a huge fan of the CGI on Captain Marvel in the space scenes that we have seen in the trailer.  The final copy of this was better than in the trailers, but it did not live up to the levels of young Nick Fury in this movie or Avengers: Infinity War Thanos.  She looked too video game-y when she would have the helmet and the Mohawk on.

It also may be a bad thing to make Carol too powerful.  She may have trouble connecting to the normal movie goer if she is too strong.  I mean, who can stand up to Carol and be believable?

And there may be a few too many moments where the movie was explaining why something was as it was in the current day.  Let’s call it the “How Han Solo got his name” effect.  We did not need to see the origin of how Fury came up with the name of the Avengers Initiative.  There were too many of these Easter eggs which stretched the film’s credibility a bit far.

There are two extra scenes.  The mid-credits scene is absolutely amazing and made me all the more excited for the future of this franchise.  The post credit scene is … well, I think it is Marvel just F@#king with us.  It was awesome, mind you, but… they are f@#king with us.  They have to be.

I loved Captain Marvel.  Sure there are a couple of flaws in the production and some of the humor did not necessarily land (although I would say more landed than didn’t), but the story was compelling and the mystery of Carol’s past life kept you guessing.  The acting in top notch and the Skrulls are amazing…as is Goose the Cat.  There is great excitement and the film felt like it flew by for me.  There is wonderful character moments and I loved Brie Larson as the MCU’s big dog.

I cannot wait for Avengers: Endgame.

4.75 stars 

This was tough to watch.

First of all, I am listing this documentary in the Movie Review section because this 4 hour HBO documentary debuted at Sundance Film Festival this year and was aired on HBO March 3rd and 4th.

This documentary told the stories of two men who, as boys, were allegedly sexually abused by Michael Jackson for years.  Wade Robinson was a 7-year old boy from Australia who met Jackson through a dance contest.  James Safechurch was also a young dancer that Jackson helped in his career.  Both men relived graphic sexual encounters that they claim to have had with Jackson and how these encounters shaped their lives from the first moments on.

I have to say that I would have always considered myself a Michael Jackson fan.  I loved much of his music and was impressed with his amazing dance talent.

I remember never believing the accounts in 1993 when Jackson was originally sued for sexual abuse by a young fan (which was settled out of court).  Nor did I believe that Michael Jackson was guilty when he was placed on trial in 2005, when he was acquitted.  I was always seeing this through the eyes of Michael Jackson, unable to accept that he would ever do such a thing.

After watching the documentary, I believe every word that Wade and James said.

This was a painful and emotional roller coaster from the first moments and laid out a picture of a sexual predator who knew just how to take advantage of his celebrity to manipulate and control these children and their families, allowing him to get what he wanted.

The supporters of Jackson claim that these two men are liars (both of them had lied about the abuse for years to everyone, and Wade went as far as to testify for Michael in the court case) and that there was no shred of evidence.  While this may be true, the stories of Wade and James are compelling and their responses are convincing.  Watching the After Neverland documentary special with Oprah Winfrey that followed the documentary, seeing James literally shake and quiver sitting their tells me something had happened.

Both men told their painful stories fully and held back nothing in the documentary and, like many sexual abuse encounters, the only real evidence is the testimony of the victims.  In that case, their stories felt very creditable and totally believable.

Director Dan Reed, when confronted with the accusation that this documentary was one-sided, responded that the doc was really the story of Wade and James and the film would not have been serviced with people on the other side who could only state that Michael Jackson was a good guy and couldn’t have done this.  Truthfully, the only people who could have known what really happened was the boys and Michael and that is where the story was focused.

The Jackson family issued a statement about the documentary that said, in part, “The two accusers testified under oath that these events never occurred. They have provided no independent evidence and absolutely no proof in support of their accusations.”

This documentary changed what I thought about Michael Jackson and about the reputed sickness that he had been rumored to have.  This was a harrowing documentary to watch and difficult to finish.  Everyone, especially parents of little children, should see this film to understand the potential dangers that can come from places that are unexpected.

I’m not rating this documentary as that feels wrong, but I am recommending everyone watch Leaving Neverland and see what you think about the stories of these two men.