The newest Clint Eastwood directed movie features Eastwood as the lead character, and there are some strangely uncomfortable moments in a 2018 movie.

First off, the trailers made this look like something more violent in tone and more like Eastwood’s character is trapped in a life that he did not want to do and was uncertain how he was getting out of it.  However, that was not the tone of this movie.

This movie was more comedic than it was violent.  It was more weirdly uncomfortable than it was vicious.  Eastwood played a character who was an old man with old world values who did not know when he should not say something or know when he was saying something inappropriate…or racist.

Earl Stone (Eastwood) was a 90-year-old horticulturist is having money problems and is shown as a deadbeat father and husband.  He takes a job “driving” for some people, who turn out to be a Mexican Drug Cartel, and he is driving drugs.  However, Earl does the job very well and the cartel wants to increase his load.

Meanwhile, DEA agents Bates (Bradley Cooper) and Michael Pena (who has no name in the film) are trying to operate a sting inside the cartel which puts them on the trail of earl as the mule.

Earl’s family is having severe problems as well and he finds himself split with his attempts to be there for his family now, making up for the years he missed.

The film is very odd.  As I said, Eastwood’s Earl is extremely likable, but he says things that show him to be somewhat racist, or, at the very least, not empathetic toward people of different races.  He comes off more as an old guy who doesn’t know any better rather than a racist, though.

He also did not seem to be bothered much about driving these drugs around for this cartel.  He liked the money they were paying him for sure.  The film did a great job keeping Earl likable despite his outright criminal behavior.  Sure he needed the money to help his family, but that really did not excuse his activities.

There were several storylines that began but were dropped.  There was a relationship begun between Earl and his “handler” Julio (Ignacio Serricchio), but nothing came from it.  Serricchio was a former General Hospital star and was seen recently in Netflix’s Lost in Space reboot.  He was good here, but I was looking forward to a pay off of that relationship, but it never came.

There were plenty of things that happened in the plot that did not make a whole heck of a lot of sense either.

It was a strange movie because I found myself unsure of how I felt about the characters involved and Earl just was shuffling his way through this movie and he never felt as if he fit in with the narrative being told.  It was in opposition to the trailers that they showed and made me kind of uncomfortable.

That is not a bad thing.  The film was okay.  It is not up to par with some of Eastwood’s best films, but it was better than many, especially some of the recent one. Eastwood fans should enjoy this movie.

3.4 stars

What were the odds that I wasn’t going to love this movie?  I mean… Spider-man is my all-time favorite character.  It seems to be receiving rave reviews from almost everyone.  The first time we see Miles Morales.  There is Peter Porker Spider-Ham and Spider-man Noir (voiced by Nicolas Cage).  Of course I was going to love this, right?

Right?

Right?

Am I building the tension?  Do you think I am waiting to pull the rug out?  No?  Of course, I loved this. It was fabulous.

Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse is the origin story of Miles Morales(Shameik Moore) and how he became his universe’s Spider-man.  Miles is an incredibly smart and talented young man who is on his way to a new, special school throwing his life into a spin.  Unable to talk with his father Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry), Miles heads to his uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali) for help.  After going with Aaron to a secret location, Miles gets bitten by a radioactive spider from Alchemex.

Miles finds himself in the middle of a big fight between Spider-man and the new Green Goblin around a gigantic collider that is potentially tearing a hole in the time-space continuum.  Tragedy strikes and Miles winds up with the only thing that can stop the machine.

He is approached by a group of time displaced Spider-people including an older Peter Parker (Jake Johnson), Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), Peter Porker the Spectacular Spider-Ham (John Mulaney), Spider-man Noir (Nicolas Cage) and Peni Parker (Kimiko Glenn) and this group is trying to find their way home.

And come one, Spider-Gwen is just cool as can be.

So is Spider-man Noir.  The whole black and white thing was such a cool joke.

And Spider-Ham.  C’mon.

The story is so tremendous and very deep.  The characterization is beautiful, the plot is intense and the relationships between characters, especially between Peter and Miles, is special and original.  We get a fun version of Aunt May (voiced by the classic Lily Tomlin).

The animation of Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse was unbelievable and was the most creative type of animation I have ever seen.  It felt like a comic book come to life, literally.  It was weird, artistically astounding, filled with texture and style.  It seemed as if it were in 3D, but it wasn’t.  This was not a typical animated movie.  They took a chance by making this film different and it worked extremely well.  I could see some people having problems with the animation, because it is so different, but I found it to be an awesome stylish piece of art.

Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman were the directors of this movie, but many people seem to be giving a ton of credit for the film to Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were involved as producers and Lord was one of the writers too.  They brought their trademark humor to the film and it worked perfectly for Spider-man.  The witty banter from Spider-man is such an important aspect of the character and it is the best example of it here than any previous Spider-man movie to date.

The fact that they showed that Miles Morales is half African-American and half Puerto Rican is a moment of inclusiveness that takes the world to another level.

The only thing I was not wild about was the portrayal of Kingpin.  The character was well done and I liked the voice by Liev Schreiber, but the look of the character was something that I had a hard time getting past.  It was the one negative that I can state of Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse.

This is one of the best movies of the year.  I need to see it a second time to really judge where on that year end list this is going to land, but it will certainly be in the single digits.  This film could open up the market for theatrically released superhero movie and that would give the genre even more ability to tell amazing stories.

4.95 stars

This is a fascinating experiment.  Taking the rated R Deadpool 2 and recutting it to make it PG-13 is intriguing.  I especially liked the fact that part of the money made from the box office of the movie goes to fight cancer.  “Fudge cancer” is the PG-13 version of that.

Then, they shot a bunch of new scenes featuring Deadpool and Fred Savage, whom Deadpool kidnapped, tied him up, dressed him as Fred’s character from The Princess Bride and read him the story of Deadpool 2.  This framing device is all new and very creative, filled with a ton of meta jokes.

I LOVED the Fred Savage stuff.  Every scene with Deadpool and Fred are GOLD!  I absolutely loved watching every second of these creative bits.

The problem is that the rest of the film felt wrong.  Maybe the fact that most of the parts that are remaining was the parts of Deadpool 2 that I did not love.  I did not love them killing Vanessa.  I was not a fan of of the kid, Russell (Julian Dennison).  This movie felt as if it really doubled down on these aspects of Deadpool 2.

Then there was Cable (Josh Brolin), who I thought was great as Cable, but Fred Savage had made a joke about Cable in one of the framing sections.  Fred was excited in the story when Deadpool mentioned Cable because of how developed and intricate the character in the comics is, but the joke is that the Cable in this movie was nowhere near as developed as the comic.  So they were making crap out of their own film character.  I found that strange and I hadn’t considered that.

Then, the story itself just felt off.  It did not fit the PG-13 rating.  What they did with Deadpool 2 was neutered.  Even the best part, the introduction and immediate dispatching of X-Force, is considerably less funny here.  Maybe I just knew it was coming, but I think the overall brutality of that moment is what makes it so hilarious and it just is not as funny in this one.

Now, what this tells me is that Deadpool can absolutely survive in a PG-13 world, as they prove with the Fred Savage scenes, but Deadpool 2 can not be redone to be PG-13 and be effective or anywhere near as entertaining as the rated R version.

The most emotion that I had in the film was at the last post credit scene which was a tribute to Stan Lee.  It almost brought me to tears.  It was a beautiful tribute to the man.

When I first saw Deadpool 2, I loved it, but did not think it reached the level of the first Deadpool.  Once Upon a Deadpool’s framing scenes with Fred Savage are every bit as good, if not better, than either film.  The rest of the movie is just not up to snuff when compared to the other Deadpool movies.

3 stars…(overall-  but 5 stars for the Fred Savage-Deadpool stuff)

Netflix’s latest release comes from the mind of director Andy Serkis, and is the newest adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s classic tale, The Jungle Book.  However, this is not your Disney version of The Jungle Book as Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle is considerably darker and edgier than the animated Disney film or Jon Favreau’s live action adaptation from a couple years ago.

The story is similar to start.  Mowgli (Rohan Chand) is a baby when his parents are killed by the violent tiger Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch).  Mowgli winds up with the wolf pack and is protected from the tiger’s teeth as Khan swears to eventually taste the man cub’s blood.  Mowgli is raised in the pack until the tiger returns to cause further chaos by inciting the humans by killing their cattle.

The panther Bagheera (Christian Bale) and the bear Baloo (Andy Serkis) do what they can to protect the man cub from the dangers of the jungle while still trying to teach him how to survive.

There is a lot of violence in this version, so do not mistake this for a children’s movie.  This is more in line with the original version from Rudyard Kipling than it is with the other theatrical versions.  The dark tone is not a problem as it seems to fit fairly well with the life of these animals.

The CGI of some of the animals are nowhere as smooth as the Favreau version.  There are times when these talking animals were simply weird to look at and that is a major drawback after we saw the exact same type of CGI pulled off flawlessly.

While it may not be fair to compare the two versions (or the animated Disney one) of this story, it is difficult to avoid, especially with the said version coming out just a few months ago.  And with WB selling this to Netflix for release, there is the idea that WB did not believe that this film would have survived a theatrical release.  I think they were probably correct in that assumption.

Again, that does not make this a poor movie.  It only makes it one with flaws.

The voice cast is tremendous, including the wondrous Cate Blanchett as Kaa.  There was no music, not a sign of “Bare Necessities” anywhere and that is a good thing since it would have felt totally out of place with the story this film was telling.  The young actor who played Mowgli, Rohan Chand, was solid in the role.  He may not have stood out as much as did Neel Sethi did in 2016, but Chand was respectable.

The film is uneven as it suffered from moments of dullness, despite other moments of freedom and drama.  There was not much dealing with the humans that was worth the time in the film, and that connection for Mowgli is lost.  Perhaps that was the idea.

Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle is not a bad time and is most likely a decent watch on Netflix.  Most of the film looks good and the story is different enough to keep you invested.

3 stars

I have to say… I may not be a big fan of most Christmas movies… the new Netflix film, The Christmas Chronicles starring Kurt Russell, is charming, clever and a load of fun.

Kurt Russell makes a fantastic Santa Claus, updated for the new generation.  There are many smart and fun adaptations of the classic Santa tropes in the film that you have to really pay attention to the dialogue or the surroundings to catch them all.

Kurt Russell performs the song “Santa Claus is Back in Town” and it is one of may favorite music moments in movies this year.  It was a real jailhouse rock, literally.  It was also the moment of the film that won me over.

In The Christmas Chronicles, Santa gets distracted by two arguing children, the boy heading down the wrong track Teddy (Judah Lewis) and his sister, the ever-joyous Katie (Darby Camp).  With these two causing a dangerous sleigh accident, Santa is stranded in Chicago with Christmas spirit rapidly dwindling and nighttime hours slipping away.  The three of them have to work together to save the holiday.

The film is sugary sweet for sure, and can be completely predictable, but it is a Christmas film.  You fond yourself engaged with the struggles of these two young people and the coolness of Kurt Russell as St. Nick is undeniable.

It is not a forever classic, but the film is a fun watch and a great family movie to watch with your kids.  Kurt Russell is awesome in the role of Santa Claus. He totally immerses himself into the role, making it feel special.  A combination of The Santa Clause and Home Alone, The Christmas Chronicles is a good time.

And the Mrs. Claus cameo is exactly what I had wanted.

3.2 stars 

You know that the movie is in trouble when 15 minutes into the movie (in the empty theater that I was watching it) I think to myself, “I should really give this more of a chance than I am and not be ripping it so much already.”

Unfortunately, even with that unambiguous personal comment, there was just so much to rip.  I felt as if this needed the RiffTrax or MST3K guys to make the ambiance complete.

The Possession of Hannah Grace was just a ridiculous film with laughable moments that wanted to be scary, but failed miserably.

The film started with the typical religious exorcism that we have seen plenty of other times before, but one that takes a sudden and weird turn, one that really did not make any sense at all.

Then, three months later, the body winds up at the morgue and former police officer, recovering addict and new morgue late shift worker Megan (Shay Mitchell) starts seeing some strange things happen.

There are some things dangled in the story that are never dealt with.  Plot holes I guess you could call them, but there really is not that much of a plot…can there be plot holes when there really isn’t a plot?

Hannah Grace looked silly as she spider-crawled around the morgue and made it through doors and locks without any problems… and crackled and popped as she did it.  It was just humorous, and of course, unintentional.

In the opening credits, I spotted the name of Stana Katic, who played Beckett on ABC’s Castle for years.  I loved her and I started looking for her, but her role was severely disappointing for me.

I don’t know what else to say about this stinker.  I did laugh several times, though I wasn’t suppose to.  It was not scary.  It lacked a story.  The characters were weak or non-existent.  It was just bad.

1 star

Joel Edgerton has shown himself to be a strong director.  His film The Gift was a fantastic story and now he has added to it with the powerful film Boy Erased.

Based on a true story and the book by Garrard Conley about his own experiences.  Jared Eamons (Lucas Hedges) was a teen, confused by his sexual orientation and, after some events happened to him at college, he approached his conservative, religious parent with the fear that he has “thoughts” about men.  Jared’s father, Marshal Eamons (Russell Crowe), a Baptist preacher, found a conversion therapy program, run by a man named Victor Sykes (Joel Edgerton), that said that they could “cure” Jared of his homosexual tendencies.

Once there, Jared slowly begins to realize his mistake and looked for help from his mother Nancy (Nicole Kidmon).

The acting in this film, across the board, is phenomenal.  All of your main stars give stand out performances in Boy Erased, anchored by another strong, and surprisingly subtle, performance from Lucas Hedges.  Hedges has truly cemented himself as one of our finest young actors working today.  Joel Edgerton continues to thrive in everything he does.  The character of Victor Sykes is one of the most complex and layered characters in this movie, his internal struggle playing off everything that he is trying to do.

Russell Crowe is amazing as the Baptist preacher whose faith is challenged by the lifestyle of his son and his love for his son fighting against his personal beliefs.  Crowe is shown as a good man who just can not get out of his own way.

Nicole Kidmon delivered a fantastic performance as Jared’s mother, who is able to show both her conflicted faith and her fierce protective nature for her son.

Just the fact that places like this conversion center ever existed is a stain on our life and culture, but what is worse is that these places continue to exist.  The info at the end of the film indicated that 36 states still allow these places to be legal.  In the world of 2018, that ignorance is simply unacceptable and backwater.  We need to move past this kind of bigotry and start dealing with people as people.  Boy Erased does just that in some very powerful moments.

Admittedly, the film starts a little slow, but the performances certainly outweigh any negatives.  This is a potent film that has a message that we all need to hear.

3.8 stars

The Coen Brothers are back with an exciting and enjoyable anthology film that features six short Western stories that perfectly encompasses their brand of humor, irony and storytelling.

As in most of the Coen Brothers’ work, there is a tremendous cast of actors appearing in the film.  James Franco, Clancy Brown, Stephen Root, Liam Neeson, Tom Waits, Tim Blake Nelson, Zoe Kazan, Tyne Daly and a group of other recognizable Western character actors.

Each of the six stories in this anthology have different styles of a Western, starting with the Gene Autry-style parody of the good guy cowboy and ending with a stagecoach ride that sums up the entire film featuring some serious performances from Tyne Daly, Jonjo O’Neill, Brendan Gleeson and Unforgiven’s Saul Rubinek.

I really enjoyed almost all of these Western shorts.  I will say that Zoe Kazan’s “The Gal Who Got Rattled” was my least favorite and was the one where my attention was diverted the most.  Not that it was a bad short, but I just was more engaged in the other stories.

I loved the “Ballad of Buster Scruggs” story that kicked off the film.  Tim Blake Nelson came singing into the town in his white, pristine cowboy outfit only to reveal himself as one of the worst killers you would find.  The contrast was fascinating and I was also surprised when it ended when it did.  Buster had been talking to the screen and breaking the fourth wall as he went along and he felt like someone who might continue through the movie.  Nope.

Irony plays a big part in these stories, as does death.  If there is a topic that carries through the entire film, it is death.  The old west was certainly shown to be a place of death and of danger for all by the Coens.  However, there is a distinct feeling of fancy in each of the stories, albeit at different levels.

Stephen Root’s bank teller character in “Near Algodones” is a real hoot.  You can see the reaction from James Franco at the ridiculousness of Root’s responses.  One of my favorite moments was when Root came running out from behind the bank.  It was just a laugh riot.

Tom Waits’ Old Prospector character in “All Gold Canyon” was another great story, this time nearly a one man’s journey, his obsessive battle against the land and his intense desire to find gold in whatever manner he could.  The Prospector’s dialogue is very funny as he talks to himself, grumbling about the success or lack thereof.

“Meal Ticket” features Liam Neeson who owns and runs a traveling show that featured a man who has had his arms and legs amputated.  This man would vocalize famous writings and speeches for the entertainment of the crowds.  At first, he was quite the novelty, but his originality began to waver and he would soon be surpassed by the next big thing.  I think if you really want to look for hidden meaning, this one is ripe with possibilities.

If you are a fan of Westerns, this is a must see.  If you love the Coen Brothers and their past films, this is a must see.  I am not especially a fan of either of those but I found this film to be funny, dramatic and full of wonderful irony and fun.

4.6 stars

This one is really great.

Green Book is the true story of an African-American pianist, Dr. Don Shirley (Mahershala Ali) and his trio of musicians trip through the Deep South of the United States in the 1960s.  In order to make the trip, Shirley needed a driver/bodyguard, someone who knew how to get things done and not afraid to do what was needed.

Enter Italian bouncer Tony Lip (Viggo Mortensen) who was recommended to Shirley.  Tony was a tough guy and he was a world class bulls**tter.

Tony brought Shirley ( or Doc, as he called him) through each stop of the tour, seeing first hand the cruelty of racism, the unfair treatment Doc had to endure and the remarkable talent that the pianist displayed.

There are so many moments in this movie that, much like the recent The Hate U Give, are hard to watch or that we can believe could happen in America.  As a white man, I can just look at some of the ways these people treated Doc with shock and disappointment.

The relationship between Tony and Shirley is easily the key to the movie.  Seeing these two men develop and learn about each other and develop feelings of friendship toward one another as this tour continued is easily the highlight of the movie.  Both Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen are Oscar worthy in their work here and the way each man learns information about the other is a wonderful example to how we can cross race and differences with respect and honesty.

The film is not just a dramatic film though.  It actually is very funny as well.  The movie is brilliantly written and the humor comes organically with the dialogue and the situations these characters are placed in.  The moment where Tony is able to get Dr. Shirley to eat Kentucky Fried Chicken is one of the best scenes in the film.  Such a human moment that is just one example of great moments peppered throughout Green Book.

Linda Cardellini is Tony’s wife, Dolores, and, while she was not as important to the story as she could have been, her presence was absolutely felt and was a key reason the two men were able to be brought together as Shirley began helping Tony write the letters home to her.  Cardellini’s role was more than “just-the-wife” here and she does a great job.

I am sure that the movie could have been uglier as the time in the country was horrible for race relations and racism was just too prevalent, but the movie did its share to shine a light on how the tour was for these two men.  It also ended with such a strong and positive message that it shows that it is possible for racism to be overcome and to bring us together as a people.  If only there was more of that in the world, we would be so much better off.

Green Book was an outstanding time at the theater and I would recommend it to anyone.

4.75 stars