It is astounding that someone could actually deny that the Holocaust happened.  And yet, this new movie is the true story of one such famous encounter.

Deborah E. Lipstadt (Rachel Weisz) was an author who focused her attention on the Holocaust, specifically on those who might deny the event took place.  She wrote a book on the subject.  However, at one of her lectures about the topic, she is ambushed by David Irving (Timothy Spall), a vocal denier of the Holocaust.  Irving specifically had stated that Hitler had never ordered the extermination of any Jewish people.

Irving’s publicity stunt was just the start of the trouble, though.  He sued Deborah for libel for comments she had made about him in her book.  What was worse was that he sued her in the British courts, where the burden of proof was on Deborah, not on him.

What followed was the court case, led by a team of lawyers hired by Penguin Press, including Anthony Julius (Andrew Scott) and Richard Rampton (Tom Wilkerson).  The case strategy was not what Deborah had imagined.  Her lawyers intended on making the trial about Irving, not about any Holocaust survivors or about Deborah.

Being very outspoken, this strategy was challenging for Deborah, as she rallied against it on several occasions.

The film had several very strong performances among its cast of stellar actors.  Both Weisz and Wilkerson were excellent in their quirky roles, bringing life to these people.  Andrew Scott was very subdued and restrained, almost to an nth degree.  But I found the most compelling performance to be had by Timothy Spall.  Spall had the difficult assignment of playing a remarkably unlikable man, whose thoughts and words were bordering on hate speech, and yet, he made him a rounded individual.  The scene of him lovingly playing with his young daughter was downright chilling.

The other scene that really brought chills was the scenes at Auschwitz concentration camp.  The monumental horrors that occurred at that place is staggering to any right thinking individual and just the manner in which the gas chamber was described to Richard and Deborah by Professor Robert Jan van der Pelt (played perfectly by Sherlock’s Mark Gatniss in a small but compelling role).

Now, the film is not perfect by any stretch.  It did feel long and the middle section dragged on quite a bit.  Many of the courtroom scenes felt very real, but, because of that, lacked that normal dramatic flair that would accompany courtroom films.  That is not necessarily a bad thing, but it did slow down this film a lot.

There were also characters introduced that were intended to tug on the heart strings and really did not have any other purpose to the overall narrative.  These moments felts too manipulative and not needed.

However, the film documents an important trial in world history, bringing to light once again the travesty that had befell the proud Jewish people, who simply want the dead to be remembered and to be given a voice.  Denial does a good job of that.

3.8 stars

2016 has been the year of fantastic horror movies.  So much so that even a sequel (prequel actually) to a terrible movie from a couple of years ago that had trailers that were downright laughable in its badness, turns out to be a really good movie.

There was no way that I was going to like Ouija: Origin of Evil.  As I said, I hated the trailers.  This film looked just terrible.  I went into this with the mind set that I was going to hate this.

So what happened?

Ouija: Origin of Evil was a really fun time.

I know… I can’t believe it either.

Alice Zander (Elizabeth Reaser) was a medium who, along with her two daughters Lina (Annalise Basso) and Doris (Lulu Wilson), had “psychic” readings designed to convince grieving relatives that their loved ones were okay.  Though the readings were faked, Alice claimed that they were doing the survivors a service, helping them move on and give them closure.

Alice’s husband had recently died, and this loss was tough on the girls.  Lina sneaked out of the house one night to go hang out with her friends where she experienced a Ouija board.  Telling her mom about it, they decide to add the Ouija board to the act.

Problem was that, once they started using the board, Doris started showing some spiritual connection with it.  She would hear voices and could manipulate the Ouija board without even touching it.

At first, this seemed to be a gift, but it was not too long where Doris started exhibiting some less than positive traits.

I really enjoyed this movie.  The biggest thing that I enjoyed about it was that it took its time to introduce these characters and spent time on making them more than the typical stereotypical horror movie characters.  All three of the Zander women were well developed, three dimensional people with real worries, concerns and thoughts.  You don’t see that enough in horror movies.  In fact, even the secondary characters such as Father Tom (Henry Thomas from E.T. fame) and Mikey (Parker Mack) had time spent on them.

Lulu Wilson, who came across as silly in the trailers, does a great job in a role that demanded a strong performance for this film to succeed.  Her performance was both creepy and filled with sadness, which was also missing from the trailer.  Annalise Basso’s Lina was much more important to the story than the trailer made it look, and she steps up to the plate.

Ouija: Origin of Evil was directed by Mike Flanagan, who has directed the enjoyable Oculus and the excellent Netflix movie Hush, and Flanagan has another great horror genre film on his resume.  He does an excellent job of creating real scares in the audience instead of trying to maneuver the audience into being frightened.  The jump scares are kept to a minimum and when they are there, he does not use the loud music cues that most horror movies employ.  The silence used here was much more effective.

There were also a concerted effort to make this feel like a film that was made in the 1960s.  The film’s setting was taking place in the decade and Flanagan went out of his way to make it work.  He went as far as to add the little blip in the corner of the screen, which used to indicate to the film projectionist that it was time to switch reels.  This is not a technique that is used anymore and the fact that Flanagan added such a thing really showed how dedicated he was to creating the tone of this film.

There was no way that this movie was going to be a good movie.  The original Ouija film was one of the worst films of 2014 and there was no way that it needed a sequel.  However, Ouija: Origin of Evil was made and it turned out to be fabulous.  In many years, this would easily be the best horror movie of the year, but 2016 had some really powerhouse horror movies released.  Ouija: Origin of Evil is in the discussion with those great films, and I did not see that coming.

4.1 stars

Keeping Up with the Joneses is what you would expect…. unless what you expected was a funny comedy/adventure.

Jeff (Zach Galifianakis) and Karen (Isla Fisher) were a boring married couple, with two kids, living on a homey cul-de-sac.  Everything seemed to be going dully for the Gaffneys until their new neighbors, Tim (John Hamm) and Natalie (Gal Gadot) Jones moved into the neighborhood.  The Joneses seemed too perfect and the triggered Karen’s radar.  She suspected that there was more to this new couple than met the eye.

And Karen was right.  Even after following Natalie to the lingerie shop, Karen had questions.  Meanwhile, Jeff and Tim were bonding over snake dinners and indoor skydiving.  That all changed when the Gaffneys discovered a bug planted by the Joneses, leading them to sneak into their neighbors’ house where they found the couple’s spy equipment.

This movie is about as unmemorable as you could imagine.  It is predictable and dumb, depending on the antics of Galifianakis and Fisher as the comedic couple for the film’s laughs.  The problem with that was there is not much that is funny here.  In fact, the biggest laugh in the trailer was not even included in the film.  The loud and over-the-top nature of Galifianakis and Fisher was not something that was entertaining to me.

Now, I will say that I liked the pair of John Hamm and Gal Gadot, their relationship and thoughts on their job being one of the more interesting storylines.  Both Hamm and Gadot are likeable actors and do a nice job here.  This did put my concerns over Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman at ease for now.  Gadot is an extremely attractive woman who has a definitive presence on screen.  I’m still not convinced that she has the acting chops to be Princess Diana, but she did nothing here to encourage that thought.

When not yelling, Galifianakis and Fisher are likeable enough.  I just found their characters too cartoony to be realistic.

There was nothing new or necessary about this film.  The cast was a strong point, but the story, the dialogue, the humor was really lacking.  There is nothing here that will make you like this film.

2.3 stars

Toyko’s in for it again as everyone’s favorite King of the Monsters, Godzilla, has returned to its roots, savaging the Japanese in this new reboot.

This is not the same reboot as we got a few years ago with Gareth Edwards directing.  This returns Godzilla, or should I say Gojira, to the style of film from the 1950s.  A Japanese speaking romp that sees Godzilla tramping through the Japanese cities.

No sign of Raymond Burr this time though.

Misuse of nuclear waste again leads to the birth of the King of Monsters, as Godzilla comes from the water, onto the land and begins wrecking havoc.  Now, there were some interesting differences in Godzilla in this new version.  In particular, the film shows Godzilla evolving into the monster we recognize.  Godzilla’s first appearance in the film is extremely different and even a bit shocking.  I did like how they showed the natural evolution of the creature from one form to another.

And most of the Godzilla scenes were very strong.  They looked good and Godzilla also done very well visually.  It had a better look than those original Japanese film for sure.

The problem with Shin Godzilla (which actually means Godzilla Resurgence) is the non-monster characters.  And there were a ton of them.  Each character that appeared on screen got their own little written intro on the screen.  That became very distracting as I was already trying to read the subtitles.  The film also placed details on the screen every time the film switched locations.  So there were writing on the screen dealing with new characters, setting and dialogue, as well as the original Japanese text.  To say that the screen sometimes felt crowded would be an understatement.

Anyway, back to the human characters.  There were zero characters that had any sort of development and so gave me nobody to root for.  And when I have no one to root for in a movie like this, I root for Godzilla.  However, this Godzilla was not shown as the heroic and noble beast that we have seen in other iterations.  He was meant to be the act of nature in a man vs. nature story.  He is the earthquake. He is the erupting volcano.  But I still saw him as one of my favorite characters (as well as an EYG Hall of Fame member).

Another issue with the film was the non-Godzilla parts were all about government bureaucracy and how it might respond to this type of attack.  That made this very dialogue heavy and, at several times, boring.  I will admit that I thought this picked up a bit when the US got involved and was considering using a nuclear strike against Godzilla.  That brought up old wounds for the Japanese (considering they had two bombs dropped on them during WWII) and that was a powerful section.  There was not enough of that though and I think that could have been extended more.  Especially if we had some human characters to root for.

The closest we came was a Japanese-American Kayoko Ann Patterson (Satomi Ishihara) who wanted to be President of the US one day (awwwwwwww, silly girl…).  Kayoko was the closest we came to having a character who had more to do than just stare at Godzilla and worry about what was happening.

I came out of this film not sure of what I thought.  On one hand, I really liked the Godzilla parts, even the goofy looking first sight of the monster, but I found much of the non-monster parts dull.  However, I think I liked a lot of the ideas that those non-monster parts presented.  It was very realistic with how a government (including the world around that government) would react to the ravaging monster rampaging through the streets of its biggest city.  It showed how things really had to grind out and how the process of a decision could be just as problematic as the monster itself.  Still, I wanted more of a hero to cheer for besides Godzilla.  There was one scene with rescue workers standing outside of what was once a building and I thought it was going to be some kind of powerful reminder of these kind of tragedies, but it did not go in that direction.

I think the film missed several opportunities to make a really awesome Godzilla film, but what is here has some strength on its own.  I am very split on this film.

3 stars

I had heard a lot of negatives surrounding the new sequel, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back from critics that I respect, so I approached this movie with low expectations.  I didn’t love the original Jack Reacher film, meaning I didn’t have that to fall back on either.

And yet, I didn’t hate this movie.

Of course, it’s not a very good movie either.

The film brings us back into the world of Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise), a former military man (a major) who was now doing freelance work here and there.  He has become friendly with a contact in the military, Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders).  He is so taken with Turner that Reacher plans a trip to Washington, D.C. to take her out for a dinner.  When he arrives there, however, he discovered that Turner had been arrested for espionage.

At that point, a series of weird plot points begin happening, which lead to Reacher breaking Turner out of jail and the pair of them heading out on the run.  They had to determine who was behind the framing of Turner, and finding enough proof for anyone to believe them.

Add to this, the subplot of a 15-year old girl Samantha (Danika Yarosh) who might be Reacher’s daughter, whom he did not know he had.

Poor Danika Yarosh is cast in this film as Jack Reacher’s version of Kim Bauer from 24.  If you don’t know anything about Kim Bauer from the classic Kiefer Sutherland series, she was one of the most annoying characters on the canvas because she was constantly doing stupid things that put herself or others around her into danger.  This is what Samantha was here to do as well, as there was no other reason for her inclusion in the story.

The plot was pretty formulaic and predictable, but there are many action films that are.  The villains were not memorable at all, with Patrick Heusinger’s The Hunter being little more than a one-note villain.  I also got confused, because it seemed as if he initially was nothing more than a hired henchman, but he wound up killing his “boss” for no reason but for a plot contrivance.  Plus, there were many extra villains who would turn up where Jack Reacher was so they could have an action scene.  It was like the last Fast and the Furious movie with Jason Statham appearing wherever the Fast crew was just so they could fight.  It’s lazy writing.

Having said all of this, there are some good action scenes in Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (which is a title that makes absolutely no sense to the story.  It feels like it was a title that they used out of one of those name generator things) and I did enjoy Cobie Smulders here.  It goes to show you that Maria Hill could do more in the Marvel Cinematic Universe if the higher ups choose for her to do it.

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back was not a good movie, but I did not hate it.  I even considered giving it a fresh review, but the more I think back, the less justification I can have for it.  Still, if you want to see a dumb action movie, you could do worse than this film.

2.7 stars

We have super heroes everywhere.

Even former toys from Mattel are becoming super heroes.

16 year old Max McGrath (Ben Winchell) has returned to his home town after years of moving around with his mother (Maria Bello).  Suddenly, he started displaying a strange energy that caused electronics to short out and churned within him like a bomb.

Max did not understand what was happening and, as he was trying to figure it out, he came across an odd alien named Steel (Josh Brener).  Steel knew something about the mysterious energy and about the creatures that killed Max’s father years ago, but he was having trouble remembering it.

There is a shadowy group following Max and trying to kill Steel as well.  Then, we discover that the pair can combine into an armor wearing super hero, called Max Steel.

This film is not the worst thing I have seen, but there is nothing remarkable about it either.  It is a rather dull origin story that was very predictable.  I disliked the way Steel spoke, not sounding like an alien at all.  And the acting was pretty abysmal, especially  Andy Garcia.  Garcia’s performance as Dr. Miles Edwards was obnoxiously bad.  It was clearly a paycheck performance for the former Oscar nominated actor.

The special effects were okay, but nothing really special.  There was a definite feel of an 80s or early 90s movie… and not a good one.

Honestly, I spent much of the first 30-45 minutes with my eyes closed and trying to doze through it. I was never officially sleeping during it, but I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention either.  Max Steel was not much of a super hero movie.  This is the type that could really bring about super hero fatigue.

2.2 stars

Ben Affleck is on the spectrum in the new hitman movie, The Accountant.

Diagnosis of Autism has been on the rise for several years now, making this a topical film and an empowering one.  Yes, even with autism, you can grow up to be a mass murderer… and an accountant.

The Accountant is the story of Christian Wolff (Ben Affleck), a man who is autistic, but who grew up with a military father who insisted that he be trained to be able to physically take care of himself.  So Chris was brutally trained, with his brother, is hand-to-hand, weapons among others.  Chris was also a prodigy with numbers, as he became a masterful accountant, helping criminal organizations around the globe launder their money.

But when a company called Chris in to look at their company’s mysterious loss of money, he gets involved with another employee, Dana Cummings (Anna Kendrick), who discovered the book’s problem in the first place.

An unknown party wanted this money issue to remain hidden, and so Chris and Dana become targets of a hired assassin, played by Frank Castle himself- Jon Bernthal.

I found much of The Accountant to be pretty boring.  It dragged through much of the movie, which made it feel very long.  The story was needlessly complicated.  Not only was the whole Chris and Dana tale weird, but they had a Chicago agent, played by J.K. Simmons, who was trying to find the Accountant, and was blackmailing another agent named Medina (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) to help him.  Much of this part of the story could have been removed and you wouldn’t have missed much of anything.  In fact, it would have helped the flow of the film.

Ben Affleck and Jon Bernthal are,once again, the strongest part of the film.  Affleck does a very good job portraying the intricate idiosyncrasies of the Accountant.  Bernthal is just exceptional in everything he does.  Together, these two are very entertaining to see.

Other actors in this film are wasted.  I have already mentioned Anna Kendrick, whose character is completely out of place in this movie.  She was meant to be some kind of inspiration for Chris, but I did not buy that for one second.  Also, J.K. Simmons could be completely removed without losing much, and that is a travesty for an Oscar winner.  He spends a long time in one scene basically laying everything out for the audience.  It was a waste.  But the use of three veteran actors, John Lithgow, Jean Smart and Jeffrey Tambor was inexplicably wasteful.  These amazing actors were given little to do and we barely got to enjoy their presence.

The ending action scenes were well done, but a bit too late.  There was also a lot of humor used in the film, but honestly, despite the one-liners being funny, much of the humor felt out of place. Perhaps it was because many of the humorous one-liners felt as if it was being directed toward Affleck’s character and, by way of that, at his autism.

This was a letdown, as I had been thinking that this would be a really good time.  Unfortunately, The Accountant was too long, with too many plot points and not enough action.  Affleck and Bernthal were great again, but much of the remaining cast of the movie felt as if they had been wasted.

2.7 stars

If you like Kevin Hart, you’ll love What Now?

I do like Kevin Hart and I found myself laughing throughout the movie, filmed at the Philadelphia venue, Lincoln Financial Field in front of over 50,000 people.

Sure, his stand up comedy is raunchy and filled with politically incorrectness, but there is no denying that the laughs are real.  And even when the jokes themselves are not great winners, Kevin Hart can bring laughs from his delivery, the performance that is as much self-deprecating as it is crude.

I also really enjoyed the opening act of this film, where Kevin Hart showed up to a casino, ala James Bond (including an entertaining Bond-like opening theme song) and played poker in the hours before the concert was to start.  Hart came in with Halle Berry on his arm (though she seemed to not be a fan), and played against the short’s villain, Victor (David Meunier).  Add to this the inclusion of Don Cheadle as himself, a rival of Hart who becomes tired of his act, and the machinations of the bartender (Ed Helms) and this opening was very fun.  I thought this was just the right length, something that some of Kevin Hart’s full length movies had trouble with.

Once Hart arrived on stage, the film picked up even more.  He told stories, many which he claimed were true, about his “lady”, his children, his father, his new house that needed lights on his driveway…among many others.  Kevin Hart’s frenetic style draws out the humor and drives home the laughter.

If you find Kevin Hart annoying or obnoxious, there is nothing in What Now? that is going to change your mind.  But if you are a fan, then you should have an entertaining time with this concert film.

4 stars

This one faced a serious challenge for me.  I work at a middle school so I found myself constantly thinking that the things that were happening were just so unbelievable that it was pulling me out of the movie.  I found it considerably more difficult to suspend my disbelief for this film that was based on a bestselling novel.

And suspending disbelief was absolutely necessary to accept anything that was happening at this school.

Still, there was a surprisingly emotional and deep character heart in this movie that I was not expecting.  I have never read any of the Middle School book series so I did not know any potential spoilers heading into this film, but there were some definite moments that I found very heart warming and full of heart.

Rafe (Griffin Gluck) was onto his third school in the last year, having been expelled from two others.  This was a hopeful new start.  However, he discovered that the new school was controlled and oppressed by an overbearing principal named Dwight (Andrew Daly).  Principal Dwight had a rule book that he insisted that all students follow without exception, much to Rafe’s chagrin.

Rafe, a talented artist, had his sketchbook confiscated by the rules-mad principal and it was destroyed.  Angry from this slight, Rafe decided, with the support of his friend Leo (Thomas Barbusca), that he would break every rule in Dwight’s rule book as revenge.  Rafe went about pulling amazingly complex and difficult pranks to make the principal look foolish.

The story was told with several breaks into animation, where pictures that Rafe had drawn would come to life to tell the story.  Some of these moments with the animation worked, however, many more of them flopped badly.  Most of the animated sections of the film from the first 30-45 minutes were not an effective use of animation.

Griffin Gluck was a charming actor who did an admirable job as the lead character.  He also displayed some surprisingly strong emotional scenes when the Sixth Sense-like twist was revealed.  I give the film full credit that I never saw that twist coming and when a film can surprise me, it has earned some respect.

Yet, my own life at a middle school made it nearly impossible to just ignore the gaping plot holes that filled this story.  Griffin was able set up all these amazing pranks somehow.  Apparently, there is no camera system in the school.  Also, I guess he can get in and out of the school at any hours.

Principal Dwight was as one note of a villain as you are going to see.  He had no reason to be as over-the-top as he was, or at least, I did not understand why he was the way he was.  To make it worse, they added another horrible person as the vice principal Ida Stricker (Retta) making there be two wastes of characters.  The film had the friendly and kind teacher trope as well with Mr. Teller (Adam Pally) who did not like the choices of the administration.

The only area that I could relate to was the comments the film was making on education being too dependent on standardize tests these days.  Principal Dwight took some desperate steps to make sure that his students were number one on these tests.  Yes, he was cartoonish in this film, but I know that many dramatic steps are taken to make sure that students do their very best on this type of assessment.  There have also been stories of schools cheating on the tests, which this film highlights.

I was also impressed with the acting skill of Alexa Nisenson, who played the role of Rafe’s sister Georgia.  This little girl brought a realness that much of this movie was missing.  The interactions between Rafe and Georgia were among my favorite scenes in the film.  The inclusion of scene stealer Rob Riggle as the unwanted and mean spirited fiance to Rafe’s mother (Lauren Graham) may have been too much.  Riggle is always entertaining, even when his role is weak, and this is no exception.

Middle School: The Worst Years of my Life was not the worst time at the movies I had ever had.  In fact, there were many moments that I truly enjoyed.  The problem was there was not enough of these wonderful scenes to fill out a movie, and the parts that were bad were quite bad.  I found my own life as a middle school teacher interfered with the necessary suspension of disbelief to truly enjoy the film.  Still, there were some real emotion and heart here, especially with the child actors.

2.8 stars

Holy animated nostalgia, Batman!

I grew up in the late seventies watching reruns of the Batman television series that ran for three years during the 1960s.  Starring EYG Hall of Famer Adam West and Burt Ward, the Batman series was full of cheese and old fashioned goodness.

Of course, Batman has evolved since this iteration of the Dark Knight.  He has become more dark and gritty, sacrificing the over-the-top goody-good of the series.

However, recently, DC Comics released a new comic book series called Batman ’66, which brought the character back to this campy version.  With the success of Batman ’66, it was just a matter of time before DC’s excellent animated movies would come calling.

And even better, they were able to get Adam West and Burt Ward to return and voice these characters that made them iconic.

The film also had the voice talents of former Catwoman, Julie Newmar.  Catwoman was one of the four most famous of Batman’s rogue’s gallery who made multiple appearances on the Batman series.  Along with Catwoman, there was Penguin, Riddler and Joker.

Sadly, the three actors who portrayed these Batman villains have passed on.  Burgess Meredith, Cesar Romero and Frank Gorshin were amazing in these roles and having them gone was going to be a challenge for any version that would include them.

Yet, the new voice actors do a great job of paying homage to the original actors without completely doing an imitation.  William Salyers played the Penguin, Wally Wingert played the Riddler, and Jeff Bergman played the Joker.  Honestly, I actually wondered if the voice of the Riddler was actually Frank Gorshin (who died in 2005).

The story is wonderful.  It is just like the weird and off-center show that inspired it.  There were many laugh out loud moments in The Return of the Caped Crusaders, but it was not a jokey film.  The humor here came from the same place as the show did.  Everything was so ridiculous, from dialogue to plot points, but the actors played it perfectly straight.  They played it as if it was deadly serious and that only made it funnier.

The animation was nothing special.  It was not a big screen animation.  It was animation for a direct-to-DVD film.  I happened to see this on a big screen through a special presentation by Fathom Events, but there would be no mistaking this animation for Pixar.  However, I think the animation on Batman: The Return of the Caped Crusaders was superior to that of Batman: The Killing Joke, another animated Batman film from earlier this year.  And the animation really fit well with the campy tone and feel of this film.

People who were not fans of the Batman television show will probably look at this version of the Dynamic Duo and wonder what DC was thinking, but for fans of the show, like me, this was a magnificently wonderful trip down memory lane and an amazingly entertaining time at the theater.

4.5 stars

Another true life Disney story hit the theaters recently with the arrival of Queen of Katwe, an emotional and enjoyable romp through the competitive world of chess (with no sign of Bobby Fischer) and a poor village in Uganda called Katwe.

Young Phiona (Madina Nalwanga) was a girl who would sell maze to people in their small village of Katwe.  The money she brought in helped her family, who had been struggling since the death of her father.  Phiona’s mother Nakku (Lupita Nyong’o) desperately tried to provide for her family while staying true to her moral code.

Meanwhile, Robert Katende (David Oyelowo) was trying to get an engineering job, but his lack of a family tree was an obstacle.  He took a job with an outreach community organization to help coach the kids of the area.  Robert introduced chess to the kids and when Phiona arrived, he quickly determined that she was something special.

There were some really strong performances in Queen of Katwe.  Oyelowo and Nyong’o are special actors and they brought their “A” game.  All of the children involved were really very good as well, especially Madina Nalwanga.  This was her debut appearance and she carried herself wonderfully with big time established actors playing opposite her.  There were a lot of entertaining children in this movie, but Nalwanga has a bright future ahead of her.

One of the things that I really liked in this film was the presentation of the village of Katwe and the challenges that faced the families there.  Yes, this is a Disney film so you aren’t going to see a full on display of the challenges of the people of Katwe, but they did look at the difficult lives of these people which included females having to “sell” themselves to men in order to provide for their families.  The use of that topic in this film surprised me, but it felt like an undeniable reality of someone struggling to survive this harsh environment.

I also enjoyed the scenes where the children were placed in different surroundings at the chess tournaments.  Such situations as discovering ketchup was just perfect little touches and was played beautifully by these young actors.

I would say that the film leaned toward being too formulaic, as we have seen other Disney sports themed  movies that would echo this one, and the film did feel a little long at times, but these are not glaring weaknesses that prevent one from enjoying this inspirational tale of the underdog overcoming her obstacles.

3.9 stars

Based on an extremely successful novel, The Girl on the Train is the new film directed by Tate Taylor (The Help, Get On Up), and starring Emily Blunt.

Rachel Watson (Emily Blunt) is in a downward spiral in her life.  She is an alcoholic, basically stalking her former husband Tom (Justin Theroux) and his new wife Anna (Rebecca Ferguson).  She takes a train past their house every day.

She has also built up a fantasy in her head about former neighbor Megan (Haley Bennett) and her boyfriend Scott (Luke Evans) as a perfect couple.  She would create the images in her drunken head as she traveled past their house on the train.

Unfortunately, those fantasies are just that.

Megan ends up dead, and Rachel becomes the number one suspect, as she had come out of a booze-enduced blackout with blood all over herself.

The movie was one that I was excited for since seeing the trailers, but the film was not nearly as good as I had hoped.  There are some pacing issues on the film, as it does have some dull moments.  The story itself is okay.  Some of the “twists” that happen in the film are pretty obvious, but they play them like it is the first time we have ever seen it.  Honestly, many of the plot points were obvious.

However, I must say that I thought Emily Blunt was just tremendous.  She was amazing with her performance.  Yes, the character of Rachel was fairly unlikable, but I found her to be very appealing.  Blunt brought humanity to this trainwreck of a stalker character who was drinking herself into oblivion.  Only an actor of Blunt’s quality could take the character of Rachel and make her enjoyable.

There were some silly things that happened in the film as well, mostly dealing with Megan.  Megan, the eventual victim, revealed much of her weird back story during the film in a series of flashbacks that jumped around in time.  I did not hate the flashbacks, but I can understand someone having trouble following the story because there were many times when the film would come back from a flashback and move into something from the current time without a proper transition.  Even I, who was following along reasonable well, had to think my way through a few of the time changes.

Many people have compared this to Gone Girl, but it falls way short of that mark.  I did not hate this movie, in particular because of the compelling performance of Emily Blunt.  This performance deserved a better film around it.

3 stars

Didn’t expect to love this one.  Yet, I did.

This thrill ride is a true story of the worst oil rig disaster in US history, as the tragedy that was known as Deepwater Horizon is told in this new film by director Peter Berg.

In April 2010, a series of events took place that led to explosions aboard Deepwater Horizon, an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that was to drill a hole and set up another oil rig to be able to pull the oil from the Gulf.  Problem was that some corporate bigwigs were trying to push the crew to get started without proper testing.

Mark Wahlberg plays Mike Williams, one of the crew on the ship, and he does a wonderful job.  Wahlbeg is the heart of the film and really shows the heroism that was on display among these men and women.  Kurt Russell plays “Mister Jimmy”, the head of the ship and a man who is proud of his safety record.  Jimmy gets into a debate with the BP bigwigs, in particular Vidrine (John Malkovich) who is able to talk the crew into pushing ahead despite their reservations.

The first part of this movie does a really good job of setting these characters up.  Mike especially as we see his beautiful wife Felicia (Kate Hudson) and his charming daughter (Stella Allen).  Some people might complain that the beginning was too slow, but I thought it struck the perfect balance between setting up story and character.  And it made us care for these people whose lives would be placed in jeopardy later in the movie.

Then once the disaster movie kicked in…holy crap… it was suspense wrapped up in tension.  The special effects were astonishing, as I found myself gasping multiple times at the amazing and terrifying situation these people found themselves in.  The film does a great job of making the audience feel as if they too were stuck in these situations.  You could almost feel the heat of the fire closing in on you.

I will say that there was too much use of shaky cam for my tastes in some of the action scenes, but it felt like it made sense as to why it was used.  If Peter Berg wanted the audience to have the POV of the characters, than this worked well.  I just wish I could see things better.

This was a marvelous time in the theater, as I squirmed and worried as these characters were put into danger.  I cared about them and I watched in awe as the suspense was masterfully leveled by Peter Berg and the talented cast and crew.  Amazing visuals compounded the already tense situation and made into one of the better disaster movies you are going to see.  I really loved this film.

4.4 stars

I loved this book.  Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a young adult book by author Ransom Riggs and I fell in love with it.  When I heard that it was going to have a big screen treatment, I was cautiously optimistic.  The news that Tim Burton was attached to it did not really change my mind.  Burton has some great films, but also some real bad ones.  Seeing the trailers though made me think that this was not going to be good at all.  I did not enjoy any of the trailers leading up to the film.  I worried that this was going to be another weak YA adaption such as The Maze Runner or Divergent.

I am happy to say that, after seeing the film, I was happy with the adaption.

Jake (Asa Butterfield) has to go see his grandfather Abe (Terence Stamp), who seems to be having a dementia-fueled break down, only to find his place tore up and his grandfather dying.  Abe tells Jake that he needs to find the bird and she will tell him everything.  This strange message is compounded by a birthday gift that leads Jake to remember childhood stories that Abe had told him about a school for children in Wales.

Convincing his father to take him to Wales, Jake finds his way into a time loop and discovers the school full of peculiar children.  A peculiar is someone born with a strange power or ability (also called Mutants in the X-Men universe) who are shunned by the world at large.  They are led by Miss Peregrine (Ava Green), a Ymbryne- which is the term for a woman who can turn into a bird and who can play with time.  Miss Peregrine has created this time loop to keep the peculiar children safe from the monsters that chase them.

The monsters, known as Hollows, are former peculiars themselves who are controlled by the white eyed villains led by Barron (Samuel L. Jackson).  Barron is trying to capture Ymbrynes because their essence can give him ever lasting life.

There are differences between the book and the movie, as always, but the changes did not affect how much I enjoyed Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.  The girl Emma (Ella Purnell) who had originally had a relationship with Abe, and then later with Jake, was, in the novel, the character with the fire power, but in the film, she had power over air and needed to wear lead shoes to keep from floating away.  That peculiarity was a different character in the novel.  These little changes did not bother me.

I will say that I thought the ending encounter with Barron was pretty forgettable and not up to the standards of the rest of the film.  I heard some complain that the film was slow and boring at the beginning, but I did not find it to be.  I thought they did a really strong job of setting up what would be a challenging concept.

Asa Butterfield was really good throughout the film.  I kept thinking about him as Peter Parker, though (not that I would have preferred him to Tom Holland, but Asa Butterfield was reportedly close to winning the role, so I kept picturing him as Peter).  I would have liked to have seen more of the initial problems with Jake and his life so it made more sense as to why he wanted to find these other children.  In the novel, Jake is portrayed as a really troubled teen, but here he simply seemed upset by the loss of his grandfather.

The look of the film is great, although the Hollows do seem a little too CGI.  The peculiar children are great.  There are some who could have used more fleshing out, but several are done very well.

In the end, I was concerned about the film, but I enjoyed watching it.  I was not offended by what was different and I found this more engaging than the trailers led me to believe.  I think this film series, if it continues, could become a very strong franchise.

3.4 stars

One could wonder how true of a true story this is.

There is so much slapstick and ridiculousness in this film that, if this were real, this could be the most bizarre story ever told.  However, the movie really was not good.

Masterminds is the story of a security guard at an armored car company in the south who was manipulated into committing the largest bank robbery in the US ever.  17 million dollars was stolen by David Ghantt (Zach Galifianakis), encouraged by his former co-worker and huge crush Kelly (Kristen Wiig) and her friend Steve (Owen Wilson).

David is shown as a typical Galifianakis character.  Stupid, but kind of lovable.  David and Kelly had a kind of nice relationship, but I found it difficult to believe that Kelly had any feelings toward David.  I guess since it was a true story, I have to accept it, but I did not see how there would be any connection.

There are so many dumb things going on that it really makes this a cartoon.  And that would not be a bad thing, if it were funny things, but, unfortunately, the laughs are very few and really far between.  This commits the biggest sin of any comedy…and that is it is just not funny.  There may be a couple of funny moments, but most of those had already been seen in the trailer (ex. the car crashing into the gate).

There is a really strong cast, but none of them could pull this out of the tailspin that it was.

Jason Sudeikis’s character, a hitman hired by Steve, is as horrible of a character as you are going to find.  He is just tremendously poor and unfunny.  Stupid, even.  He falls into a situation similar to the infamous “Martha” incident in Batman v. Superman, but he takes it to an even more stupid conclusion.

Stupid really isn’t funny.  A movie can be stupid, but clever, and that would work ( the original Dumb and Dumber is a good example), but Masterminds falls into that category of films that are stupid but not clever (Dumb and Dumber 2 is an example of this.)

I went into this wanting to like it, and I didn’t despise this film.  I didn’t like it either.

2.3 stars