Reviews

The biggest fun in watching this movie now, in 2024, is to see many now-seasoned, 50-something actors in their 20s. The main story is well-known, the ambitious Cardinal wants more power and part of his plot to get rid of the young teen-age king is to have the Musketeers, whose job is to protect the King, disbanded. Right about the time that young D'Artagnan is traveling to attempt to join the Musketeers.

The movie is done with much humor while still sticking to the basic story. For a movie over 30 years old it comes across very nicely. Most of the entertainment is from seeing the several now-familiar veteran actors.

At home, on DVD from my public library.

I watched this on the advice of my daughter. Being 2024 now the show is old news, having started in 2018. If we believe that titles mean anything, and that the character Eve is in one fewer episode as her antagonist, maybe that indirectly tells us what will happen.

But I don't really know. I finished the first season, everything is built up but nothing is resolved. Frankly this is not my favorite type of program, where you have to follow story and characters for four years. I much prefer a 90 to 120 minute movie where the main story achieves some sort of completion.

However I really did enjoy season one. Jodie Comer as the assassin Villanelle and Sandra Oh as the government agent Eve Polastri work very well off each other. Any competent actress could have played Eve, but it is hard to imagine anyone as good as Jodie Comer for her role.

I may or may not watch additional episodes in additional seasons. Maybe when I need to kill time but not as a priority. After a while it becomes more of the same just in different situations.

EDIT: A few days later I watched the final episode of season four, just to see where all the characters went and how things were tied up. Interestingly I will say. But then I have no real desire to go back and watch all the episodes between the end of season one and the very final one. It is all very well done, lots of violence and lots of humor and good character growth. I just don't want to invest all the time watching a fictional story.

At home, streaming.

It seems so recent that Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher were relative youngsters starring in movies and TV shows. Now they are both middle-age, rapidly approaching 50, and in this movie they take on quite mature roles.

Witherspoon is single mom Debbie Dunn, living in working in Los Angeles. Kutcher is Peter Coleman with a successful consulting career in New York City. The movie starts with a flashback to 20 years earlier, to 2003. As passionate 20-somethings they hooked up but it never progressed. He moved across the country, he says because he was afraid of earthquakes.

However they have stayed good friends remotely, calling and chatting regularly. They are fond of saying "I tell you everything" but as the movie progresses we see that isn't really true.

The story swings into a quicker pace when Debbie has to go to Manhattan for a week to complete a course required to get her desired credentials. Her good friend is supposed to stay with her young son but cancels at the last minute. On the verge of cancelling her trip, Peter convinces her to travel and stay at his place for a week while he flies down to California to stay with her son.

There isn't really much new here but the two stars make it a pleasant and entertaining watch. I found myself thinking, "If the two leads were Amy Schumer and Seth Rogan, would this be any good?" And my answer was "No", because this type of movie needs two charming and likeable leads, and Witherspoon and Kutcher are.

At home, streaming, my wife and I were entertained.

Tom Cruise himself does not participate directly, this uses clips from most of his movies, essentially in chronological order, to illustrate the points being made here. It also includes many clips of Cruise in such situations as publicity appearances or behind the scenes during movie-making. Looking at the entire list of his movies since 1981, I realize I have watched almost all of them.

To me the title poses a question, not an answer, "Is Cruise the last movie star?" It is strongly suggested that he might be if you consider his career arc over 40+ years and that even in his late 50s and early 60s is still making action movies and doing his own stunts. And his blockbusters seem to be making more and more money than ever.

It touches on his involvement with Scientology, but only briefly and to point out that his avoiding discussion of it is probably better for his career.

I watched this at home, streaming on Prime. For me, a movie fan in general, I found it totally interesting and worthwhile viewing. Regardless of what one thinks of Cruise as a person, he is probably the hardest worker in the business and his movies are the better for it.

I want to first state that, like many modern movie scripts, this one has way too much filthy language. Sure, some of it comes across as authentic but overall, it is over-used, much like adding too much seasoning to a prime filet. It is very distracting.

With that aside this is a very entertaining movie, a dark comedy. It is set and filmed in New Orleans but the central character is based off a man who operated in Houston, Texas. It is based on, rather inspired by, the 2001 Texas Monthly article, "Hit Man," by Skip Hollandsworth. While many of the situations in the movie are authentic, many others are created for entertainment.

The hot leading man of late is Glen Powell, who was John Glenn in "Hidden Figures" and one of the ace pilots in "Top Gun Maverick". Here he is the central character Gary Johnson whose day job is a professor at the University of New Orleans and who also assists the New Orleans Police department. He is pressed into service as a fake "hit man" when another man has to take a 120 day leave.

His role is to meet with people who want to hire a hit man to dispose of someone, maybe a spouse, maybe a parent, an endless variety. But all he does is record the conversation and accept the money so police can make the arrest.

His life gets greatly complicated when unexpected romance enters his life. Powell has to play several versions of himself and various hit man identities and does it well, showing he isn't just a pretty face but also a fine actor.

My wife and I enjoyed it, at home, streaming.

This is a rather small movie and since there are very few reviews I surmise that relatively few have seen it. It features Anna Paquin and was directed by her husband. Set in a London community, it ends in Scarborough on the NE England coast.

As the story developed it reminded me of the 2020 movie "Dare to Dream" with Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas, where she was a widow and this mysterious man shows up just in time to help her get her life together.

This story is quite different but it features Luca Hogan as Neil, a boy of 13 about to turn 14. He is always nice and proper and has a knack for saying the right thing at the right moment. He claims he never gets cold and he says his older parents don't care where he is. I began to wonder if he represented some sort of divine facilitator who would disappear just when his job was done.

Anna Paquin is Ella, about to turn 40. (Probably her actual age during filming.) We see she is living in her father's house and we gradually learn she lost her children to their dad and his new wife because of her problem with alcoholism. She is required to attend meetings but she hates them. When Neil enters her life, when both of them are on the playground observing kids at play, he has a positive influence on her.

Ella goes through anger and self-pity for being in the situation she created but I found the quiet scenes between Ella and Niel to be the most interesting. While I wouldn't classify this as a great movie it is interesting and Paquin is good in the role. My wife and I watched it streaming at home.

If one goes into watching this movie and enjoying it for what it is, and NOT for what one thinks it SHOULD be, then it is a very interesting and well-made movie. Most votes are in the 5, 6, 7, and 8 categories which is a valid indicator of what this movie deserves.

It is set in Jerusalem in AD 33, which Christians recognize as the year Jesus would be arrested and crucified. The story focuses on LaKeith Stanfield in the role of Clarence, a 30-ish man who doesn't quite have his life right. He borrows money and a chariot with horse which are featured in the chariot race that opens the movie. Something happens, he has 30 days to come up with money to pay his debts.

As Clarence looks around he makes note of the attention surrounding Jesus. Clarence isn't a believer, he is fond of saying "Knowledge is more powerful than faith" and even goes to the mother of Jesus to try to find out how he does his tricks, his illusions of healing the sick or awakening the dead. His goal is to either become the 13th apostle or to declare himself as the "real" messiah and do tricks to convince the people that he is genuine, in the process raising money to pay his debts and to free some slaves.

All this raises many additional issues and for the most part they are treated interestingly and often with humor. I watched the extras on the DVD, hoping to learn what all the filmmaker had in mind with this story but his commentary didn't shed any light. I wondered if part of it is parody of the modern "men of God" who preach and depend on followers sending them money.

Regardless I found it to be totally interesting and entertaining.

The writer-director is also an accomplished musician, he wrote the score and lyrics to several songs which he also sings. All in all the music is wonderful and complements the movie scenes very well.

I watched it at home on DVD from my public library, my wife read about the premise and decided to skip. Not a movie for fans of ONLY traditional stories, but very interesting for those of us who enjoy unique approaches.

So, I've lost count of how many of the "Fast" movies are out but surely they must be getting to the end. However, as long as they keep making money...

Most of the old regulars are in this movie, even a short opening scene which includes Paul Walker who died over 10 years ago. Plus a number of other good actors, many with just short cameo appearances. The main protagonist is Vin Diesel as Dominic Toretto. His main antagonist is Jason Momoa as Dante who is out to avenge the death of his father.

I need to comment about Momoa who has mostly been cast as good and mostly gentle Aquaman in various movies. Here he is totally different, as other commentors have stated his character is reminiscent of The Joker in Batman movies. It was a pleasant surprise for me, I have a new respect for his acting chops, in fact to me he made the movie more interesting than just a series of races and spectacular crashes.

Plus, as the extras on the disc show, Momoa did all of his own stunts, including some thrilling motorcycle riding through the streets of Rome. (The disc has other interesting "making of" features.)

Anyway my wife was tired, so we put this on, a BluRay from our public library. We figured the noise and action would help keep her awake and it did. I don't consider this a particularly good movie but it is entertaining in its own way. It is PG13 but there is a lot of shooting and killing, I suppose that is what movies are teaching our younger generation.

John Wayne has a very special meaning to me, he and my dad share a birthday, May 26, 1907. My dad was a big fan so naturally I am too.

Here he is Sheriff John T. Chance in the 1800s Texas town called Rio Bravo. It seems to be a magnet of sorts for crooks, including card sharps who roam from town to town to take advantage of the locals. But now they have a bigger problem, the brother of a wealthy rancher shoots and kills an unarmed man in a bar argument and he is jailed. Most of the movie is about the sheriff and his two or three allies outsmarting the crooks who want to break their man out of jail while waiting for a US Marshall to show up. There are lots of gunfights and the final scenes include creative use of sticks of dynamite and sharpshooters.

(An aside, it is now 2024 and things have not changed much, almost every day here in Texas we hear about someone getting shot during an argument inside or right outside a bar.)

(Another aside, originally the expression was "card sharp" and that is what was used in the 1800s. In modern times more people use the expression "card shark" but that is not the original term.)

One of the sheriff's allies is 40-something Dean Martin as 'Dude', a reformed drunk who is trying hard to stay straight. He is a quick draw and very handy with a gun. Or two. During most of the 1950s Martin was in several movies as part of the Martin and Lewis comedy duo, Martin mostly playing the straight man to Lewis' comic antics. He was also a popular singer. He is very good here as the gunfighter who becomes a deputy.

Another interesting actor was teenager Ricky Nelson as aspiring gunfighter Colorado Ryan. Nelson grew up on TV with his parents' TV series so was very comfortable with a featured role while still in his teens. At one point while everyone was relaxing he played guitar and sang a duet with Martin.

And finally, a 20-something Angie Dickinson as Feathers who came into town on the stagecoach but never left. In spite of a generous age difference between her and Wayne the ultimate scene depicted a blooming love relationship between the two.

Overall, for me a very nice throwback to the kinds of movies I enjoyed growing up. At home, streaming.

As a young married guy just out of college I watched "2001" in the theater in Alton, Illinois, back in the late 1960s. I remember it as something totally different and not sure what to make of it. When it ended I was sure I missed something important so we sat through it again without moving out of our seats. As I have lived and read about it here and there I gradually understood what Kubrick was doing.

This movie, "2010", was made almost 20 years later by different filmmakers. It bridges off the former mission with lots of questions but few answers. In fact they have no idea what happened to the 2001 mission or how to interpret the final data transmissions.

In this movie a Russian mission towards Jupiter is planned but they need an expert who can, hopefully, troubleshoot and re-boot the HAL9000 computer that was onboard the old mission. So they add three American astronauts. Notably one of the Russians is played by a younger Helen Mirren ( who, of course, has a Russian father).

To add intrigue, back on Earth as the mission in in progress there is a growing possible conflict between USA and Russia. The black monoliths, always in the same ratio of dimensions, again are featured and depicted as possessing great powers. As the movie winds down and a few surprises happen, the message ends with a plea for peaceful existence on Earth of all peoples.

Curious to me, one actor was 40-ish Mary Jo Deschanel who today we know as the mother of younger actresses Emily and Zooey Deschanel.

I watched it at home on BluRay from my public library. I was a bit surprised that the video didn't look better than it does. My wife watched the first 15 minutes but it didn't interest her so she left and curled up with her E-book.

This movie is based on a memoire of her life by Caro Weber who was born in the 1970s, so being a college age student the story would have taken place in the 1990s. The main character in this movie is Caro Drake. Some of it was filmed in Nashville but most of it in Oxford, England.

Caro is a very serious student who always seems to be more prepared than the other students, even in middle school. When philosophical concepts arise in the classroom she is never shy to challenge the teacher. When she is graduating she is surprised with a full-ride scholarship to Oxford, she plans to get her PhD in Early English Literature.

She quickly encounters an American student there (played well by an Irish actor) and he takes a keen interest in her. She is different from the other female students, her efforts to get rid of his attention only seems to energize him more.

Not a lot happens in this movie, the more interesting scenes are philosophical exchanges, some with other students, some with professors or administrators. All the while Caro is trying to sort ot her confusion about what is really important in life. There is a mild faith element but it isn't pushed, mainly to put your faith forward, believe in things, figure out what your life is about.

My wife and I watched it at home, streaming. We enjoyed it but it is not a candidate for a re-watch.

I have very mixed feelings about this 8-part series that my wife and I just finished watching, streaming. On the one hand the actors and their characters play off each other in very interesting ways. I can say "Never a dull moment."

On the other hand, after building up the intrigue for 7 1/2 episodes, the last episode ends with several critical questions unanswered. That is why I usually prefer a movie, in 90 to 120 minutes you get introduced to the key elements of a story, you see everything that develops, then you see important elements tied up nicely by the end.

Not this one, in a way I feel the show runner and producers cheat the audience. I believe most of us want to know things like "will she get that next job" and "who really was responsible for the incident that cost 41 lives?" Plus a few other questions left hanging. It is hinted that another season would come but as of now, over a year after this series ended, there is no indication anything is in the works.

Keri Russell, who also produces, is Ambassador Kate Wyler. As the first episode runs along we learn that her new assignment in London is partly to evaluate if she is a good choice to replace the resigning V. P. She is extremely good in this role.

Rufus Sewell plays her husband, Hal Wyler, a former ambassador who still is often addressed as "ambassador." Kate and Hal are having a difficult time with their marriage, it seems she wants a split but he doesn't. It doesn't help that he can often be a loose cannon.

So all in all we found it to be a very interesting and entertaining series, although they do go a bit overboard with the profane language most scenes. Is that authentic to the people in those types of careers? I don't know.

This movie has a wildly great cast, including Karen Gillan, Lena Headey playing her mother, Carla Gugino, Michelle Yeoh, and Paul Giamatti. I wanted to see it mainly for Gillan, I love everything she does, and she is great here as the lead character, Sam.

Sam last saw her mother, who turns out to be an assassin, about 15 years earlier. In their favorite soda shop, sharing a milkshake with two straws. Thus the title, "Gunpowder Milkshake." Mom disappeared as a way to insure Sam would remain safe.

Now her mother shows up again, during the 15 years Sam has become an equally lethal assassin. Just in time, because a large crime syndicate has been wronged and the two ladies, along with their "library" friends, must band together to defend justice.

OK, so the movie is made in a very entertaining style, the ample blood and gore are so "OTT" that you don't take it seriously. When Sam gets shot she just shrugs it off and stitches herself back together at the next opportunity.

Not everyone will enjoy this movie but for me it is totally entertaining. The script is inventive and the movie is shot very interestingly.

At home, streaming.

Last night my wife and I watched the recent movie "The Boys in the Boat", directed by George Clooney. It is a very nice and entertaining movie and most of it is an accurate depiction of the time and events leading up to the 1936 Olympic Games. However a few things were changed for the movie's running time, and to include some dramatic effects.

This documentary is much shorter, at 53 minutes, but is more historically accurate. For example, where the movie leads us to believe everything depicted occurred in 1936, in fact it was over the 3-year period 1933 to 1936.

This program uses actual film footage from the period, practicing and racing, the transatlantic ocean voyage, the final Olympic race. It also includes an interesting thing, when the crew went to New York to compete, the crew had an off day and decided to visit President Roosevelt at his home in Hyde Park, north of Poughkeepsie. He wasn't home, of course, but his son, also a rower, invited them in and they talked rowing.

All in all a very interesting and well made documentary. At home, streaming on the PBS site.

This movie is based on real people and their true story. PBS has the actual 54-minute documentary and in it you will see some changes for movie-making purposes, but the changes do not hurt the story, the constraint is that they need to keep the running time near two hours. The basic true story is faithfully dramatized.

The Great Depression ran approximately from 1929 to 1939. While the movie makes it look like everything took place in the middle of that period, in 1936, the story actually begins in 1933. The University of Washington needed rowers and many of the young men of that time and location were very robust, strong, hard-working guys. But often didn't know where their next meal was coming from. Or where they would get money to live and money for tuition.

Most of the young men didn't have rowing experience. So the movie depicts the approximate three-year period where the team learned, worked hard, and became champions. The climax is the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany with a prominent Hitler as a spectator rooting for his "superior race" of athletes.

There is also a brief scene with Jesse Owens, the sprinter who won four track and field gold medals in those Olympics.

Good movie, my wife and I enjoyed it at home, streaming on Prime. The PBS documentary, using authentic old footage, is probably more interesting, but the movie in color is more entertaining.

I am not the target audience for this type of movie. I only got it, on DVD, because my public library added it. So all it "cost" me was perhaps 90 minutes of my retiree time. I didn't watch the original "Good Burger" so all I had was to judge this one on its own merits.

I usually know if I am invested in a movie after 15 minutes. At 9 minutes into this one I was pretty sure I would not. It was confirmed after 15 minutes. Where to start?

It opens with Ed having a dream, it turns out he was asleep on the counter of Good Burger. Then when he starts talking he has what might be the most annoying voice ever in a move role. Then it degrades from there.

There is a story, of risking everything, even the money of friends and family, for a chemical that renders a home impossible to burn. In the inaugural demonstration, complete with audience in lawn chairs, including investor Mark Cuban, it fails badly.

The rest of the movie is to save face and reject a plan to have the Good Burger sold.

Frankly I don't know who the audience might be for this movie. The characters are overly silly, the story is overly silly, and the resolution is overly silly. For me, a big, big miss.

This movie had so much advanced build-up that I figured I'd be disappointed. I also figured the long 2+ hour running time would be too long. Neither of my fears materialized. This is a really novel and entertaining approach to movie-making on several levels. Some in color, some in B&W, frequent use of fish-eye lenses to make spaces look larger, fantastic color and state-of-the-art digital technology for the backgrounds. Plus probably the most unusual, but satisfying, musical score which greatly enhanced the moods of the story.

There are several things going on but in simple terms it is Bella (Emma Stone) as a physically adult woman with the brain of a baby. How she got that way is a main theme of the story. So in the running time of the move we witness her evolution, to toddler, to teenager, to young impetuous adult, to wise adult, all in the same body as the mind learns and the wisdom develops.

During that process Bella gets herself into lots of different things and in the end it comes full circle. Emma Stone is great in the role of Bella, and the supporting actors are all good also, especially Dafoe and Ruffalo.

When was it set? They don't say but one scene in Paris depicts a half-finished Eiffel Tower so that would place it in 1888 when most city transportation was by horse and carriage.

At home, on DVD from my public library. My wife started it with me, she lasted 30 minutes, the movie is too strange for her, but its strangeness is what drew me in. I thoroughly enjoyed it, I might watch it again.

Edit: I did watch it again a week later.

I have always been a Jeff Daniels fan, but I also looked at him as a middle-of-the-road actor who could do lots of things well but nothing outstanding. The Purple Rose of Cairo, Fly Away Home, Pleasantville, Terms of Endearment, and of course Dumb and Dumber all are some of my favorite movies he was in.

But here in this six-part miniseries, set in Atlanta, he is the central character and the whole project depends on how well he channels Charlie Croker, and he does it admirably, and with both lots of menace and lots of humor.

Charlie, just turning 60, is a former Georgia Tech football star. He has developed himself into a big businessman who never shies away from debt. As this story starts he owes one bank $800 Million, and several smaller ones a few hundred million additional. Along the way he has made a few friends but also a few enemies and now some want to take him down, foreclose on his assets, see him bankrupt.

But if Charlie is nothing else, he is a fighter. The whole series is mostly about his enemies trying to get the best of him while Charlie fends off the attacks.

This is definitely an adult show, lots and lots of cursing and at least a couple of very graphic simulated sex scenes, but overlaid on all that is a very funny and entertaining presentation.

My wife and I watched it, streaming, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

BTW, if anyone still doesn't know, Jeff Daniels is a talented guitarist, song writer, and singer. For a good example do a web search on the four words "jeff daniels kelly clarkson", watch the video and you might be amazed.

My wife and I enjoyed this Hallmark-like movie because the setting is Chicago, a city we love to visit, and much of the time is spent in various kitchens in food prep, something we both enjoy. However it was filmed in Canada with many beautiful location "establishing" shots of Chicago, many of them nighttime.

But I have a big complaint, the actress who plays the lead role as the Chicago food critic. She is Lanie McAuley as Alison. She has a very nice voice but most times delivers her lines with a lot of "vocal fry", or what I often refer to as "putting gravel into her voice." It quickly becomes very annoying and takes away from appreciating her character.

That aside, it is a nice story and a pleasant set of characters. Alison writes a food critic column as 'Sweetly Salted' and does not reveal her identity. When a publishing house in New York gets wind of her real identity they ask her to write a book, so she goes undercover as a sous chef for the restaurant she gave a bad review to.

Everything plays out just like most Hallmark movies, and there is a kiss about one minute before it ends. Easy entertainment after weekly steak and wine night, with chocolate cake of course for dessert.

I am old enough to have been a fan of the old Addams Family TV series back in the 1960s when I was in college. More recently, my wife and I enjoyed the 8-part 2022 mini-series "Wednesday" which included most of the Addams family characters but focused on a teenage Wednesday. That series also had Christina Ricci in it, playing a teacher at the special Nevermore school.

So all that motivated me to get this 1991 movie where a 10-yr-old Christina Ricci was in the role of Wednesday Addams. I found it on BluRay from our public library. As such it is nicely colorful and detailed with a really good soundtrack. At the end it includes a very rapid, very catchy song by MC Hammer, the chorus is:

"They do what they want to do, say what they want to say Live how they want to live, play how they want to play Dance how they want to dance, kick and they slap a friend The Addams family"

There is a thin story about an imposter (Christopher Lloyd) claiming to be Gomez's missing brother Fester, put up to it by his mother hoping to gain access to the money the Addams' had stashed away. But mostly it is just entertaining silliness with lots of sight gags.

I was entertained, my wife got up and left after about 15 or 20 minutes. She wasn't finding it entertaining.

Count me as one who has been watching James Bond 007 movies since the 1960s. Of course my favorite 007 was Sean Connery, something about his style, his demeanor, and his particular delivery of lines. While each older Bond movie contained action, the greater emphasis was on a good story.

Daniel Craig is OK as James Bond, agent 007, but he is more of a brawler and a romancer in an aggressive manner. To me he just doesn't come off as believable as most of the prior actors who played Bond.

In this one he discovers an operation by Spectre, a multi-national organization. For charity? No, for crime. And the head guy is Christoph Waltz as Blofeld. This role of his came about six years after the role that acquainted most of us with Waltz, in 'Inglourious Basterds' where he was menacing as The Jew Hunter for the Nazis. His character here is played not too differently and he is a great counterpoint to Craig as Bond.

My wife and I had not seen this one back when it came out but now found it streaming on Amazon Prime. We were entertained, mostly, but some of the action sequences went a bit too far over the top. It is not a movie I would want to watch again.

I viewed this program last night on my local PBS station, via antenna in the attic, of course!

While the discussion goes farther back than 50 years the focus is on the past 50 years and how much Scientists have learned, how much we have had to modify our view of the Cosmos. Much of it is due to the several instruments, including telescopes, put into space over the years. It discusses the "crisis in cosmology" which is a term used to identify the diverging measurements by different techniques to try to determine the age and expansion rate of the universe.

The second half of the program spends a lot of time on the issue of dark matter and dark energy. While no one knows what forms they take, and neither have been detected by various means, the theory of their existence was proposed to explain what is considered the strange behavior of stars in large galaxies. Namely, if Newtonian principles are applied then the stars farther away from the center of rotation should move much slower, similar to how planets in our Solar system behave.

Instead, stars are moving much faster in their orbits than predicted and that is why Cosmologists believe a mysterious substance and energy must be present to facilitate that. Plus perhaps a role in the apparent accelerating expansion of the universe.

I am a scientist, although not an Astrophysicist, and I really enjoy this sort of program. For what it is worth I don't believe dark matter and dark energy will ever be detected. My own guess is we don't fully understand the physics of galaxy rotation. Only time will tell.

Jack Nicholson is the star here, he was in his mid-30s. Even though he had worked a lot during the 1960s, mostly in TV shows like Dr Kildare and the such, he had not yet hit his stride as one of the better actors. The rest, as some are prone to say, is movie history.

Here he is NCO Buddusky, he and another NCO, Otis Young as Mulhall, are assigned to take a young man to the brig several states away. He was convicted of theft of forty dollars, the money in the Polio donation box. He was also getting a dishonorable discharge, played by a 20-ish Randy Quaid as Meadows.

They travel by train and, instead of getting there promptly, take the full five days to make the delivery. Along the way they visit Washington, DC, Manhattan, Boston, and even find time to introduce young Meadows to the carnal pleasures of a house of "working women." Plus a bit of gambling.

I enjoyed the movie, mainly for seeing Nicholson and Quaid as young actors before they made it big, but overall I don't consider it to be a particularly good movie.

At home, streaming on Prime.

This is a very thoughtful and entertaining movie. My wife seldom comments much but even a day later she commented on how good it is.

Jeffrey Wright is professor and novelist Thelonious Ellison. His family and close friends call him 'Monk' in honor of the famous jazz musician and composer Thelonious Monk, who died in 1982 at the age of 64.

This Monk takes his writing novels very seriously but is not achieving much success. Meanwhile he encounters another author, a well-educated and well-spoken black woman. However when she reads a portion of her latest popular book, it is all broken English and black slang. He is taken aback, what is going on here?

At some point he decides to spoof the industry, he writes a novel of black characters who use reprehensible language and ghetto slang. He writes it as a joke with a made-up pen name. To his surprise and shock the publishing company loves it, they offer a big sum to publish it, and another company is jockeying for the movie rights.

Reflecting on the story I am a bit loss on how to explain the last half hour of it, but it is overall a very well-made and entertaining movie. Jeffrey Wright is superb in the role.

My wife and I watched it at home, streaming on Prime.

This eight episode series came out in 2022 on a streaming channel. Recently my public library added the three DVD set to its inventory and my wife and I watched it this week. Usually two episodes each evening. I had heard positive things about it and we were not disappointed.

The first thing is that it is absent of all the foul language that often fills the script of these sorts of shows. While there are the occasional R-rated words they are scarce and the streams of F-words are totally absent. That is a nice bonus and shows that vulgarity isn't needed for entertainment. In fact, it is more entertaining without it.

Young and tiny Jenna Ortega, barely five feet tall and probably weighing 90 pounds, is Wednesday Addams. She has had some disciplinary issues in school, including a couple of bags of Piranhas in the boy's water polo practice, and now is being placed at Nevermore, with mandatory sessions with a therapist.

The big focus of the whole series turns to a monster that sometimes attacks people, sometimes appears in dreams. It eventually hints that someone at the school is transitioning into a "Hyde" form, named for the Jekyll/Hyde of the author Robert Louis Stevenson's story.

Part of the fun is the contrast between Wednesday, who is very tiny, and the school Principal played by a British actress who is 6' 3". Seeing the two standing or sitting next to each other is a quite comical contrast.

All in all a very entertaining series, Ortega is great as Wednesday. I see that they are set up for season #2 in 2025 but I have no idea how that is coming along, if at all.