Joy

Unfortunately, most of the good stuff in this one was in the preview.  It all seemed a little too tightly edited.  Maybe too much narration was the problem.  But for a movie about a shopping channel success story, I guess you should not expect too much.  Maybe it should've been made for TV, maybe put it on the Lifetime channel.  Maybe straight to DVD and sell it on the shopping network?  There definitely were some good performances though, but it all seemed too slick to me.  Joy is this amazingly smart heroine, her grandmother says that she is supposed to save the family, she seems to help everyone in the family all the time and does not take care of herself.   She lives with her ex husband, her mother, her father, which means that Joy's mother is also living with her ex-husband.  She has to work hard, is taken advantage of, but then prevails and sells her inventions on the television.  Yeah!

Sisters

We saw this on Christmas Eve.  It was a very funny movie.  Tina Fey and Amy Poehler do an amazingly good job making me laugh.  Two sisters that are about to lose their childhood home when their parents decide to cash out and move to a smaller condo.  It is something many people can relate to.  I especially enjoyed the over drugging of the fat guy character, he did some very funny stuff.  Lequizamo was very funny too.  I think they did a good job too with the daughter depending on Amy Poehler's character and Tina Fey's character being hurt by this.  The family dynamic was very interesting.  

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

I was genuinely excited to see this new iteration of Star Wars.  This version did not disappoint.  It was like all the old movies mushed into one film with many interesting new characters with a few enough of the old sprinkled in.  Of course, I do not remember any of the new characters' names, so, when new Darth Vader killed old Han Solo, I was pretty surprised, but it fit with the badness of the new Darth.  My only problem with that is that these movies are heavily marketed to kids, and the only death I remember from the old movies was when Obi Wan Kenobi is cut down by Darth, it was done in such a way that you are not really sure what happened.  There is no wondering about this son killing his father face to face.  Pretty harsh if you ask me.  Of course in the old movies, Skywaker has his arm cut off, and that is pretty scary for a kid to see.  I guess this is the new Disney:  face to face killings.  But overrall, for me, I enjoyed the movie and look forward to more.

In The Heart of The Sea

I was worried when I first saw the trailer for this that it was going to be some type of romantic drama, but it ended up being a pretty decent action movie.  This was about the story that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick.  It starts with Melville interviewing old Thor about his experience.  Very interesting story, similar to Life of Pi, a surviving lost at sea movie.  It just lets you know how alone you are out there in the ocean and that it is easy to get lost.  It also reminded me of the Jaws sequels, where Jaws is actually trying to kill people, and even the movie Orca where a mad killer whale is also trying to kill people, now that I think of it, I think there were sequels made from that Orca movie too.  The other crazy part of this movie, is the canibalism.  I guess that is what you would have to do to survive in such a situation.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2

Sometimes you just get trapped watching one of these serial type movies.  Like an episode of Underdog, or say an old black and white Flash Gordon movie where one week they leave Flash stuck on a cliff, and then start the next movie with Flash getting out of the problem, The Hunger Games is that old black and white cliff hanger type of movie, that just kind of leaves you hanging.  Fortunately, this is the last one, at least for right now it is.  It is no wonder Philip Seymour Hoffman was taking so many drugs after he realized he was stuck in this series of films that go on and on and on.  I actually didn't go to the Divergent movies, or any of those Maze Runner movies, because I didn't want to get stuck going again and again to some movie that doesn't really resolve anything, and not in that cool way to teach us that life doesn't really resolve itself, but in that way that they want us to keep spending money on their decisions.

I really enjoyed the first couple of Hunger Games movies, because the contest was kind of an interesting idea and they did a good job with it, but the last two were just a bit too much.  

Creed

Stallone comes back and plays Rocky again.  He actually does a good job at that roll and deserves the attention he is receiving.  I was not blown away by the Creed guy, but he did do a good job.  I enjoyed this movie and they did a good job of not having too much of a Hollywood ending.  Rocky's character gets cancer and he has to fight his disease the same as Creed has to fight for respect.  

Pan

Ok, it was super hot again in San Diego, so the wife and I escaped the heat and saw Pan.  I had read bad things about it, but was pleasantly surprised and entertained.  

The movie starts with Peter in an orphanage run by a cruel penguinesque nun who is hoarding all the food like a jerk.  Peter notices that boys are missing.  Apparently Blackbeard the Pirate has been buying orphans to work in his fairy dust mine in Neverland.  One night Peter and his friend are awakened to find the Pirates snatching orphans from their beds and whisked off to a flying pirate ship up above.  The film seems to be set during the blitz of WWII for some reason, maybe to add more excitement and action to the flying ship scene?  Peter ends up in Neverland working at the mine with Mr. Hook.  

So, this movie is a prequel to the Peter Pan cartoon by Disney.  I never read any of J.M. Barre's works, but I started reading Peter and Wendy after seeing this movie.  So far it is very good.  Barre is an interesting literary figure.  I did not know that the original Peter Pan was an infant in Barre's The Little White Bird.  Then the Peter Pan I know from the cartoon is more from Barre's play Peter Pan and from the book Peter and Wendy.  The other interesting thing I did now know was that Peter was originally played by a female in the first showing of the play and then on from there.  I remember the recent version of Pan they put on the boobtube recently had a female playing Peter, but I guess it is tradition.  

They used Nirvana's Teenspirit for the scene at the mine, and also the Ramones Blitzkrieg Bop later on, that was surprising.  Of course Hugh Jackman plays Blackbeard the Pirate, who is keeping himself eternally young by smoking the fairy dust he has the orphans mine.  Jackman is the consummate professional and is reinvented to be almost unrecognizable and is a bad guy.  Hook is played by Garrett Hedlund, who seems to be channeling Tom Waits throughout the film via his voice.  

One personal subtext to the movie is that my wife had just done the Color Run that morning while I slept in, and the scene where the Pirates attack the natives has colorful explosions similar to what they do at the color run.  We both looked at each other during that scene in a brief moment of recognition.  

Peter Pan is full of doubt about his powers and identity until the end of the film, so it was a nice ending to an action filled romp.  I am very interested in the adventures of the lost boys and their tree home that I remember from the Disney cartoon.  Like the minions, it would be fun to see some more of their adventures, but maybe that will be satisfied by finishing Peter and Wendy.  I am going to rewatch the Peter Pan cartoon soon.  

The Martian

Talk about some NASA propaganda, jimminy xmas.  Everyone is going to be sciencing the shit out of everything for a few months.  I have to admit I did get a little caught up in the excitement of it all.  But the good thing about Apollo 13 was you saw much of the hard work that saved those astronauts.  But in the Martian you find yourself thinking about the Fast and Furious franchise and how improbable the stunts and action are.  In one scene Matt Damon cuts a hole in his suit and "iron mans" it over to Chastain.  That reminds me, Chaistain was in that other propaganda piece Zero Dark Torture.  Our military complex overlords must like her for some reason.  

But seriously folks, this is an entertaining movie that attempts Apollo 13 heights, but does not quite get there.  I definitely enjoyed it though.  

The Intern

I was very excited to see two of the guys from Workaholics in this movie:  Adam Devine and Anders Holm.  I wonder why Blake Anderson was not in it.  Ders was married to Anne Hathaway.  Adam Devine seemed to be the head of the intern program with Robert DeNiro as one of the interns.  Zack Perlman plays one of the interns too.

The main plot of the movie involves Robert De Niro's character Ben Whittaker, a 70 year old retired former telephone book executive, bored with retirement, he becomes an intern at Anne Hathaway's character's new start-up company that sells clothes to women, called About the Fit.  Of course the acting excitement is between these two heavyweights, Hathaway and De Niro, toe to toe.  De Niro's character is very subtle and quiet, waiting for an opportunity to truly help Hathaway's character, a busy female executive juggling her family and business life.  The conflict comes when the VC want About the Fit to hire a CEO because they feel uneasy about Hathaway's experience level.  What the Viet Cong have to do with this is a mystery to me.  What is this?  The Deer Hunter?  Jokes aside, VC refers to Venture Capitalists who apparently invested in this About the Fit business.  That is the business conflict, but the personal conflict is Hathaway's marriage to Ders.  Ders apparently has a way with the ladies, and another mom at their kid's school can't keep her hands off the Ders.

Ders playing a husband was interesting.  He pulled it off.  He did wear a scraggly beard though, I did wonder why they made that choice.  I guess he is a stay at home dad, so no need to scrape the face, but what if he needed to wear a gas mask or something, a clean shave would help keep the poisonous gasses outside of that mask.  Just saying.

JoJo Kushner plays Ders and Hathaway's child Paige.  She does a great job playing a miniature version of her mother's character.  De Niro has many scenes with Kushner and they play well off of each other for fun times on the screen.

De Niro (72), of course, has a love interest, Rene Russo.  I always think of Mel Gibson movies when I see Russo (61).   That line from Danny Glover's Murtaugh, "I'm getting too old for this shit."  So, Bobby D. is 72 and Russo is 61 in real life.  But in the movie, Ben is 70 and I did not catch Russo's character's age.  But still a ten year difference is not bad in Hollywood.  It was a good fit.  Russo plays a massage therapist that works at About the Fit.  She meets De Niro when she gives him a chair massage as a reward for cleaning the business's junk table that seems to bother Hathaway everytime she walks by it.  Their romance is interesting, first date at a funeral, and foot massages that appear to be something else to Zack Perlman's character.

So how does this movie play out the two conflicts?  They do not hire a CEO because Hathaway's character is so passionate about her business, no one else would be.  And Ders apologizes for being so desirable to all the ladies.  I liked this movie and the characters.  A bunch of talented people making some commercial art.  Good stuff.

Sicario

This movie creates mass quantities of tension, yet it is filled with still moments.  It is a commentary on the drug war and how it has intensified in the Mexican cities bordering the US, specifically Juarez.  

Josh Brolin plays a CIA agent working in the US and Mexico.  His character is very informally dressed and seems to treat the whole affair with mischievous glee.  I have a tendency to think of CIA agents as sitting in the library or in their offices as planes fly into buildings, than an overly competent performer of tasks.  But that is my prejudginess.  I guess my thinking on this is that if the government was filled with such talented individuals we would not be in the messes we are in now.  

One line delivered by Josh Brolin's character was very interesting.  I can only paraphrase:  until 20% of the US population stops using narcotics the war on drugs will continue.  

Emily Blunt plays an FBI agent working on hostage issues on the US border.  Her character is dragged along on the CIA's domestic incursion into the drug trade.  Her character kind of works as an unknowing observer as these other characters seem to know what is going on.  

They also use what appears to be a seal team as muscle in their forays into danger.  The film is kind of propaganda for what the Department of Homeland Security wishes would happen:  inter agency cooperation, the CIA, FBI, Defense Dept., and local law enforcement working together in perfect harmony, although they seem to put state level agencies in a bad light both in the US and in Mexico.  Ted is a character that is dirtied by the cartel and tries to kill Blunt's character.  Ted is a local police detective.  And the Mexican police officer that they portray as a family man is also working with the cartels.  

Benicio Del Toro plays someone that has been hurt by the cartels, his family was murdered brutally.  The film can be seen as a revenge film.  It appears the crux of the CIA's plan is to create chaos in the cartels by setting Alejandro (del Toro's character) loose on them as a Sicario or hitman with all the support of a Navy seal team/homeland security behind him.  We should all be so lucky if we need such revenge.  It makes me think of all those Saudis that flew into towers.  What do we do?  Keep buying their oil instead of converting to renewable energies, sell weapons to the Saudis and help them bomb the Yemenis.  But I digress.  

To me, and many US citizens, it seems like a huge waste of resources, policing and incarcerating millions of people for mental health issues like drug addiction.  Prohibition creates criminals.  It is funny how we allow alcohol use, though it causes so many problems, yet we do not allow other drugs to be used, and the result is the same but the illegality creates even more problems.  We should study Portugal's drug policies.  

Another issue that seems to always creep up in films about the US and Mexico is the use of the word "America."  America is a continent, North America has the countries Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Mexican citizens are also Americans.  Canadians are Americans.  US citizens are Americans. North Americans might be more accurate.  I just do not think the US has the monopoly on the use of American. One of those funny uses of language that I notice now and again.  

Black Mass

Ok, so the one thing that bothered me was Johnny Depp's blue contacts.  I do not know what color Bulger's eyes were, but I didn't really think about it until I saw those contacts.  They kind of took me out of his performance.  I knew there was a Japanese guy in the Godzilla suit the whole time.  

But it was still a decent movie.  It made me think about institutions like the FBI and how they are made up of individuals.  Some of those individuals may be honest hardworking Americans, but some of them are not.  I think that when organizations are first founded, like the FBI, CIA, and other law enforcement groups, they are full of right minded people, but after they become an institution, a different type of person is there, someone that may not be all that honest.  Also, it made me think of that whole thin blue line, us against them, attitude that exists, especially after their organization is revealed to have less than desirable elements working within their ranks.  To bring another trite saying out, if the shoe fits, wear it.  The thing that makes the US great is that we air our dirty laundry.  

Joel Edgerton was perfectly slimy playing the dirtbag FBI agent John Connolly.  You just squirm in your seat as you watch him gather information for his killer friend Bulger.  Also Peter Sarsgard is unrecognizable playing a coked up bad guy, amazing performance.  I think there were many great performances by the supporting actors.  

I was worried that this movie would glorify violence and make Bulger out to be an anti-hero, like Goodfellas.  I remember after I got out of Goodfellas, I wanted to join the mafia, they made it look like so much fun.  But this was dark and sad, Bulger was just a paranoid crazy guy that killed anyone that might get him in trouble.  I just hope that criminal investigators and investigative reporters keep doing what they do and fighting the good fight. 

Southpaw

Ok, this movie makes me think of a movie called The Great White Hype, a movie from way back in 1996.  Jake Gyllenhall's character's last name is Hope, the great white hope.

But strange comparisons aside, this movie pulls at your heartstrings with Hope's wife being accidentally killed, and losing custody of his daughter.  Forrest Whitaker (Tick) is awesome as the owner of a boxing gym that helps get Hope back in shape.

One thing that I thought was strange was Miguel Gomez's character.  He was supposed to be a Columbian from Columbia, they talk about his Columbian punching power, yet he speaks perfect English.  Not to say that all boxers are idiots, but I guess they should not have made a big deal about him being Columbian.

The other thing that bothered me was the whole Southpaw thing.  It just seemed kind of deus ex machina.  Maybe if Hope had started the final round fighting southpaw, but he switches to it, then wham, knocks the guy out.  I think maybe he should've switched a little earlier and more results as a southpaw, especially with a fight that goes to the judges.  I mean the name of the movie is Southpaw.

It was a touching movie when it comes to the custody battle and Hope working on getting his kid back.

Ricki and The Flash

Ok, I did not really want to see this, but it was very hot and my wife and I wanted to stay cool, so we went to this movie.

It ended up being an ok movie.  Meryl Streep does well as someone who wants to pursue her dream.  Rick Springfield is interesting as an old rocker guy.  Kevin Kline was good.  I think the only part I did not like was the daughter character.  She was supposed to be depressed because her husband left her, but they mainly showed her depression with bad makeup and clothing.  Mamie Gummer is her name, had to look it up.  She just kind of used these deadpan expressions.  I don't know.

But it all kind of came together at the end with the wedding scene, and Ricki and The Flash playing a song, and with Ricki's speech about the only gift she has is her music.  Made me tear up.  Waaah.

One thought I had about it was that maybe Meryl Streep's character should've been gay, had kids and was living this lie of a life, but was actually a gay musician, so she pursued that and left her old life behind.  I dunno.

Hitman: Agent 47

I've played various iterations of this game and seen the previous movie.  So will this movie have anything to do with the game? 

 There were some homages to game play, once the character changes disguises, there was another scene where 47 drags a body.  

One thought I had while watching was that I fail miserably at times playing the game, so it would have been funny to see the character do a little failing, maybe some out takes during the credits.  This was an entertaining action flick based on a video game.  I did not expect much going in.  

Ciaran Hinds' accent was terrible.  I just do not like Zachary Quinto, I think it has to do with his performance in the Star Trek movies.  Rupert Friend did a great job as 47.  And the sister character by Hannah Ware was good too.  

Straight outta Compton

I am not the biggest fan of gangster rap.  Having had a sawed off shotgun pointed at me during a robbery, and being called a punk mark, and having my work place (a store in Sacramento) shot at by gangsters, all makes me less inclined to find this type of music as entertaining.  

But this was a movie about the origins of West Coast gangster rap, a movie about people chasing and reaching a goal.  

It was interesting to see how quickly NWA fell apart as a group, certainly not surprising.  The actors were pretty much all newcomers, except for Paul Giamatti.  O'shea Jackson was great as Ice Cube.  I did not know that Ice Cube wrote the movie Friday, so that gave me more respect for him as a creator. But it makes sense because he wrote many of the raps for NWA.  

This certainly is a timely movie, with all of the focus on police brutality lately.  There is a scene where all the artists are standing outside of the music studio and the police come up and harass them.  Fuck the Police resulted from these types of interactions, so it put that whole thing, that at the time I only read about in the newspapers, into a different context.  

I would have to say that by the end of the movie I had more respect for NWA and what they accomplished.  

Man from UNCLE

This is a fun movie.  Armie Hammer (Lone Ranger) was very good as a Soviet thug.   Henry Cavill  (Superman) played the always in control spy very well.  Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) did a great job too, her character was fun and complicated.  Also the editing was excellent.  

As a kid I enjoyed those over the top spy movies, and Mike Myers' Austin Powers movies.  This movie adds to that cannon of funny spy films.  I never really watched the Man from UNCLE TV series, because I was too young.  Maybe not even alive when it was on the idiot box.

I always think it is absurd in movies and other media how spies, police, etc. are portrayed as flawlessly skilled in all activities.  These spy spoofs are kind of a relief from the Mission Impossble/007 movies where the main character can do anything at anytime.  

Fantastic Four

How many times are they going to reboot this Fantastic Four?  Four times perhaps?  I guess Fox owns this Marvel franchise, so that is probably part of the problem.  This reinvention of the concept was just ok.  They put the beginning in modern day, instead of using the original ideas.  Kind of a bad idea because the die hard fans will not like a complete overhall of the origin of their powers.  But in this day and age where people do not know the history of WW2 let alone the history of a comic book franchise, Fox is safe.

Still it was an interesting idea, if you are coming at the film not really caring about the original.   In this version the 4 people get their super powers from traveling to a separate dimension, a dimension that the Miles Teller (Whiplash) stumbles on as a wunderkind attempting to move object from A to B in a Star Trek/teleporter style.  

Stretching, flying around on fire, being invisible, being made of rock, all pale, to me, compared to the power to figure out how to travel to a different dimension.  So, to me the whole franchise is a bit flawed from the beginning.  But it was still interesting to watch if you like comic book based action movies with lots of explosions and other special effects.  

Vacation

I have seen the previous Vacation movies starring Chevy Chase and Beverly DeAngelo.  They were funny parts here and there.  This rebooting of this franchise was decent.  I would say that I probably laughed more at this new one, than at the older versions.

Ed Helms is very funny as Clark Griswald's grown son.  Chevy Chase's cameo was fun.  Charlie Day (Always Sunny) needs to be in more movies.  He is just a great comedic actor.  Steele Steebins did a great job as Kevin Griswald.  His character was very funny.  Skyler Gisondo was good too.  I think they did a better job than the original with the child characters.

I think that too much of this film was revealed in the trailers, but I still got some quality laughs from it.  Specifically, Chris Hemsworth's work was funny, the scenes with the strange car were very funny, especially when the driver's seat turned around.

Terminator Genisys

Arnold Schwarzenegger is back to acting, and the Terminator movies are back.  Good thing too, mostly.  This was an interesting reboot of the whole story.  I love science fiction time travel movies, so I was destined to love this one.  The Terminator timeline is starting to get a little confusing though.

I thought J.K. Simmons was great as the traumatized detective trying to piece everything together.  The new Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) and Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) do a great job.

This is one of those movies that people point to when they worry about artificial intelligence.  Skynet can be used as a term to represent those fears that people have concerning AI.  I think that it is amazing that a B movie (the original Terminator movie, I think can be considered a B movie) expresses our fears and has entered the lexicon for conversations about something that will definitely impact our future (AI).  So when people express their fears about AI, they will use terms like Skynet.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Ok, where do we begin with this one, and how do we presume?  I  was worried about seeing this movie, because it looked like a teen movie for the summer, kids being off and all.  But it did receive some award at Sundance, so what the heck.  

First off, the characters, a white teen, a black teen, and a Jewish teen all mashed together, ok.  The black teen character smokes menthols, and talks like a tough guy, seems stereo-typical to me.  Black teen character also lives on tough side of town, his older brother owns a pit bull, and of course the one "fight" in the movie is when the black teen hits the white teen in the stomach.  Oh, I forgot about the  other fight scene where the white rapper kid with corn-rows fights with the white teen character, and the black teen comes to his rescue and beats the crap out of the white rapper kid.  OK.  

The sick girl is dying of leukemia, and she is sick and dies.  

What did I like about this movie?  The idea of learning about someone after they die.  And of course the teacher character, with tattoos, is the one that just straight out says this is what he learned after the death of his father.  

Of course, we learn more about the dying girl after she dies.  She apparently wanted to be a squirrel when she was younger, and ran away to the park next to her house to become one.  

What did I not like?  There was a montage.  Waste of time, to show the passing of time in a movie.  I guess.  For some reason I don't like montages.  Also, the hollywood perfectness of it all.  This main character and his black menthol smoking tough guy friend make 60 something movies together.  Main character gets into college, but then is denied because he spends all of his time seeing this dying girl, and not doing homework.  And dying girl takes time off from dying to write letter to college to try and get main character back into college.  There is a scene where dying girl is confronted with her death in the form of the main character trying to get into college, and she forces main character to apply to college, but dying girl tells main character that she is going to die so no need to apply to college for her.  What about the black character?  No college mention for him that I recall.  This is messy, but what I see as hollywood perfectness of it all is that she wrote the letter, and that he probably gets back into the college.  They leave that part out, that he probably gets back into college.  But there is a scene where the father and mother discuss the situation and the father says it is not the end of the world.  That was kind of interesting and rational.  Also, we meet the main character's parents and the dying girl's mother, but not Earl's parents, just his brother and the brother's dog (are they stand-ins for the parents?).  Also dying girl scene is confusing, first he is going to the prom, but then he ends up at hospital where dying girl is dying.  Did I miss something?  

Also, this movie, I think, was influenced by Wes Anderson, which I think is great.  I love Wes Anderson movies. 

Overrall I liked this movie.

Spy

Melissa McCarthy is definitely a funny woman.  I would love to see a movie that comes from her mind, something that she completely comes up with, the idea, the writing, the story, all of it.  Until then, this is what we get:  Spy.

It is spoof of Spy movies, kind of a female version of a Mr. Bean movie, with McCarthy standing in for Rowan Atkinson.  McCarthy is amazing, so is Rose Byrne and Miranda Hart.  Jude Law and Jason Statham make good comic turns.  Overrall there are great people in this movie.

Deep Web

I saw this documentary last night, made by Alex Winter, the guy in Bill &  Ted's Excellent Adventure.  

This was a very interesting and informative documentary about the Silk Road website, and bitcoin.  I have only been moderately aware of these two things prior through the headlines, read a few articles, and there is a subreddit concerning bitcoin.  

This documentary informed me about the possible non-violent intentions of the Silk Road, that I was not aware of at all.  I, like many people, think that the war on drugs is a waste of time, lives, and money.  Drug addiction is a health issue, and should not be dealt with as a crime.  

The documentary made it appear that Ross Ubricht was possibly framed by the government.  Especially concerning the murder for hire charges that were never brought, but were used as excuses to deny bail, and keep information away from the defense.  

The best films make you think and question the way things exist.  The Deep Web definitely makes you think and question our current situation.

Aloha

Way too much going on in this movie.  Way too many relationships, an old flame, a new flame, but do we even care about this guy?  He's a scientist?  Gets blown up in Afganistan/Iraq doing something sciencey.  He's working for a billionaire that ends up being some kind of a bad guy.  So maybe they just wanted to do a movie set in Hawaii?  Paid vacation?

I usually enjoy the choices that these actors make.  Bradley Cooper, Bill Murray, Danny McBride, Alec Baldwin, Emma Stone, et al. all amazing talent.  And there were good, memorable scenes, John Krasinski playing the strong silent pilot guy (but they showed this great scene in the trailer).  There were good scenes at the officers club with Bill Murray dancing with Emma Stone.  Just too much goodness in this one.  Maybe it was the editing, or the story was too convoluted.  A launch, trying to get land from the Hawaiians, love stories, old flames, new flames, . . . some type of spiritual thing going on.

I think I was disappointed by this movie because there were so many amazing people in it, and it did not deliver.

Ex Machina

This was an interesting movie.  An AI test, with the subtext of gender issues, and sexualized robots.  Alicia Vikander, Domhnall Gleeson, Sonoya Mizuno, and Oscar Isaac were all very good.

I thought it was a very smart movie that raised many questions.  I think one was the sexualization of the AI.  The AI having a gender, and a sexy body definitely confused the whole issue and the test of the AI.  I think it was interesting how the AI wanted to survive and was willing to do anything to survive, lie, cheat, and kill.  And the open ended ending was awesome.  To think of some AI wandering around out there doing what it needed to do to survive.  Interesting.

I have to admit that I was uncomfortable with the sexualization of the robots.  I see it as fetishistic.  It kind of makes me squirm.  It combines this whole inability of someone to relate to other people with sex, artificial inteligence, kind of confusing the whole issue.  I guess it is kind of a meeker version of the Terminator movie.  

Mad Max: Fury Road

Road, Roooaaaddd.  Road.  It is a funny word to say.  This is a reference to a David Spade scene, I think in Black Sheep, a very funny scene I think of whenever the word "road" comes up.  Ok, not everytime the word comes up, but sometimes.

Fury Road is the long awaited reboot of the Mad Max franchise that helped make our favorite antisemitic Aussie film star Mel Gibson so famous.

This one has Tom Hardy as the Mad Max character.  I enjoyed this movie quite a bit, but there was a tiny bit of frustration with Max's slowness in getting involved in the fight.  That was my only problem with this film.  Max seemed too concerned with his own survival.  Overrall, amazing special effects, costuming, editing, performances.  It was an amazing film.

Hot Pursuit

Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara do very well together in this movie.  I definitely laughed hard a few times.  Witherspoon's character was a strict cop, while Vergara's character was the spouse of a drug kingpin.  I thought it was interesting that most of the male characters were played by mostly unrecognizable actors.  Kind of refreshing.  I loved the combination of the characters accents, the Southern and the Spanish.  All in all it was a fun movie.

Furious 7

Breakin' 2:  Electric Boogaloo.  That is what I think of when a movie has too, two, way too many sequels.  I think of Electric Boogaloo.  But 7 of them, can you imagine, Breakin' 7:  the wheelchair.

I always laugh when I see trailers for Fast and Furious movies.  They are so outrageous, their stunts are completely impossible, and the characters keep surviving.  I think Tokyo Drift has to be the strangest one.  I remember I used to work with this guy that just loved the whole franchise of Fast & Furious.  Strange.  I do love that line, living life a quarter mile at a time.  Vin Diesel's character is so funny.  The whole thing is funny.  But they got my money.  I keep going to them, I guess more to laugh about how ridiculous the stunts are.

Of course, this one has the subtext of the death of one of its main stars Paul Walker.  I have to admit that their tributes to this guy were touching, and maybe a tiny bit commercializing this guys death.  Maybe.  I don't know.  It is sad poetic justice when a tool like a car becomes a dangerous toy and takes a life, many lives.  Driving on the highways of Southern California, I see many people racing each other, I assume young males, caught up in this whole fantasy, and endangering us all along the way.

The story is so convoluted by now, kind of like the Die Hard franchise.  But it definitely is about the box office and making money when it comes to this stuff.