Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) * * *

Directed by:  Steven Spielberg

Starring:  Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Jonathan Ke Quan, Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth

This second installment of the Indiana Jones adventures takes place one year before the events of Raiders and it is amazing that Indy doesn't have PTSD by the time the third movie rolls around.    He is nearly poisoned in the virtuoso opening sequence in Shanghai (as the antidote is kicked around the nightclub and staying just out of Indy's grasp).    If the baddies really wanted to poison Indy and kill him, then why even mention an antidote?    These guys came from the same villain school as those hapless schnooks in Spectre who tell Bond about their whole scheme over dinner.  

After escaping Shanghai by airplane and having his pilots bail on him, Indy crash lands the plane in India along with his sidekick Short Round (Quan) and nightclub singer Willie Scott (Capshaw), who was involved in the nightclub action.    The trio stumble across a village in which its children were kidnapped and said to be held captive in a palace as slave labor.    Indy promises to find a precious stone taken from the village and return with the children.    Temple of Doom has much of the same adventurous spirit as the original, but this time things shade darker.    Besides the scenes of children being whipped, we see Indy whipped, giant insects, monkey brains and eyeball soups eaten at dinner, Willie nearly lowered down into a pool of lava as a sacrifice, and a black spell in which the person under the spell can be jolted back to reality by being burned with a flame.  Oh, and let's not forget about another poor guy whose heart is ripped from his chest before he is lowered screaming into the fiery pit.  You would think a person who just had his heart ripped out would be dead already and unable to scream, but that's not something you ask in a movie like this.  

Ford remains unflappable through it all, as if this surviving numerous attempts on his life and one-on-one battles with giant henchmen is old hat by now.    Capshaw is beautiful and capable, but she and Ford have no real chemistry.    Capshaw's best scenes are double takes upon seeing an eyeball bob up in a seemingly innocuous soup and running away (and into) scary animals in the jungle.    Much of the scenery is foreboding and troublesome, and the scenes in the bowels of the palace are like something straight out of hell itself.

Temple of Doom has a funny allusion and payoff to the famous scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark in which Indy shoots a swordsman instead of dueling him with a sword of his own.    There are some light comic scenes in between the heavier stuff.    Make no mistake, this installment of the Indiana Jones series is the darkest of all.    Think of it as The Empire Strikes Back of the films. 

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Steven Spielberg

Starring:  Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Alison Doody, River Phoenix, John Rhys-Davis, Julian Glover

After the somewhat darker second installment of Indiana Jones films (Temple of Doom), the series returns to lighter, spirited adventure with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.   Dr. Jones (Ford) involves his distant, somewhat estranged father Dr. Henry Jones (Connery) in this film, in which the Jones' must thwart the Nazis from stealing the Holy Grail.    What the Nazis want to do with it is anyone's guess, but since they desire it so, that is all the motivation we need to root on the two doctors in their quest.

The Last Crusade opens in 1912, in which the teenage Indiana (Phoenix) attempts in vain to stop smugglers from possessing a rare gold crucifix once owned by Coronado.   He fails, but learns how to use his trademark whip and we witness the genesis of his hatred of snakes and how he obtained his trademark fedora.    Fast forward to 1938, with the world on the brink of World War II and once again Jones is pressed into service against the Nazis when his father, whose lifelong obsession with finding the grail caused their relationship rift, is kidnapped and held captive.    Indiana now is on a dual quest to save his father and discover the grail. 

Ford and Connery have a smooth chemistry while suggesting a multitude of regrets and hurts from their strained relationship.    They are friendly, to be sure, but not quite reconciled.    Because they play this stuff straight, it lends credibility to the action.    Like the two previous films, Last Crusade does not suffer from a lack of events.    The Jones' are under constant assault across three continents from various enemies by air, land, and sea.   They manage to escape through skill, pluck, improvisation and sometimes good fortune.   

Spielberg maintains a sheer love for this type of throwback cliffhanger, which clearly hasn't waned in this third installment.    He and screenwriter Jeffrey Boam continue to be inventive and fresh without retreading old jokes and action scenes.    There is a funny allusion to the first film deep within the Venice catacombs in which Indy and his associate/future lover Dr. Schneider (Doody) look for clues while treading in waist-high water and fending off thousands of rats.    We see chases and battle scenes aboard dirigibles, motorcycles, planes, boats, cars, and tanks.    Pretty soon, we start looking for the kitchen sink, and that's a wonderful thing. 

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Ron Howard

Starring:  Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Paul Bettany, Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, Donald Glover, Phoebe Waller-Bridge

Solo: A Star Wars Story is competently made, occasionally engaging, and passably entertaining, but not rousing enough to lift it into the upper stratosphere of Star Wars lore.   Like Rogue One or Episodes I and II of the series, do we really need to know this backstory?   Can't we have the original films maintain their sense of awe and wonder without all of the pieces filled in on blatant cash-in attempts?    What made Han Solo so compelling is that he is a cipher; a self-proclaimed neutral smuggler looking out for number one who nonetheless does what's right when the chips are down.    The Han Solo of this film is the same way, but he is younger and a tad less worn down by life, so it doesn't tell us what we don't already know.

Han (Ehrenreich) grows up amidst a dusty, grimy planet hustling to survive.   He and his girlfriend Qi'Ra (Clarke) dream of escaping so Han can pursue his dream of being a pilot.    Han escapes while Qi'Ra is captured, so after a few years of middling around and joining the Empirical Army, he deserts to join a duo of smugglers (Harrelson and Newton) on a dangerous job which could result in bad things happening to them if they don't deliver the goods.  

Their mission is to steal a lot of some rare, volatile element (its name escapes me), but they fail and now must convince their boss Dryden (Bettany) to give them one more chance to make it right.   Dryden agrees and allows the now resurfaced Qi'Ra to join the smugglers on their next job, which will require a really fast spaceship.    This is where Lando Calrissian (Glover) comes in.    For those who recall The Empire Strikes Back, Lando is the man Han won the Millenium Falcon from in a card game.    The game is akin to intergalactic poker I assume, but with different rules and hands.    It would have been more cinematic to have them just play actual poker.    Who's to say the game wasn't invented a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away?

Glover hits all of the smoothie notes Billy Dee Williams played in Empire, but it isn't a mere imitation.    There is a hint of mischief behind the million-dollar smile and backslapping, plus a soft spot in his heart for his temperamental female droid co-pilot L3 (Waller-Bridge).    Ehrenreich doesn't give us a Harrison Ford impersonation, which makes sense since this is a younger, less coarse version of the Solo we knew in the original series, but while he sports a sneaky grin and has the cockiness down to a tee, he doesn't quite have the charisma to carry the day.    Harrelson has settled into the middle age mentor role, and his character doesn't provide many surprises.    Usually the guy who says don't trust anyone isn't speaking in hypotheticals.

Ron Howard was brought aboard to direct after the studio had a falling out with original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller (who retained executive producer credit).    I can understand Howard's desire to direct what was expected to be a built-in hit, since he hasn't a true box office winner in quite some time.    The direction is respectable and things move along okay, but Howard's better movies involve more personal stories instead of bloated blockbusters.    The fact that Solo's underwhelming opening weekend gross suggests Star Wars fatigue, or after Rogue One and The Last Jedi, moviegoers may be a bit gun shy about yet another Star Wars story.

The Towering Inferno (1974) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  John Guillermin

Starring:  Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Richard Chamberlain, Fred Astaire, O.J. Simpson, Jennifer Jones

Made in 1974 and long before Die Hard and the real life terror of 9/11, The Towering Inferno presented us with a terrifying story of people trapped in the upper floors of a skyscraper on fire.    The fire begins on a lower floor and works its way up, so those attending a party on a higher floor can't go anywhere.    This is a universal nightmare and The Towering Inferno exploits our fears well.  

The fire is caused by a faulty circuit breaker which sparks onto some chemicals and away we go.    The building's architect (Newman), the builder (Holden), and Holden's cost-cutting, kickback-taking son-in-law who cut corners on the construction are all in attendance, and each must help the fire chief (McQueen) try and extinguish the blaze before everyone dies.    If there was ever a movie warning us against the dangers of kickbacks, well this is it.    Chamberlain is mostly to blame for the fire, and he is shamelessly unapologetic, so much so that he cuts the line to try and escape.    He is the closest thing to a villain in the movie, except for that spreading fire which soon engulfs mostly everything.

The visuals still hold up well.    The actors who are mostly bona fide movie legends handle things convincingly.    OJ Simpson is more famous (or infamous) for his criminal actions now, but at the time he was the biggest star in the NFL and a multi-media superstar.    The Towering Inferno runs over two and a half hours, but it never feels overlong or bloated, mostly because what is happening is engrossing enough to dissuade us from looking at our watches.     The 1970's were full of disaster movies such as the Airport series, Earthquake, and The Swarm.    Nearly every natural and human disaster was covered, and millions flocked to see them.    In 1980, Airplane! was made to spoof these films, and by then there was plenty to spoof. 

The Towering Inferno was the best of the films.    It is grounded in realism, working on the level of a nightmare.    The fire itself takes on a life of its own, as a monster which gobbles what's in its path.   And we aren't entirely upset when it decides to turn on Chamberlain and swallow him up. 

Fahrenheit 451 (2018) * *

Directed by:  Ramin Bahrani

Starring:  Michael B. Jordan, Michael Shannon, Sofia Boutella, Keir Dullea

Fahrenheit 451 is the latest movie adaptation of Ray Bradbury's 1953 novel, written during the age of McCarthyism and resonated for those reasons.    Now, in the age of the Internet and Kindles, the idea of burning books in a futuristic world just seems...silly.  It is amusing to hear Michael Shannon's Beatty discuss how the powers-that-be did away with "the original Internet", but still most cities employ entire fire departments and trucks to dispatch "firemen" to burn heaps of books live on TV.    They promise there won't be any such thing as books in the near future.    Who do people call in the event of actual fires caused by something other than burning books?

The firemen in Fahrenheit 451 are celebrities treated almost reverentially by the public.    Their job is to weed out "eels" (those who still possess black market copies of actual books) and set fire to their libraries or heap of books with flamethrowers.    The firemen appear to be the police force as well, since I didn't recall seeing any police vehicles at any of the book burning sites.    The rising star in the Cleveland, Ohio Fire Department is Guy Montag (Jordan), who is all in on burning books.    He loves it so much that I was reminded of Beavis shouting "FIRE, FIRE".    But, then on a dime, he becomes Conflicted and his eyes and body language betray his newfound guilt.     

This is the second futuristic movie this year to take place in a future Ohio.   Ready Player One took place in Columbus, while this movie is in Cleveland.    Is Ohio ground zero for intolerance and fear in the near future?    At one point, Montag's view on book burning changes when, during a book bust, a library owner sets herself on fire along with her books.    She shouts "Omnis" before lighting the match, and Montag is now curious as to what Omnis means.  Yes, I said book bust, and it sounds just as ridiculous as it does to see it onscreen.  

We meet an underground double agent named Clarisse (Boutella), who acts as an informant for the firemen and also works for the rebellion.   She and Montag become an item, I think.  She knows what Omnis is.    It is supposedly a microscopic piece of DNA injected into a bird in order for it to avoid detection by the government.   Clarisse says the most profound thing in the movie, ("The ministry didn't just form.   People wanted it,").    That is true of Trumpism, McCarthyism, Fascism, and Nazism.   It would have been interesting to see how this society came to be the way it is, but instead we get scene after scene of book burning.    Maybe the Kindles were already destroyed, for all I know.

Michael Shannon has the cold, villainous bureaucrat thing down pat, and there is nothing about his character that isn't predictable or foreshadowed, right down his squelching of his own inner conflict.    It is done well, but we saw it already as recently as The Shape of Water.   The trouble with Jordan's performance is he is pretty much a good guy right from the beginning, even when he was playing a pyro happy fireman.    What causes his changes of heart?   The movie doesn't expound on that in much detail.   We see flashbacks of his past in which his father was busted for reading a book, but all of this is never convincing.   He played a better villain in Black Panther.   He may as well wear a t-shirt that says, "I AM ABOUT TO CHANGE MY VIEWS AND JOIN THE REBELLION"

Intolerance of other ideas and cultures has relevance to today's climate, but Fahrenheit 451 isn't the movie to address that climate.    Its ideas are more intriguing than its plot and characters.    This is the first futuristic movie I can recall in which I was somewhat hoping The Matrix guys would drop in to liven things up. 

The Florida Project (2017) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Sean Baker

Starring:  Brooklynn Prince, Willem Dafoe, Bria Vinaite, Valerie Cotto, Christopher Rivera, Caleb Landry Jones

There isn't a plot to speak of in The Florida Project, just observations of daily life for people with bleak existences and even bleaker prospects.    The action takes place over a summer in Orlando on a strip of highway home to shoddy motels just outside of Disney World.    The purple eyesore known as The Magic Castle is run by Bobby (Dafoe), and in one amusing scene, a newlywed couple's honeymoon is accidentally booked there instead of in the magic kingdom.    They are off by one word and a short traveling distance, but the worlds of Disney and The Magic Castle are so different the couple may as well have booked their hotel on the moon.

The characters who inhabit The Florida Project can barely afford the hotel rooms they call home.    Three young children who are mostly unsupervised run amok around the facility and down the road to another motel.    We first meet Moonee (Prince) and Scooty (Rivera) spitting on cars from the balcony, and they encounter a third girl named Jancey (Cotto), who will become the third member of their crew.    They create mischief, run around making lots of noise, and bum change off of pitying customers at an ice cream stand so they can afford one ice cream cone to share between them.    Moonee also accompanies her unemployed mother Halley (Vinaite) on scams at neighboring hotels where they sell fake perfume and jewelry to suckers.    Mom barely ekes out enough to pay the rent, and is soon forced to turn tricks in her room with Moonee sitting in the bathtub right behind a closed door.    Moonee isn't old enough to figure out what's going on, thank goodness, but nearly everyone else in the motel does.

Halley is an unapologetic hustler with a short temper and a misplaced sense of entitlement.    She sends her daughter to get free food from the restaurant where her best friend works, but after a falling out, the gravy train is stopped, and an indignant Halley confronts her friend as if she is within her rights to somehow feel jilted.    Halley has no sense of gratitude for her friend helping her out as long as she did.    Moonee is doomed, and will sooner or later follow in her mother's footsteps, although she is years away from realizing that.

Bobby runs the motel in a futile attempt to keep some sort of order.    He enforces the rules, but has a soft spot for his patrons, and will walk a mile for them but not much further.    In a sense, we see Bobby as the authority figure these people need.    He provides boundaries in a world where few of the patrons have any.    One of the best scenes in the movie is how deftly he handles a potential child molester accosting the kids on the motel playground.    In that one scene, we learn how much he cares for these kids who exasperate him most of the time with pranks and general unruliness.    Bobby doesn't just scream and yell at the guy.    He gains his confidence and politely leads him away from the area, so the kids aren't alarmed, but then lets him have it.    Dafoe was nominated for a well-deserved Best Supporting Actor Oscar for this performance, which may be his best in a long, storied career playing various characters with a differing range of morals.

The movie doesn't make the mistake of portraying Halley for sympathy.   She unapologetically made her bed and now must lie in it.    She has no interest in a job, but instead wants to suck on society's teat for as long as she can.    We are relieved when someone finally calls Child Protection Services on her, because Moonee may now finally have a chance.    Vinaite is an actress I hadn't seen before, but she, like the others in the film, brings a natural realism to her performance.     The Florida Project has a documentary feel to it.    We are witnessing lives through a hidden camera and what we see is unnerving and sometimes sad and appalling, but it never feels less than authentic.    I will say this is not a movie for everyone.    It does not end happily and there is no message to it.    Its mission is to observe the lives of its people, and we can only watch when we want so desperately to intervene.   It is about a saddening world which is only a mile or so from The Happiest Place on Earth.    The irony isn't lost on the viewer.  

Rosemary's Baby (1968) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Roman Polanski

Starring:  Mia Farrow, John Cassavetes, Ruth Gordon, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Charles Grodin, Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly

Among the scariest things one can imagine is being the target of a plot and not knowing who to trust or getting anyone to believe that there is one.    In the days of Rosemary's Baby, a woman's misgivings are disregarded as hormonal or the product of friends' influence.    Being Rosemary (Farrow) is like that.    She gets pregnant after possibly being raped while unconscious and for months experiences horrible pains which aren't common to pregnancy.   Her far-too-nosy neighbors practically force her to see "their doctor" and drink a milky drink daily featuring ingredients many have never heard of.    Her husband Guy (Cassavetes) is hardly sympathetic, or even around much now that his long dormant acting career has taken off.    We know something is off.   Rosemary knows it too, but just can't verbalize her suspicions.    When she tries, she is quickly dismissed by those who supposedly care for her.

The film, directed by Roman Polanski, is fifty years old, so I don't think it is too much of a spoiler to learn that Rosemary's baby is fathered by Satan and her husband and friends are in on the plot.    Her neighbors Minnie (Gordon) and Roman (Blackmer) are overly nice, pushy, and seem to take a greater interest in the baby than they should.    Rosemary's appearance in the months following conception is chalky white, sickly, and gaunt.    She endures unimaginable physical pain and long hours of loneliness.    She thinks the baby will save her marriage to Guy, not knowing that Guy has already sold his soul to Satan to make it in show business.    Rosemary's health and sanity come a very distant second to him, despite hollow promises that he will be home more.

The overall tone of Rosemary's Baby is effectively eerie, creepy, and suspenseful.    Things don't need to jump out at you to frighten you.   Clues are everywhere, yet Rosemary either naively ignores them or meekly protests the bizarre happenings.    Rosemary couldn't possibly fathom that a plot is underway for her to give birth to Satan's child.    Would you be able to believe it?   Even if the signs are all pointing to it?    It is simply too farfetched to conceive.    This notion allows Rosemary's Baby to work much longer than it should.    There is a degree of human nature at work here.  

Farrow projects the right amounts of naivete and vulnerability.   She is surrounded by people at all times, yet she is terribly alone.    Even when she is alone, the doorbell to her apartment rings and she dutifully answers it.    If she didn't answer the door so often, parts of the plot may not be able to happen.   Kind of like people in the Scream films who never fail to answer the phone when it rings.

Polanski doesn't just provide a creepy atmosphere, he provides us with creepy people who seem good from the outside, but everyone but Rosemary knows better.    Polanski's camera makes it feel like Rosemary is constantly watched.    Her space isn't her own and day by day, the reality is closing in on her.

Then, we have the ending, with elements we already knew and then an element we don't see coming.  Are Rosemary's actions the result of her weakness in dealing with overbearing people or her overly trusting nature?    Or does she believe, like a magazine cover she once read suggests, that God is dead anyway?    If anyone from God's camp is around, we sure don't see it, but Satan's followers are there in full force.    With so much overwhelming evidence in Rosemary's Baby of evil triumphing over good, then how can Rosemary fight it?    We see why she can't.   

Book Club (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Bill Holderman

Starring:  Jane Fonda, /Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson, Don Johnson, Andy Garcia, Richard Dreyfuss, Wallace Shawn, Alicia Silverstone, Katie Aselton, Ed Begley, Jr.

The score over the opening credits lets us we're in for some light fare with Book Club, a charming romantic comedy about the romantic adventures of four mature women; one single and keeping it that way, one married but with a lackluster sex life, one divorced for many years and still resents her ex, and a widow with two way, way overprotective adult children who treat her like she's incompetent.
Any obstacles in their way will soon be overcome and all will have a happy ending.    Book Club isn't in the realism business, nor should it be.

The women are friends since college and once a month meet for a book club in which more wine drinking and gossiping occurs than book discussion.    The book selected is Fifty Shades of Grey, and it's probably no wonder they don't have much to say about it in future meetings.   Not when each is presented with a romantic dilemma which must be solved by movie's end.    For Vivian (Fonda), a rich and never married (make that never actually been in a serious relationship), a former flame (Johnson) stays at her hotel and wants to rekindle the old days.   For Diane (Keaton), her husband died last year and feels the pull of her overbearing daughters to move to Arizona to live near them.   A complication presents itself in the form of Mitchell (Garcia), a rich pilot.    Married Carol (Steenburgen) is mostly happy with her now-retired husband Bruce (Nelson), but he would rather work on his old motorcycle than have sex.    Then, there is federal judge Sharon (Bergen), who reluctantly puts herself on the dating scene eighteen years after divorcing her husband.

The pieces are now in place, and if you think there won't be at least one Viagra gag, then you've come to the wrong movie.    But, it's fun to see the legendary actresses (three of them Oscar winners) do their stuff, and the couples all have a sweet chemistry.    We like these women, all of whom are bright, intelligent, and healthy, and we want them to be happy.    For Diane, we want her to tell her kids to go to hell already, which she does a lot later than she should have.    Book Club is a movie in which the women chase the men, which is different from the formula of most romantic comedies.
Book Club won't add any more statuettes to the mantles of any of its stars, but it is surely worth a couple of hours of your time.  

Deadpool 2 (2018) * * *

Directed by:  David Leitch

Starring:  Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin, Josh Brolin, Zazie Beetz, Terry Crews, T.J. Miller, Stefan Kipicic, Julian Dennison, Eddie Marsan

Deadpool is still a wisecracker who doesn't hesitate to break the fourth wall to call out "lazy writing" or obscure pop culture references.    But, unlike his previous film, this sequel gives us occasions in which the superhero actually cares about something...and we believe him when he says it.   Honestly.  Who woulda thunk it? 

The 2016 original was self-deprecation and snark run amok, while bludgeoning us with bloody violence.    This follow-up expands Deadpool (Reynolds) into more dimensions and the violence, while plentiful, isn't gory, but more cartoonish.    The tone is lighter, and yes once again Josh Brolin presents us with a multi-layered antagonist with his own reasons for wanting to kill the teenage mutant Deadpool wishes to save.    Deadpool 2 could've given us "lazy writing" or more of the same formula as the original, but it dares to at least make an effort to go in another direction.    David Leitch, who directed the ultra-violent John Wick (2014) and last year's Atomic Blonde knows his way around an action scene, but without people populating them we care about, then what's the point?

The opening scene has a depressed Deadpool blowing himself to bits.   Partly because of his sadness and partly because the movie Logan had its hero die, Deadpool figures he has to up the ante.   Then, we see how he got that way.    Deadpool takes a pounding in this movie, including being torn in half by the monster Juggernaut and having baby legs sewed on to him which eventually grow into real regenerated legs.   But, he keeps fighting and being a wiseguy.   Maybe he figure he must laugh so then he will not cry.    And he has plenty of reasons to cry. 

Deadpool makes it his mission to protect the teenage Firefist (Dennison), a mutant full of rage because he has been abused all his life.    A time traveler named Cable (Brolin) has other ideas about Firefist, and for reasons which are understandable, so for long stretches Cable and Deadpool battle each other before a plot twist which I didn't expect and found rather refreshing is injected.   Cable is as serious as Deadpool is, well...not.    They play well off each other.

One hilarious subplot involves Deadpool putting together a team of superheroes known as X-Force, named so because the name X-Men disrespects women in his eyes.    What happens to his new team gives us the biggest laughs in the movie, as well as a superhero named Domino (Beetz), whose superpower is her incredibly good luck.    The results speak for themselves.    Deadpool is mostly a superhero comedy, but it is less obsessed with blood and snark, and more interested in at least giving us a reason to care about Deadpool himself.   

Live Free or Die Hard (2007) * * *

Directed by:  Len Wiseman

Starring:  Bruce Willis, Timothy Olymphant, Justin Long, Maggie Q, Kevin Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Maybe the reason John McClane (Willis) seems to find himself in the wrong place at the wrong time (for the fourth time now), is because he is not the type of cop to let things go.    If something isn't quite right, he senses it and acts on it.    This does not bode well for the bad guys.   The villain here is cyber terrorist Thomas Gabriel (Olymphant), a clean-cut, arrogant young man who unleashes a shutdown on the entire American computer infrastructure.    McClane is accompanying a hacker named Matt (Long) to Washington, DC to meet with the FBI, and not coincidentally, Matt was once approached to Gabriel to aid him in his scheme.    Matt refused and is now a target of Gabriel's goons.    McClane is at first annoyed by Matt, mostly due to generational differences, but we all know Matt won't be harmed if McClane has anything to say about it.

Live Free or Die Hard gives you what you would expect from a Die Hard film and does it with gusto.   This is the first movie I've seen in which an unoccupied car is used as a weapon against a helicopter.    "I ran out of bullets," McClane says in the deadpan way he says mostly everything else.   Matt is not used to such violence.   For McClane, this stuff is old hat to him by now.    Olymphant gives us a nasty villain whom we can root against gleefully.    He lacks the humor and sophistication of Hans Gruber from the first film, but then again, how many villains are of that caliber?    But, we love it when McClane gets under his skin.

Willis, of course, injects McClane with the everyman quality he is famous for.    He isn't tired of the role.    That seems to come in the next installment, the forgettable A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), which broke the streak of good Die Hard films.    Willis throws himself headlong into the fray and despite his age can still deliver a can of whoop-ass to the baddies.    His fight with Gabriel's dangerous girlfriend (Maggie Q) is among the most exhausting and exhilarating of the series.    McClane keeps finding ways to stay alive, much to Gabriel's mounting frustration.    But, Gabriel has some tricks as well, including kidnapping McClane's daughter Lucy (Winstead).   

Live Free or Die Hard, like the rest of the series, isn't grounded in realism, but follows the traditions of the action genre or possibly even the western.    McClane takes a pounding, and by the end is bloodied, tired, beaten, but never bowed.    I think back to Die Hard 2, when McClane answers someone who asks why he would fly in a helicopter if he is afraid of flying.    "I don't like to lose either," he says, and that is all the explanation we need.    Not that we even needed one.  

Disobedience (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Sebastian Lelio


Starring:  Rachel Weisz, Rachel McAdams, Alessandro Nivola


We first see an aging rabbi discussing the idea of free will and choice to his congregation.    He suddenly falls over and dies from an apparent heart attack.    It is an ironic subject to discuss considering what follows.    Disobedience is a movie about two women who choose to love in a world in which such a choice is not deemed acceptable.   We learn they began their love affair many years ago, and now one of them is married to Dovid (Nivola), the rabbi-in-waiting for the congregation, but even if she weren't married to Dovid, the rules still apply to her and her lover.  


The lovers are Ronit (Weisz), who has exiled herself (or was she exiled by her community?) to New York and became a famed photographer.    She receives word the rabbi, her estranged father, has passed and she travels back to London to see the community she hasn't seen in years.    Dovid's pleasure to see Ronit is awkward and muted.    Esti (McAdams) is thrilled to see Ronit, although tries to hide it to no avail.    Esti and Ronit fell in love years ago and even though Esti is wed to Dovid, the two women still love each other.    But each woman learns the Jewish Orthodox community is not willing to be flexible in accepting this love.   

Disobedience is not Brokeback Mountain, although both films are about homosexual relationships which are taboo to the worlds in which they live.    It is not as powerful and is slow to get started, but once it does, the movie gains considerable momentum.    Like Brokeback Mountain, the "villain" is not a tangible, identifiable person, but society's attitude towards homosexuality as a whole.    The conflict is caused not just by people, but tightly held beliefs which are not conducive to 21st Century thinking.

 
 
Weisz is the more confident of the two women, mostly because she found a way to break free of her religious upbringing and forge her own path.    But that path comes with a price of broken friendships and unrequited love.    Esti deludes herself temporarily into thinking she has her own free will, but we know she does not.    She is married and soon will learn she is pregnant, so leaving Dovid would be impractical and near impossible.    McAdams gives us a sad woman whose face only lights up when she sees Ronit.    She continually behaves like a trapped woman, and her attempts to break free of her situation may be too little, too late. 
It would be easy to write off Dovid as the heavy, but even he has moments in which he questions his marriage and his long-held beliefs for the first time.    If he truly wants Esti to be happy, then would that mean letting her go?    Nivola's performance allows us to see his own ambivalence towards the situation, and in doing so, we feel sorry for him.    We know Esti doesn't love him in the spousal sense, but does that mean he deserves to be left?    We want Ronit and Esti to be happy, but does that mean we want Dovid to suffer?   The movie works best when dealing with this triangle of complexity.    There are no easy answers and we know someone will be hurt in all of this.    If not now, then definitely later.    Disobedience doesn't devolve into soap opera, but instead examines its characters with honesty and care. 

 
 

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Anthony and Joe Russo

Starring:  Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Josh Brolin, Scarlett Johannson, Chadwick Boseman, Sebastian Stan, Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Bradley Cooper (voice), Vin Diesel (voice), Dave Bautista, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Mark Ruffalo, Don Cheadle, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Anthony Mackie, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Karen Gillan, Danai Gurira, Pom Klementieff, Tom Holland

Listing the cast members may take longer than writing the review for Avengers: Infinity War, but even with all of these characters to remember, the movie does a splendid job of keeping the plotlines and the characters straight.    There are even helpful titles to tell us where various characters are.   The Lord of the Rings series could have used this and cut down on the confusion.

But, Avengers: Infinity War isn't simply a triumph of keeping things organized, but it also gives us a villain with depth and dimensions.  This adds an extra level of intrigue to his scenes.   Thanos (Brolin) is indeed a very powerful villain, but he also feels love, regret, respect, and sympathy.   Not that these distract him from his goal of wiping out half of the population in the universe, but he even does that more of out of necessity and practicality in his eyes than sheer evil intentions.    We pretty much know what to expect from the Avengers themselves, but there are a few surprises with them also.

The Avengers and The Guardians of the Galaxy are trying to stop Thanos from possessing six infinity stones which would help him reach his goal.    He believes wiping out half of the universe will allow for more evenly distributed wealth and resources.     Ebenezer Scrooge wanted to see the surplus population decreased.    Thanos would tell Scrooge to hold his beer while he took it a step further.   I wouldn't dream of revealing what happens, but this entry in the Marvel Universe deserves credit for allowing its story to go to the dark place it needs to go.

Of course, there is CGI galore and action bulging from all parts of the screen, but Avengers: Infinity War still finds space to tell a story and present us with the most complex villain of the series so far.   Thanos looks like a purple hulk with strength to spare, but his conflicted feelings towards characters like Gamora (Saldana) and Nebula (Gillan) allow his scenes to resonate with us more than just a giant baddie who will inevitably get his ass whipped.    Or will he?   This is the first Avengers film in which the outcome is not etched in stone and its people are allowed to grow at least a little. 

Life of the Party (2018) * *

Directed by:  Ben Falcone

Starring:  Melissa McCarthy, Stephen Root, Jacki Weaver, Matt Walsh, Julie Bowen, Maya Rudolph, Gillian Jacobs, Debby Ryan, Molly Gordon, Chris Parnell

Stop me if you've heard this plot before.    A mother of a college student decides to enroll in the same college herself.    The daughter is at first none too thrilled, but she comes around.    The mom one-ups the class bully and parties a bunch with the other students.    If this sounds at all familiar, recall Rodney Dangerfield covered a lot of the same ground in Back to School (1986), which mostly worked because it relied heavily on Dangerfield's genius.    Melissa McCarthy assumes the Dangerfield role here.   She is mostly innocuous; and in the beginning babbles on so much you would think she was being paid by the word.    The movie itself is hardly memorable.    I laughed a couple of times, but then just kind of observed the rest with detachment.    There wasn't a whole lot to care about.

I suppose Life of the Party deserves kudos for staying away from projectile bodily fluids, which isn't high praise, but it's at least a positive.    There are keen supporting performances from actors we wish we saw more of, but this is McCarthy's vehicle and her husband Ben Falcone is steering it.   McCarthy and Falcone also wrote the script, and it's puzzling to see how little McCarthy is given to do.    Her likability only goes so far.   I especially enjoyed the off-kilter work of Gillian Jacobs, who plays McCarthy's college-age friend and classmate who recently spent eight years in a coma before beginning her studies.   She has an awkward smile and big eyes, and a funny way of speaking which is endearing.   

McCarthy is Deanna Miles, who drops her daughter off at her dorm for another year of college.    Just as she and her tightwad husband Dan (Walsh) pull off, Dan declares he wants a divorce because he has fallen in love with a local realtor named Marci (Bowen).    Dan and Marci are the villains who get their comeuppance...kind of.    The movie never really goes all the way and makes them full-fledged pricks.    Like the movie itself, there is something held back here.     After the distressing news, Deanna decides to complete the final year of her archaeology studies and earn the degree she started when she got pregnant with her daughter Maddie (Gordon) while in her junior year of college.    Deanna deferred her dreams to be a mom and wife, but now she is taking her life back.

There is a nice setup which falls flat as scene after scene fizzles without a satisfactory payoff.    Even Deanna's awful oral presentation of her class project goes way over the top and then duds out.    There isn't a lot original about Life of the Party and there doesn't necessarily need to be.    But, the movie feels curiously muted and never lets loose.    We keep waiting for it to happen, but it never does, and we are left with a genial comedy that will soon be forgotten. 

Den of Thieves (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Christian Gudegast

Starring:  Gerard Butler, 50 Cent, Pablo Schreiber, O'Shea Jackson, Jr., Maurice Compte, Evan Jones

Like Heat (1995), which Den of Thieves resembles (and maybe even intentionally so), Den of Thieves examines the relationship between cops and criminals.    They need each other, whether they care to admit it, and in cases like Big Nick O'Brien (Butler), he wouldn't know what to do with himself if he weren't chasing robbers.    Probably drink and mess around with strippers, which is what he does in alarming excess.    But, the job is the reason for him to stop at least temporarily.

As Den of Thieves opens, we witness a botched armored car heist in the early morning hours while Los Angeles is still sleeping.   Guns are fired, cops and crooks are killed, and the armored car is empty anyway.   Is this by design, or a mistake?   Big Nick, who leads a ragtag team of LA Sheriff Dept.'s Major Crimes cops known as "The Regulators" wants to know.   The Regulators are in many ways equal to the criminals in how they bend or break the law to get what they want.    It is hard to tell which side is worse.   "You aren't the bad guys, we are," Nick tells a suspect he is interrogating (and probably highly unlawfully, I may add)

The criminals are led by ex-con Ray Merrimen (Schreiber), who assembles a group of hardened felons and a seemingly feckless two-time loser bartender and getaway driver named Donnie (Jackson), who is the target of Big Nick's interrogations and abuse for inside information.    Their target is the supposedly impenetrable Los Angeles Federal Reserve Branch with, in the words of Danny Ocean, a security system which rivals most nuclear missile solos.   Their plan is to steal $30 million worth of untraceable bills scheduled for destruction. 

Big Nick's home life falls apart due to his long hours, drinking, and canoodling with strippers and hookers.    But, there is a powerful scene in which Big Nick has a possibly last moment with his daughter before he attempts to thwart the thieves before their score.    Den of Thieves isn't as much interested in revealing much about its characters as much as it is about the dynamic between cops and robbers who deal in the same corruption.    We see one side maneuver and then the other, like a chess match with an endgame which seems inevitable, but then the film changes the game to the point where Big Nick will now have to start all over.   Den of Thieves isn't as deep as Heat, nor are its characters as deeply realized, but it honors the tradition of the cops/robbers drama successfully enough.

Overboard (2018) * * *

Directed by:  Rob Greenberg

Starring:  Anna Faris, Eugenio Derbez, John Hannah, Eva Longoria, Emily Maddison, Mel Rodriguez

Like its 1987 predecessor starring Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, Overboard is a charming comedy in which the tables are turned on an insufferable jerk and then the jerk learns how to be a better person.    The original film was not only funny, but had some expert supporting work from Edward Hermann as Hawn's husband and Michael Hagerty as Russell's best friend and co-conspirator.   In the 2018 version, the roles are reversed.    The working class hero is Kate (Faris), who schleps out a living delivering pizzas and cleaning carpets while raising three girls and studying to be a nurse.    One day, she is cleaning carpets on a massive yacht owned by rich, jerky, chauvinist, hard partying playboy Leonardo (Derbez), who fires her after she refuses to fetch him a mango.    Leonardo, son of the "third richest man in the world", has never worked a day in his life and would like to keep it that way, but later that night, he falls overboard and washes ashore with amnesia. 

Upon learning of Leonardo's condition, Kate and her boss Theresa (Longoria) concoct a plan to convince Leonardo they are actually married so she can have him earn a paycheck while also leaving all the household chores to him.    At first Leonardo is overwhelmed, but soon not only learns to work construction, but cook, clean, and act as a real father for the girls.    Kate and Leonardo (get it Titanic fans?) fall in love and become a quasi-family, but of course reality will soon intervene.    The reality in this case is Leonardo's family.   Leonardo's ailing father wishes to leave the business to him, while Leonardo's scheming, envious sister hatches a plot to convince her family Leonardo is actually dead so she can win control of the company.    The scenes with Leonardo's family become an intriguing subplot all its own.

Those who saw the original won't be surprised by any developments here, nor would anyone who has seen a romantic comedy before either.    But, the film's charms fall with some interesting tweaks.   Derbez, like in last year's underrated How to Be a Latin Lover, is a strong physical comedian with a heart.    He isn't afraid to look foolish for a laugh, and yet, despite his being a spoiled rich guy, we know there is a better person in there somewhere.    When the better Leonardo emerges, we are surprisingly touched.    Faris is more or less the straight person in the duo, but she is likable as well even though she is essentially committing some felonies by tricking Leonardo.    But, let's not let that get in the way of the fact that Overboard works well even the second time around.  

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Joe Johnston

Starring:  Chris Evans, Sebastian Stan, Tommy Lee Jones, Hayley Atwell, Toby Jones, Hugo Weaving, Dominic Cooper, Samuel L. Jackson, Stanley Tucci

Captain America: The First Avenger is among the superior Marvel films, as is its sequel, The Winter Soldier (2014).   Its backdrop is World War II and Captain America is created to take on extreme evil in the form of Nazis at first and then Hydra, which threatens to engulf Nazism as the biggest threat to humanity.   A super soldier like Captain America is needed, but will he be enough to thwart Hydra?  His task is daunting, especially when their technology is far ahead of anything even the genius Howard Stark (Cooper) can dream up for the Allies.   

We first meet Steve Rogers (Evans) as a scrawny, tiny Brooklyn guy who dreams of joining the fight against the Axis Powers in World War II.    Because of his size and his variety of physical maladies, he is repeatedly rejected by the Army, but Rogers is not one to take defeat lying down.   This catches the eye of Dr. Erskine (Tucci), who thinks Rogers just might be the man for his new experiment which turns guys like Steve Rogers into guys like Captain America.    When the experiment is completed, Rogers is no longer a shrimpy punching bag, but a tall, buff superhero with super quick metabolism and even quicker ability to heal.    He soon wears a red, white, and blue costume and is fitted with the emblematic Vibranium shield which can stop a tank.   That Vibranium stuff later comes in handy in other Marvel films, such as Black Panther and Iron Man. 

Helping out Captain America in his war against the Nazis and soon, the dastardly Johann Schmidt/Red Skull (Weaving-who has this villain thing down to a science) whose modest goals for Hydra include launching missiles which can destroy the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, are Agent Carter (Atwell), Steve's childhood friend Bucky (Stan), and the ornery Col. Phillips (Jones), who warms up to Rogers very, very slowly.    The Eastern Seaboard seems to be prime target for many a villain's schemes in moviedom.   Just saying. 

What separates Captain America: The First Avenger from other CGI inundated superhero films which come later is that it relies on characters more than effects.   I'd rather see Captain America take on the Nazis than a group of Avengers fighting the incomprehensible Ultron or Thor trying to save Asgard from yet another hostile takeover.    There is something pure and true about Captain America which we can relate to, and very human as well.    Sure there are CGI effects in Captain America, but they don't overwhelm everything else.

What happens in this film sets the stage for the two Captain America sequels, and the introduction of The Winter Soldier to the mix.   The Captain America films are about something, and are interested in furthering the story than just filling the screen with nonsense.    There is a darkness about Captain America because he sacrifices so much to win.    If you're wondering how a World War II era superhero can become one of the modern day Avengers, well this movie fills in those blanks quite nicely too. 

Tully (2018) * *

Directed by:  Jason Reitman

Starring:  Charlize Theron, Ron Livingston, Mackenzie Davis, Mark Duplass, Elaine Tan

The supposed message of Tully is to be appreciative of what you have and enjoy every unpredictable minute of motherhood.  However,  the perky ending just rings false, not after watching what transpired previously and what poor mom goes through.  

Tully is the latest film pairing of director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody.   I wasn't a fan of Juno (2007), although many people were.    I found its title character cold and unapproachable.  Their next collaboration was the much more successful Young Adult (2011), which starred Theron as an alcoholic children's book author who returns to her hometown and tries to steal her former boyfriend away from his pregnant wife.    "We'll beat this thing together," she tells her intended, and it is one of the funniest lines I've ever heard in a movie.

Tully's first half hour or so is dedicated to showing us just how put-upon Marlo (Theron), the very pregnant soon-to-be mother of three is.   Her life sucks, folks, no denying it.   She is about to pop, but still has to trudge her kids off to school.   Her younger son, Jonah, may or may not be autistic, but he requires a nightly brushing down of his skin from his mom.  

Marlo's husband, Drew (Livingston) works all day and loves his family and all, but chooses to unwind playing video games before bed while Marlo toils away at putting the kids to bed.    Drew isn't an absent or unloving father, but it would take a catastrophic emergency to pry him away from his game.    Marlo is sleep deprived and overworked, but relief comes in the form of twenty-something Tully (Davis), a "night nanny" recommended by Marlo's rich brother (Duplass) who watches the baby at night, while Marlo sleeps.   Marlo is no longer harried or tired.    She is sleeping well now and is much more productive and loving towards all.    If Marlo could only talk Tully into adopting her newborn, then her life would be perfect.

Davis is as wide-eyed, optimistic, and heavenly as Theron is earthy and edgy.   These are nice contrasting performances.    Marlo sees a lot of herself in Tully, and perhaps wishes to live vicariously through the seemingly uncomplicated godsend.    But is Tully too good to be true?   In some ways and in some ways no.   You will see what I mean.    Livingston is also his usual dependable comic self who comes to realize he takes Marlo for granted and learns to take on a bigger role in the family. 

The final act of Tully flies off into flights of fancy which don't mesh with the earlier, more authentic scenes of Marlo's motherhood.    They help bring Marlo, and everything else into greater focus, but it also pushes on us a moral which I'm not sure the movie itself believes.    After watching Marlo nearly destroy herself raising three children, and look like she is minutes away from a nervous breakdown, are we really expected to believe that this is all somehow a wonderful thing?   Being a parent has its moments of sheer frustration, but also more than enough moments of love and joy.    It really isn't a drag, but Tully goes so far overboard in bringing us such a negative view of motherhood that we wonder why anyone would be insane enough to do it.    That is the real message of this movie, whether Reitman and Cody care to admit it or not.