Jerry and Marge Go Large (2022) * * 1/2

Directed by:  David Frankel

Starring:  Bryan Cranston, Annette Bening, Larry Wilmore, Rainn Wilson, Michael McKean, Anna Camp, Uly Schlesinger, Jake McDorman

Jerry and Marge Go Large is based loosely on a true story in which a retired Michigan factory worker Jerry (Cranston) with a knack for mathematics and probabilities discovers a loophole in a lottery game which would guarantee lucrative wins.   Jerry learns he can't simply buy one or two tickets, but if he withdraws thousands from his savings and buys thousands of tickets, that's where the big bucks come.

At first Jerry empties his bank account without telling his wife Marge (Bening) and stuffs his winnings in cereal boxes in the pantry, but soon she joins him in his quest to enrich themselves.   Michigan soon does away with the lucrative game, but Massachusetts still plays it, so Jerry and Marge make weekly ten-hour treks to a gas station in the boondocks to buy and print out thousands of tickets.   The gas station owner Bill (Wilson) soon becomes a partner in the actually legal scheme.   The surprise is:  Jerry and Marge don't use their winnings to buy mansions or travel the world, but to pay it forward and enlist their friends and town citizens to buy tickets and use the winnings to improve their town.   

Jerry's and Marge's time as exclusive benefactors of this loophole is limited, as cocky, arrogant Harvard student Tyler Langford (Schlesinger) discovers the same loophole and uses it for self-enrichment.   I don't know if Tyler is real or just a plot device added to create tension in a story where there isn't much or simply add an unnecessary villain.   Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening provide us with a likable couple of retirees who find joyful purpose while counting thousands of tickets all night in a fleabag motel room.   Most of the reason Jerry and Marge Go Large works as well as it does is because of Cranston and Bening and the goodwill they create in a story which doesn't add up to much and is overall marginally entertaining. 

Champions (2023) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Bobby Farrelly

Starring:  Woody Harrelson, Kaitlin Olson, Cheech Marin, Kevin Iannucci, Ernie Hudson, Matt Cook, Madison Tevlin, Joshua Felder, Ashton Gunning, James Day Keith, Casey Metcalfe

Bobby Farrelly's Champions reunites Farrelly with his Kingpin (1996) star Woody Harrelson in a more traditional sports comedy in which the players are intellectually disabled and teach their beleaguered coach a thing or two about relating to players on a personal level.  

Marcus Marokovich (Harrelson) is an assistant J-League basketball coach who is fired after shoving his head coach (Hudson) during a timeout when he disagrees with the head coach's play call.   After his firing, Marcus is busted for DUI after rear-ending a police car and sentenced to coach a team of Special Olympians at a local rec center for ninety days.   Champions doesn't deviate from the formula it sets for itself.  The troubled coach will have difficulty relating to the players, then the underdog team will gel, personal troubles will occur before the team gathers itself before The Big Game.   Do they win the Big Game?  I'll leave that for you to discover.  

Champions wins no points for freshness or originality, but it is still likable and at some points sweet.  It's engaging enough, although overly long, and it's not the worst way to kill two hours.   If it were to appear on television a few months from now, I may consider watching it again if nothing else better is on.  

Lethal Weapon 3 (1992) * * 1/2

Directed by:  Richard Donner

Starring:  Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Rene Russo, Joe Pesci, Stuart Wilson, Darlene Love, Steve Kahan

Lethal Weapon 3 looks and feels like the third in a series.  It isn't bad, but it's starting to show wear and tear.  Director Donner leans more heavily on chases and action sequences and less on the unique friendship between partners Martin Riggs (Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Glover), who were brought together in the original Lethal Weapon (1987) and gelled terrifically in the 1989 sequel which remains the best of the four Lethal Weapon films. 

This time Riggs and Murtaugh, joined by Internal Affairs cop Lorna Cole (Russo-who is quite tough herself), take on ex-cop Jack Travis (Wilson), who runs a gun-running operation which puts automatic weapons into the hands of L.A. gangs.   Travis isn't as menacing or evil as Joss Ackland's villain diplomat in Lethal Weapon 2, but as a bad guy, he'll do.  As Lethal Weapon 3 opens, Riggs and Murtaugh try to be hotshots and accidentally detonate a bomb which destroys an office building.  They are busted down to traffic duty, but they soon find themselves in the middle of Travis' nefarious scheme.   

Joe Pesci, who was so memorable in part 2 as the weaselly but lovable accountant Leo Getz, returns in this installment but doesn't really have much to do except echo his performance from the previous film.   Steve Kahan, who plays Riggs' and Murtaugh's exasperated captain, plays more of a role in Lethal Weapon 3 but still looks like Riggs and Murtaugh are going to have him plopping Rolaids for the rest of his professional life.   As far as Riggs and Murtaugh are concerned, Riggs is given all of the fun lines while Glover shouts "Riggs" so often that if you were playing a drinking game and downed a shot every time Glover said Riggs' name, you'd be drunk off your ass pretty quickly.  

The Squid and the Whale (2005) * * *

Directed by:  Noah Baumbach

Starring:  Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Anna Paquin, Owen Kline, William Baldwin

Noah Bambauch's semi-autobiographical, if not wholly autobiographical The Squid and the Whale is set in the mid-1980's and tells the story of a divorcing intellectual Manhattan couple named Bernard (Daniels) and Joan (Linney) and the effect it has on their sons Frank (Kline) and teenager Walt (Eisenberg).  Walt stays with Bernard, mostly because dad has taken up residence with one of his students (Paquin) and Walt likes her too.   Frank stays with Joan, who has a new boyfriend (Baldwin), and expresses his anger and hostility by wiping semen all over his locker and school library.

Bernard and Joan make the mistake of trying to behave as if the brain can somehow override the heart in such a situation.   Both are in pain and hostile to each other, but they intellectualize and try to act civilly for the sake of their sons, but Walt and Frank aren't fooled by the masquerade.  Joan has had affairs while Bernard's literary career has stalled while Joan's writing is flourishing.   Bernard gnashes his teeth at Joan's boyfriend, who truly wants things to run smoothly.

Told in a taut eighty minutes, The Squid and the Whale benefits from superior performances.  With Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, how could you not?   Eisenberg and Kline also turn in solid, engaging supporting work as the conflicted sons who act out their anger in differing ways.  We already mentioned Frank's, but Walt instead plays Pink Floyd's Hey You at a talent show and trying to pass it off as his own composition.  The audience he is playing for obviously never listened to Pink Floyd or even heard of them, which allows Walt a chance to shine for a brief moment while the despair of his family life collapsing encloses around him.  

Scream VI (2023) * *

Directed by:  Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett

Starring:  Jenna Ortega, Melissa Barrera, Jasmin Savoy Brown, Mason Gooding, Dermot Mulroney, Courteney Cox, Hayden Panetierre, Liana Liberato, Jack Champion

While the 2022 version of Scream worked in nostalgic and suspenseful terms, Scream VI behaves like the sequels of the original Scream (1996), in which the original idea slowly became watered down and tiresome.  Last year's Scream was called a "requel", a sequel which pays homage to the original, but it also pointed out that the characters were trapped in a horror film and understood its rules and conventions.  It's all so...meta.  

The survivors of Scream all moved on to college in New York City, but quicker than you can say, "New York City", there's another Ghostface killer (or more) and our heroes are now trying to deduce who is trying to kill them while trying to avoid being Ghostface's latest victims.  Scream VI, however, feels more like a retread than a sequel to a requel.   The murders are particularly gruesome and we soon run out of patience with the hopes that the killer would simply reveal himself or herself already.

Scream VI should instill a new rule into the characters' minds:  Without giving away too many spoilers, the killer in the sequel will most likely be a relative of one or more of the previous killers looking for revenge.  The killers who are themselves offed in this movie will have a father's brother's uncle's cousin's former roommate trying to eviscerate them in Scream VII.   Bet on it.  And one more thing:  We know Samantha's father was Billy Loomis, one of the killers in the original film.   He appears to Samantha as a ghost trying to urge her to embrace her lineage and become a homicidal maniac, but the ghost appears as actor Skeet Ulrich at his present age.  The original Billy died at about 18 or 19 years old.   Did the ghost age?   Just wondering. 

65 (2023) * *

Directed by:  Scott Beck and Bryan Woods

Starring:  Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Nika King, Chloe Coleman

I speculate that "Star Trek Meets Jurassic Park" was a pitch used for 65.  This is a dull adventure in which a spaceship from a distant planet crash lands on Earth 65 million years ago and its survivors must fend off predatory dinosaurs in order to escape the planet before that nasty asteroid which wiped out the big guys strikes.   Mills (Driver), an explorer, and Koa (Greenblatt), a child, survive the crash and embark on a journey to find the ship's escape pod which was jettisoned in the crash.  

Mills leaves behind a wife and a sick daughter who dies while he's away on the years-long mission.  Mills also helpfully speaks English, while Koa speaks another language and can't understand any of Mills' instructions.   Why does Koa speak a different tongue or why does Mills speak English?  No matter.  We are to assume that Mills' isn't really speaking English, but whatever his native language is.   I suppose this beats an entire movie in subtitles?   We are then treated to cumbersome scenes in which Mills and Koa are desperately trying to communicate.

Then, there are the dinosaurs, which are seen only as monsters trying to devour our heroes which need to be blown away by the technologically advanced weaponry Mills has.  65 soon feels more like a video game than a story with characters we care about.  Driver and Greenblatt try their mightiest to flesh out thinly drawn people, but they are as trapped in a flat story as we are.   The only reason 65 musters two stars instead of less is at least it has the decency to run only 95 minutes.  

Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerra (2023) * * *

Directed by:  Guy Ritchie

Starring:  Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, Hugh Grant, Cary Elwes, Eddie Marsan, Bugzy Malone

Guy Ritchie's Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerra is a James Bond-inspired adventure directed by Ritchie with high style and a sly sense of fun.  Jason Statham's Orson Fortune (what a name) is after some sort of item (called the Maguffin by Hitchcock and is ultimately irrelevant).   One week after seeing Operation Fortune, I believe it was some sort of weaponry which the villains were willing to pay $10 billion dollars for.   If I'm not mistaken, it could blow up lots of stuff and a buyer sounds like he is overpaying greatly at $10 billion, but I'm no weapons or missiles expert.

No issue, since the British government has the freelance agent Fortune on the payroll and hires him (with stipulations) to go after the weapon.   Fortune allegedly requires special planes and other means because of phobias, but from what I recall, he doesn't exhibit any sort of phobia at any point during the mission.  Fortune is under the watchful eye of government bureaucrat Nathan (Elwes), who doesn't play a villain but whose career of playing turncoats and villains makes us wonder if or when he will turn on Fortune.  Fortune is teamed with a computer whiz (Plaza), his usual right-hand man JJ (Malone), and they hire famed actor Danny Francesco (Hartnett) to help infiltrate a yacht party thrown by Danny's biggest fan, arms dealer Greg Simonds (Grant), who is brokering the $10 billion deal.

There isn't much here you can't predict in advance, and Operation Fortune exists to be enjoyed at the time of viewing and hastily forgotten without leaving much imprint on the brain.  That's meant as a compliment.  

2023 Oscars Predictions

In an unprecedented move for me, I am late this year in presenting my picks for this year's 95th Annual Academy Awards, but at least they will occur before the ceremony tonight.  These are not my preferences, but how I think the Academy will vote.  Believe me, some of these are truly not my preferences.  This year, I will pick in all categories. 

Best Picture:  Everything, Everywhere All at Once

Best Actor:  Brendan Fraser (The Whale)

Best Actress:  Michelle Yeoh (Everything, Everywhere All at Once)

Best Supporting Actor:  Ke Huy Quan (Everything, Everywhere All at Once)

Best Supporting Actress:  Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)

Best Director:  Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything, Everywhere All at Once)

Best Original Screenplay:  Everything, Everywhere All at Once

Best Adapted Screenplay:  Women Talking

Best Original Score:  John Williams (The Fabelmans)

Best Animated Feature Film:  Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio

Best Cinematography:  Elvis

Best Costume Design:  Elvis

Best Documentary Feature:  Fire of Love

Best Documentary Short:  The Elephant Whisperers

Best Film Editing:  Everything, Everywhere All at Once

Best International Feature Film:  All Quiet on the Western Front

Best Makeup and Hairstyling:  The Whale

Best Original Song:  Naatu, Naatu from RRR

Best Production Design:  Babylon

Best Animated Short Film: An Ostrich Told Me the World is Fake and I Think I Believe It

Best Live Action Short Film:  Le Pupille

Best Sound:  Top Gun: Maverick

Best Visual Effects:  Avatar: The Way of Water

Best Animated Feature Film:  

Creed III (2023) * * *

Directed by:  Michael B. Jordan

Starring:  Michael B. Jordan, Jonathan Majors, Tessa Thompson, Mila Davis-Kent, Phylicia Rashad

Michael B, Jordan takes over the reins as director for the first time and hits his stride as the titular character.  Creed and Creed II were not as successful because frankly Adonis Creed (Jordan) was the least intriguing person in those movies.   In Creed III, Rocky Balboa has stepped aside and Jordan no longer stands in his shadow.   The Adonis character is fleshed out and made into a hero we can root for, especially against the hulking monster in Damian "Dame" Anderson (Majors), Adonis' childhood friend just released from prison after eighteen years with a simmering envy of Adonis, whose life Dame feels he should have. 

Every hero needs a great villain, and Creed III's Dame is a dangerous one whose motives we can understand.   What is scary about Dame is not that he just has a chip on his shoulder, but he seems capable of ferocious violence at any given moment.   When he first meets the now-retired Adonis outside of the boxing gym he owns, the two have lunch and catch up a bit, but there is an uneasiness about the meeting which permeates their relationship.   Years ago, Dame was a Golden Gloves champion and on his way to glory until one night, Adonis confronts his former foster father who abused him.  Dame intervenes with a gun, is arrested, and sent to prison.   Adonis has felt guilt about that night ever since, believing he abandoned Dame is his time of need.   

It becomes clear to Adonis and his wife Bianca (Thompson) that Adonis will have to make a comeback in the ring to fight Dame after Dame wins the heavyweight championship in a contrived (putting it mildly) scenario.   We then are treated to the training montages which made the Rocky movies famous followed by a heavyweight championship fight at Dodger Stadium in front of a clearly CGI crowd which isn't all that well done.   The best parts of Creed III aren't the boxing scenes but the ones which illustrate the conflict between Adonis and Dame that began many years ago and has come to define each on its own terms.   

The Consultant (2023) * * (Streaming on Amazon Prime)

Starring:  Christoph Waltz, Nat Wolff, Brittany O'Grady, Gloria John, Aimee Carrero, Michael Charles Vaccaro, Brian Yoon

Despite the charmingly evil presence of Christoph Waltz as the titular consultant who shows up the day after a video gaming software company loses its founder to take over the reins of the struggling enterprise, The Consultant misses opportunities to provide oodles of workplace satire.   Instead, it concentrates on who Regus Patoff (Waltz) is, what he does, how he came to run the office, and whether he even sleeps or goes to the bathroom.   The answers are provided, but long after we stopped caring, and the payoff is unworthy of the buildup.   

As The Consultant begins, the gaming company run by Mr. Sang (Yoon), who is inexplicably murdered by a child in his office and shortly after, Regus arrives to cheerfully announce he is assuming control.  Through flashbacks, we learn Sang's company was about to go bust, and Sang chooses to save it by making a deal with the enigmatic Patoff.   What type of deal?  Patoff will take over the company and steer it in the right direction only after Sang is dead.   Since Sang can only afford to stay in business another few months, it is apparent he must die soon in order for his company and legacy to be saved. 

Regus Patoff isn't a guy who shakes hands and kisses babies.  He isn't running for public office, and threatens to fire any remote workers who don't show up to the office in-person in exactly one hour.  Regus mercilessly slashes the red ink, forces a programmer to take a sponge bath because he reeks, and calls his assistant at three in the morning to get into the office pronto.  Who is Regus?  Where did he come from?  How did he come into power so quickly?   These are questions asked by Craig (Wolff) and Elaine (O'Grady), who, like everyone else at the company, should be spending their time looking for other jobs or high-tailing it out of such a toxic environment.   Nope, they stay, if only because The Consultant would be over after two episodes if they didn't.   The workers' behavior is as baffling as Regus'.

We go along with the suspense for a couple episodes before we start losing patience.   Even the inhuman Regus is more interesting than the rest of the group combined.   Maybe because Waltz has made it his stock and trade to play such gleeful malevolence so effectively.  He's as impeccably groomed as ever, and seemingly has nothing but suits in his wardrobe, if he even has a closet or a home where a closet would be.  When we do learn what makes Regus tick (both literally and figuratively), we are underwhelmed.   The office of the 21st century is ripe for satire even though we had already had nine seasons of The Office.   The Consultant chooses to go the horror route and it isn't the right choice.  

The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Lewis Gilbert

Starring:  Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Richard Kiel, Curt Jurgens, Bernard Lee, Desmond Llewelyn

Roger Moore is at the top of his Bond form in The Spy Who Loved Me, among the best in the Bond series.  What is Bond all about?  The exotic locales, the impregnable villain lair, the villain's explanation of his dastardly plan to destroy the world, wipe out a segment of the population, or become even more obscenely wealthy than he already is.   Oh and the women.  The enemy in The Spy Who Loved Me is Karl Stromberg (Jurgens), an ornery billionaire industrialist who lives in an underwater fortress and plans to destroy the planet with nuclear missiles so only what's underwater will survive.   He's the kind of man who thanks the scientists who invented a nuclear submarine tracking device for his use by blowing up their helicopter.  And a man who hires gigantic, unstoppable goons like Jaws (Kiel), who bites people's necks with his metal teeth like a vampire.  Like Bond, Jaws won't die no matter what you do to him.   He just shakes the dust off and keeps moving forward, like a taller, ungainly Terminator.

Moore's job is to thwart Stromberg while being to forced to team with a Soviet counterpart (Bach-the future Mrs. Ringo Starr), whose lover he unknowingly killed in the pre-credits sequence.   Forced may not be an apt term, since it doesn't take much arm twisting to coerce Bond into joining forces with this voluptuous, sexy woman in the name of British-Soviet detente.   Major Amasova already knows Bond killed her boyfriend, a KGB assassin, but doesn't seem to hold it against him for very long.   We know Bond and Amasova will be in each other's arms doing the rumpy-pumpy before the end credits roll.   One of the charms of the Bonds of Sean Connery and Roger Moore was their droll humor, double entendres, and of course, the women.  Did I mention them?   Not just any woman, but a type which became known as the Bond girl.  It's difficult to describe what makes up a Bond girl, but you know it when you see it.

What allows The Spy Who Loved Me at the upper echelon of Bond films is its zeal and sense of naughty fun.  It's done with high style and a Bond we like, one who doesn't take himself or any of the situations he finds himself too seriously.  This was a James Bond who enjoyed showing up to work every day. 

Zodiac (2007) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  David Fincher

Starring:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Robert Downey, Jr., Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, Dermot Mulroney, John Carroll Lynch, Ione Skye, Donal Logue, Chloe Sevigny

The Zodiac killer was never caught.  David Fincher's Zodiac takes us through the painstaking investigation in which leads materialized and then evaporated.   Dead ends were not only common, but expected.   The San Francisco detectives in charge of the case, David Toschi (Ruffalo) and Bill Armstrong (Edwards) tirelessly work to no avail.  Cynical, alcoholic reporter Paul Avery (Downey, Jr.) writes stories on the Zodiac killer's letters which were sent to the San Francisco Chronicle taunting the police and the press.   Cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Gyllenhaal) shadows Avery, attending editorial meetings as an outsider who doesn't get a seat at the reporter's table, but also develops an obsession with the case which leads to a dangerous investigation and a book on the Zodiac killer years later.  

Zodiac captures the frustration over the police's inability to crack the case and manufactures suspense even though we know the outcome.   The detectives and journalists in the film aren't crusaders, but doggedly determined to catch the killer before he strikes again.   When Graysmith takes center stage many years after the last Zodiac murder, he is obsessed to the point that his wife (Sevigny) leaves him and he takes greater risks to his safety when following up on leads, one of which leads to an eerie encounter in a basement where we fear for his life, even if he doesn't.

Fincher directs with an ominous atmosphere and an impressive overhead shot of the Golden Gate Bridge enveloped in clouds hammers this home.  The performances are grounded in professionalism and realism.  Toschi became famous outside of the Zodiac case acting as a consultant on Bullitt and as one of the detectives on whom Dirty Harry was based.   Toschi and Dirty Harry couldn't be more opposite.  When Toschi skips out on the Dirty Harry premiere and is told the ending, he utters disagreeably, "Nothing like due process,"  Even after all the Zodiac killer has done to make his life and others miserable (or others suffering a worse fate), the fact that Toschi believes in due process makes a grander statement.  

It also is a double-edged sword when he is 100 percent convinced he found someone he likes for the murders and the evidence doesn't pan out.   Toschi's and Graysmith's investigations lead to a creep named Arthur Leigh Allen (Lynch), who circumstantially is believed to be the killer, but there is that small detail called proof which allows Allen to evade accountability.  Toschi says to his captain, "I don't know if I want Allen to be the guy because he's the one or because I just want this to be over,"  Fincher's point in the intelligent, complex Zodiac is that nearly everyone associated with the case felt the same way.  

The Chamber (1996) * * 1/2

Directed by:  James Foley

Starring:  Gene Hackman, Chris O' Donnell, Faye Dunaway, Lela Rochon, Bo Jackson, Raymond J. Barry, Robert Prosky, David Marshall Grant

The Chamber is based on a John Grisham novel and like many Grisham books made into movies, it shows us how the law is bent for nefarious and self-serving reasons.   There is no Mr. Smith Goes to Washington sentiment in a Grisham work.  It is cynicism writ large.  The Chamber is not a bad film, but one with an inevitable ending which is the only logical conclusion it could have.   Its protagonist is Chicago lawyer Adam Hall (O'Donnell), who agrees to represent his estranged grandfather Sam Cayhall (Hackman), a Klansman on death row for murdering three people in a bombing.   The execution is set for thirty days from now and Hall will handle the appeal.   Adam's father committed suicide as a result of being raised by such a hateful murderer and his aunt (Dunaway), deals daily with guilt, shame, and alcoholism stemming from an event in the past in which she witnessed Sam shoot and kill the father of her black friend over allegedly stolen money.

Sam and Adam's reunion is a not a joyful one.  Sam continues to defiantly spew racial hatred as an irredeemable white supremacist, which doesn't help Adam's appeal motions much.  Adam grasps at any straw he can find to spare his grandfather from the gas chamber, its effects described in chilling detail by Hackman.  Adam hates racial bigotry and his family's sordid past, but it appears he crusades against the death penalty more.   If he is willing to try and spare Sam, he argues, then anyone else short of Hitler should be spared such a fate.

The Chamber moves along predictable lines with the Hackman character.   We understand his worldview will change the closer his execution day nears.   The unrepentant Klansman will soften, apologize to other black inmates and the black death row guard (Jackson-the former running back in a quietly effective performance) for his vitriol, and growing to understand the havoc he wreaked on his family with his actions.  Hackman, being the master-class actor he is, can handle the character swings and make them believable.  O'Donnell is supposed to be the catalyst for Hackman's changes, but I think these are due more to the story than anything else.   

Still, The Chamber manages to maintain a certain level of suspense long after you would think it wouldn't have any right to.  While the Mississippi governor, (Grant) plays with Sam's upcoming execution as a political football, we also sense there may be an eleventh-hour miracle at play.   One question The Chamber and even Sam asks is:  Does he deserve such a miracle?  Because Sam is played by Gene Hackman, maybe.  If he were played by an actor with whom we have less goodwill, perhaps not.

Blue Collar (1978) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Paul Schrader 

Starring:  Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto, Cliff De Young, Lane Smith

Blue Collar is a movie of stunning perception about the lives of middle-class Detroit automakers being squeezed from all sides in an effort to earn even a modest living.  The film centers on three protagonists, all assembly line workers working and living paycheck to paycheck trying to support their families and enjoy whatever leisure time is available.   The trouble is:  When you are behind on your payments, how can you enjoy leisure time when you're worrying about your income?  

There's Jerry (Keitel), a family man in debt who can't afford braces for his young daughter who sneaks out in the middle of the night to attend all-nighters thrown by Smokey (Kotto), an ex-con who works at the plant and can't afford to go back to prison.   Then there's the real wild card in Zeke (Pryor), a volatile worker whose locker is in disrepair and can't find anyone in his union who is willing to have it fixed.  His meeting with the business agent is full of lip service, but then Zeke notices the safe in the middle of the office which is ripe for a middle of the night theft.   Zeke enlists Smokey and Jerry to help him crack the safe, but instead of money, they find evidence of corruption within their own union exposing how the union and the company has been ripping off the members and enriching themselves.  

A lesser movie would've turned Jerry, Smokey, and Zeke into folk heroes who take the moral high ground in exposing these nefarious business practices, but Blue Collar takes a realistic and sometimes amoral approach.   The guys take the foolhardy approach of attempting to blackmail the union, something which they respond to with strong-arm tactics and potentially murder.  They're used to this sort of thing, while Jerry, Zeke, and even career-criminal Smokey are rank amateurs who bring a knife to a gunfight.

Blue Collar is a story told with tension and urgency.   Its moral is to show how ordinary workers are screwed on all sides by the companies which need their labor to produce profits and how the unions charge monthly dues which don't buy much in the way of representation.   It is no secret that unions understand that companies need to make money in order to keep workers employed and keep the union dues flowing.   This comes as news to guys like Jerry, Zeke, and Smokey who learn the hard way that any dreams of a comfortable life are squashed daily by such a clandestine understanding.  

Dead Again (1991) * * * 1/2

Directed by:  Kenneth Branagh

Starring:  Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson, Derek Jacobi, Robin Williams, Andy Garcia, Hanna Schygulla, Wayne Knight

Dead Again begins in the black-and-white photographed past in which famed composer Roman Strauss (Branagh) is about to be executed for the murder of his wife Margaret (Thompson).  His ominous last words are, "This whole thing is far from over,"  In the present day Los Angeles, private detective Mike Church (Branagh) is handed a case involving an amnesiac woman named Grace (Thompson) and seeks to discover her true identity.   When it appears Church has reached a dead end, along comes antique shop owner Franklin Madson (Jacobi), who uses hypnosis to reveal Grace's past life in which she was married to, you guessed it, Roman Strauss.   

It is here where Dead Again becomes a mystery in two eras.  Did Roman indeed murder his wife in their Gothic mansion all those years ago?  How do the events of the past connect to the present?  Mike Church surely isn't as taken with grand romantic gestures as Roman was, ("I'm not looking for Miss Right.  I'm looking for Miss Right Now,"), but there is no doubt he will fall for Grace and try to protect her from imminent danger which springs forth from a past life.

The entire movie is a suspenseful nod to Hitchcock and maybe even Agatha Christie, all made with high style and suspense with a supporting cast of characters with secrets of their own that only serve to muddy the waters or bring clarity to the proceedings, depending on you wish to look at it.   Thanks to Branagh's direction and the bold screenplay, Dead Again sweeps us through a love story which lasted through the decades and the pall of death which haunts the present as well as the past. 

A View to a Kill (1985) * * 1/2

Directed by:  John Glen

Starring:  Roger Moore, Tanya Roberts, Grace Jones, Christopher Walken

Roger's Moore final outing as James Bond, A View to a Kill, is more famous for its title song by Duran Duran than as a movie, but while it isn't entirely successful, it has its moments of silly fun which permeated the Bond series back then before it started to get all serious on us.  

This time Bond is tracking zillionaire Max Zorin (Walken), who is plotting to use nuclear bombs to cause an earthquake and flood Silicon Valley so he can enrich himself even further in the microchip market since he'll be the only seller left.  I don't know what the cost of such a plot would be since it seems he has numerous locations and hundreds of workers working for him, but it doesn't matter much to the homicidal Zorin.  Those he doesn't want to pay he'll simply blow away with a machine gun.  Or drop from a blimp.  Now that I recall, Zorin demanded ten million from each of his business partners or suffer the same fate as the poor guy who refused.

Moore fills the dialogue with double entendres and puns galore, but by the time of this movie it was clear he was tired of the role.   Still, the 58-year-old Moore plows through as best he can.  Walken is great at playing a sinister monster who can barely conceal his glee at being malevolent, and Grace Jones is a formidable, ahem, assistant to Zorin.   Still, A View to a Kill represents the last of the Bonds where 007 isn't introspective or behaves like being the world's greatest secret agent isn't sometimes a drag.  At least Moore's Bond seemed to enjoy showing up to work every day.