The Descendents Film Review - George Clooney Shailene Woodley

Matt (George Clooney) lives in Hawaii with his wife and two daughters. He is rich and is deciding a real estate deal that could earn him and the rest of his family millions of dollars. It all sounds like paradise but this guy is having a rough time. His wife lies in a coma dying after a boating accident. His daughters don’t respect him and his big real estate deal is causes him public vilification. Oh yeah, while Matt’s wife lies in a coma, his eldest daughter (Shailene Woodley) tells him that his wife was having an affair with another man.

The Last Rites of Joe May - Dennis Farina Movie

Joe May (Dennis Farina) is an aging street hustler who has just left the hospital after a two month bout with pneumonia. He returns after his two month hiatus to discover his possessions are all gone, his friends are distant and his apartment has been rented out to a young woman and child after his landlord presumed him dead. He develops an unlikely and somewhat predictable bond with the young woman and child after discovering the mother is abused by her boyfriend, a local police officer.

Farina is wonderful in a rare lead part. This is not surprising as this man has been playing the role of street tough characters his whole life. Watch him in any of his mob movies or TV police series and you’ve seen him nail this performance before. The difference here is that Farina’s character, Joe, is broke down, broke and still struggling to be respected on the street. He is like an old professional football player trying to get in one more season, not just for the money (which he badly needs), but also for the pride of being a respected street thug.

The Iron Lady Streep as Margaret Thatcher - Film Review

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Meryl Streep) is now old with a failing mind. She hallucinates about her deceased husband and is rapidly losing her ability to take care of herself. In between hallucinations she reminisces about her life while the film flashes back on her lifelong career as a British Parliament member and reign as Prime Minister. 

Yes, “The Iron Lady” is a flashback film. I’m a bit indifferent to this style of storytelling. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. In the case of The Iron Lady, it doesn’t help the film or even make sense. When the film is set in the present, Thatcher’s mind and body are slowly succumbing to old age. This is interesting stuff for the first five minutes or so when you learn all you need to know about her old age condition (weak body, hallucinations, forgetfulness, etc) but after that the rest of the present-time scenes are too long , look pretty much all the same, and add nothing to the story.

Honestly, I can’t figure out how Thatcher can reminisce with such detail while her mind is failing but I’ll suspend disbelieve for the sake of the movie.

Tron The Original Jeff Bridges David Warner Film

The year was 1982 and I was a video game addict. Atari 2600 and quarter operated video games were my mantra. Ah, those were the days. When “Tron” came out the film really dazzled me. I was a pre-teen back then and wondered if I saw Tron again now, as a grown-up, would I still enjoy the film. 

Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is a computer programmer that has created some of the world’s most popular video games only to have them stolen by Ed Dillinger (David Warner) in order to hasten Dillinger’s meteoric rise as an unscrupulous CEO.

Flynn continuously hacks into the corporate mainframe computer system that Dillinger controls in order find the proof that Dillinger stole his ideas. In this Sci-Fi world, Flynn does this by hacking programs into the mainframe where these programs take on a human form. The programs are much like soldiers in a video game. They search for clues on behalf of their programmers (or ‘users’) while fighting off similar anti-hacking programs (so to speak) in combat scenarios using various weapons and vehicles.

Melancholia Review – Lars Von Trier Kristen Durst

A family wedding is taking place and frail family bonds are exposed. Parent child resentment, personal issues, and depression all begin to weep out through a thin façade of a celebration of marriage.


During this time a giant planet is on a collision course with Earth. Scientists are skeptical it will hit Earth but some are not so sure.


Lars Von Tier directs “Melancholia” Lars Von Trier is no stranger to disturbing films. Anyone who has seen the film “AntiChrist” will know exactly what I mean. He mixes psychological torment with atmospheric visual bravado. Melancholia is no exception.

Fear and Trembling - Japanese Business Culture Movie Review

An easy to follow yet subtely complex film, a young, white woman Amelie (Sylvie Testud) lived in Japan as a toddler then moved to Belgium. Now a young woman, she moves back to live in Japan believing if she immerses her life in this country she will proudly become Japanese herself.


She already speaks fluent Japanese. She is hired as a translator by a presumably respected and successful Japanese corporation. She works there for one year. Over the course of the year she is only given simple, menial tasks and in the process of doing them breaks a series of Japanese cultural taboos. For example, in one scene she is asked to serve coffee to customers. She speaks in Japanese in front of the customers. Keep in mind she is white, red headed and does not look remotely Asian let alone Japanese. The customers are deeply offended by the fact a ‘westerner’ can understand their discrete conversations. Amelie is berated by her superiors for this.

Denzel Washington in Book of Eli

I’m a sucker for post apocalyptic films so I was pretty interested in watching the movie "Book of Eli"


There are some terrific ideas in this film that sometimes work and sometimes don’t.


Thirty one years ago the world was obliterated by war and there is nothing left but scotched desert. Eli (Denzel Washington) has heard voices, presumably by a Christian God, to deliver a bible to a location he knows nothing about other than it is in the direction of West. For thirty one years he has been walking west. He knows it is the right way to go but where it will deliver him, nobody, including himself knows. It is truly blind-faith, a cool theme that lingers throughout the movie.