Harrison Ford Movie Review: **^ Witness (1985)

 This movie is rated "R" and like most movies of this ilk left me with a bad feeling at the end.  Too much vioence and using the F word does that to me.  The actors do a good job, Harrison Ford as Book and Kelly McGillis as Rachel.  Rachel is a widow who travels through Philadelphia with her son.  Her son witnesses a murder at the train station.  At the police station he identifies a police officer from narcotics as the killer.  When Book reports this to his boss, that officer comes for Book.  Book flees with Rachel and the boy, Samuel (Lukas Haas) to Amish country, the home of her father (Jan Rubes) where he hides, and recovers from a bullet wound.  After recovering Bok gives himself away when he hits a local boy who was teasing the Amish.  Eventually the dirty police come for him, Schaeffer (Josef Sommer), McFee (Daniel Glover) and Fergie (Angus MacInnes).  

This movie is too violent, but it does show the contrast with the peaceful Amish community.  It is a. very good look inside the community which you don't see on a regular basis.  

Music Review: Karen Carpenter

 Karen Carpenter recorded a solo album while Richard was taking a year off for drug rehab from Quaaludes.  The music was recorded 1979-1980.  However it was not released.  The producers at A&M Records did not think they could release it.  Karen went along with the decision but was not happy with it.  Some of the songs on the record were rearranged by Richard and included in Carpenters music, but this was after Karen had passed away. The C.D. was not released as Karen wished until 1996, 13 years after her death.  It was first released in Japan, and then in the United States.  I peaked at number 19 in Japan.  The only known song is the Paul Simon song, "Still Crazy, After all these Years."  "Make Believe Its Your First Time" by Bob Morrison had previously been released in a Carpenter posthumous album, Voice of the Heart.

Karen Carpenter's voice is unique and it is always a pleasure to listen to her. 

Meg Ryan Movie Review: **^ Ithaca (2015)

 This movie is about a young man, Homer Macauley (Alex Neustaedter) who works as a delivery person with his bike.  Problems is he delivers telegraphs from the war department informing people of deaths in the war.  He works for Tom Spangler (Hamish Linklater) and with Willie Grogan (Sam Shepard).  His own father (Tom Hanks) has recently passed away but visits his mother (Meg Ryan) as a ghost.  His younger brother (Spencer Howell) is precocious and about town, his older sister (Christine Nelson) has a boyfriend, and his older brother (Jack Quaid) is off to war.  Everything falls apart when Grogan the telegraph operator get the message that Hoer's brother has been killed in the war.  The telegraph operator dies.  And Homer gets to deliver the message to his mother.  Fortunately a fellow soldier beats him to the home to tell his mother of the loss.  

I really didn't care for this movie.  I couldn't see what was the point.  Meg Ryan directed and it is baed on a book, The Human Comedy by William Saroyan.  

Movie Review: **** The Bourne Ultimatum (2007)

 Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is up to his old tricks, and he is tracking down his history.  Treadstone did not go away, but it is now operating under a new name, Blackbriar.  The operation is a program to train and direct assassins.  The CIA directors who are running the program, and insist on going after are Noah Vosens (David Strathairn) and Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn).  Kramer is the immediate boss of Pam Landy (Joan Allen) who is trying to advocate for Bourne.  Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) also tries to help, and gets caught with Bourne in the field.  There is a reporter (Paddy Considine) with information on Treadstone but he is murdered before Bourne can get the information.  Bourne actually breaks into the CIA office and gets records about the program from from Vosens' office.  He gets this to Pam Landy who quickly gets it out before they can kill her.   Bourne finally meets the behavioral psychiatrist, Dr. Albert Hirsch (Albert Finney) who has made the assassins.  He has no regrets.  The program comes down, and Bourne continues on the road.  Again plenty of action.  Bourne has to fend off several assassins who come for him.  Thee are also lots of chase scenes.  

Bourne and Parsons

Harrison Ford Movie: **** What Lies Beneath (2000)

 This is a very good Halloween/Ghost story.  After taking her daughter, Caitlin (Katharine Towne) to school, Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) starts seeing a ghost.  The new neighbors Mary and Warren Feur (Miranda Otto and James Remar) have a love hate relationship, and then the wife disappears so she assumes he has murdered his wife and the ghost if of her.  However when she confronts him, his wife is there.  Her husband, Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford) is not very sympathetic.  She sees a psychiatrist (Joe Morton) who suggests she ask the ghost what it wants.  She and her friend, Jody (Diana Scarwid) try a seance but with limited success.  A woman disappeared a year ago, about the time of Claire's accident.  She slowly becomes convinced that this is the ghost, and it has something to do with her husband.  

If you are into a good fright this is a very good movie.  Harrison Ford is in a different type of role for him.

In Theaters: Star Wars: ****^ The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)

 What ever you say about this movie it is a fun ride.  Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) (Brendan Wayne and Lateef Crowder assist) and Grogu have been recruited to help out factions of the old empire.  They take an assignment from Colonel Ward (Sijourney Weaver) to rescue Rotta the Hutt (Jeremy Allen White), son of Jabba in exchange for information from Jabba's twin brothers who now run the crime syndicate.  Zeb Orellios (Steve Blum) travels with them.  They find Rotta who is a gladiator fighter.  He does not care to be rescued.  However the gladiator boss intends for Rotta to die in the ring.  Turns out Rotta and Mando fight a large group of monsters intended to be a killing move by the arena leader, Lord Janu (Johnny Coyne).  Mando and Zeb capture Rotta but he reports the person they are looking for is actually Lord Janu and his uncles want to kill him so they can have legitimate claim to Jabba's network.  So they take Janu with them and facilitate Rotta's escape.  Now they Hutt are after Mando and send a bounty hunter to bring him in.  They end up as captives in the Hutt stronghold.  Mando is de-helmeted, a great shame for a Mandalorian.  He is cast into a monster pit.  Grogu helps him escape, but not before the dragon serpent poisons him.  Thanks to a local fisherman (Stephen Mckinley Henderson) who provides an antidote for the poison.  They then decide to storm the castle and rescue Rotta.  Rotta fights the uncles and the all fall into the dragon serpent pit.  However Grogu lifts Rotta with the force and rescues him.  

Lot of cool action and interesting characters based on the Star Wars franchise.  I think Mandalorian could do with the return of Gina Carano as Cara Dune.  I really liked her but she was fired by Disney for not being politically correct.  

Movie Review: **** The Bourne Supremacy (2004)

 The action continues, but we start with a tragedy.  Ward Abbott (Brian Cox), head of Treadstone is intent on getting Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) based on something he might remember.  The frame him for a CIA operation that went bad.  They then someone to kill Bourne.  Instead of killing him, they kill his girl, Marie (Franka Potente).  So Bourne is back and needing answers.  Pamela Landy (Joan Allen) now works high up in the CIA.  She and Nicky (Julia Stiles) are trying to get to the bottom of things.  Again Bourne is chased by the world, and finally things turn on Cox, who instead of being arrested does himself in.  Bourne is equal to the tasks of those who are sent to kill him, and he finally gets the person who pulled the trigger that killed his girl, Kirill (Karl Urban).  Some memories return for Bourne.  He is able to apologize to the daughter of a couple he murdered.