Tom Hanks Movie Review: ****^Inferno (2016)

 This is the third of the Da Vinci Code series.  This movie does not deal with the Catholic Church, but with a over population fanatic Zobrist (Ben Foster) who is intent on releasing a virus and thereby reducing the human population.  Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) feel he has been in an accident and consequently has lost his memory of the last few days.  He runs away with the doctor (Felicity Jones) when it appears someone is trying to kill him.  And they begin to re-piece his memories and are looking for the device to disarm it.  Langdon is involved because of his knowledge of Dante's Inferno.  Zobrist has killed himself and left clues for his love to find the device.  These he put into a drawing of hell according to Dantes, but with subtle changes.  His mind is muddled, but they keep making progress.  

The film keeps switching in trm of who do you trust?  This film points out that Langdon did have a love interest in the person of Elizabeth Sinsky (Sidse Babett Knudsen) but their carers took them separate ways and she works for the World Health Organization and he at a university.  They end up together at the end of the movie talking of the many people who thought they were saving the world by killing half the people. 

These movies keep getting better as they go.  Again directed by Ron Howard.

Movie Review: ***^The Midnight Sky (2020)

 This movie was produced by George Clooney and stars George Clooney and Felicity Jones as Augustine Lofthouse and Sully Sullivan.  It is a futuristic show about a post apocolytic earth due to a disease.  Lofthouse has been living in the Arctic.  When they were evacuated he refused to go as he is dying.  With his time left, he discovers a ship in space returning to Earth from a mission to one of Jupiter's moons.  They do not know of the problems on Earth--just that they have lost communication.  Lofthouse takes it as his mission to let them know and to turn around.  However he discovers the communications on his base are inadequate.  He must travel to another base.  Meantime the space ship is hit by asteroids and a dear friend is killed.  Lofthouse is finally able to contact them; but they are not sure what to do with the information.  They do land to bury their friend and take off again for Jupiter.  Lofthouse many years earlier discovered the moon.  He also fathered a child and it turns out he saves her.  

This movie is available through Netflix.  Likely because of Covid it did not do well at the box office.  

Movie Review: ****Northanger Abbey (2007)

This film features felicity Jones as Miss Catherine Morland, the young woman taken by reading too m any novels, and who falls for the son, Henry (JJ Feild) of General Tilney.  However another suitor, John Thorpe (William Beck) is also making a play for her, and at time telling her falsehoods to get her to go with him.   However the general invites Morland to Northanger Abbey, thinking she is a rich heiress.  However when he discovers he was mistaken, he kicks her out of the house.  In the meantime, Morland's imagination has gotten the better of her, and she thinks perhaps the general killed his wife.  This turns Henry off, and Morland leaves the home disgraced, thinking Henry has told his father of her imaginings, and for this reason she is kicked out.  Henry follows her home, expresses his disappointment in his father, and confesses his love.  And we assume the live happily, although outside of Northanger Abbey.
I enjoyed this show.  There a a couple times it made me laugh; and with most Jane Austen stories, it leaves you feeling good at the end.

Movie Review: ****^A Monster Calls

Conor's (Lewis MacDougall) parents are divorced.  His father (Toby Kebbell) lives in Los Angeles with a new wife and child.  Conor lives with his mother in England.  His Mum (Felicity Jones) has cancer, leaving Conor to clean up and raise himself.  He calls the monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) in his dreams.  Conor is forced to move in with his grandmother (Sijourney Weaver) who he doesn't particularly care for.  Conor's dream is about falling into a hole in the earth.  It is a recurrent nightmare.  Conor thinks the monster has come to heal his mother.  The monster all along says he has come to heal Conor.
This is a must see movie.  It delves into cancer like nothing else I have seen.  It also deals with fantasy and nightmares.

Movie Review: Star Wars: Rogue One

This is the hot movie of the Christmas season this year, and so we ventured.  I had a great time, although there were some poorly written scenes.  The story line is great, telling the story of the spies who retrieved the plans for the Death Star.  In the first Star Wars we get a hit of this movie, when the general says, "Many died to retrieve these plans."  So this movie gives us the heroic stories of those many dying.  Jyn (Felicity Jones) is the daughter of the man (Mads Mikkelsen) developing the plans for the death star.  He was forced to by the empire, particularly Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn).  However he has deliberately put a flaw into the design.  Getting the idea of that design flaw to others however is difficult.  His daughter, in the meantime has been in hiding since she was a girl.  However, the Alliance contacts her by breaking her our of prison where she was under a different name.  She agrees to go with a small crew, because it will mean seeing her father, and proving he is not the terrible man everyone makes him out to be.  However the Captain of the mission, Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) has special orders to kill her father if they can reach him.  In the meantime the death star is operational, and used on a target where it is feared there is an imperial pilot turned against the empire.  He was sent with a message from Jyn's father.  So the adventure goes.  they go to an Imperial communications hub to retrieve the death star plans, which are needed to know how to destroy it.  however Krennic is also headed there.  Soon the death star follows.  A raging battle follows, with our heroes trying to get the plans out of the communications base.  Now for the pieces I felt were contrived.  They had to retrieve the actual plans from a tall tower, and they have to climb up this when the power goes out.  Then Jyn has to reset the satellite dish, and has to go out on the eat of the tower to do this, where she is vulnerable to laser fire.  Why couldn't the control be some place convenient?  However I must say this is a movie I will see again.   Also interesting characters were Chirrut Umwe (Donnie Yen) and Baze Malbus (Wen Jiang) both Rogue Warriors.  A new droid, K2SO (Alan Tudyk) is an imperial protocol droid now helping the Alliance.
At the end of this story, the first Star Wars story (episode IV) is set up.