At the Movies: ***^ Animal Farm (2025)

 Animal Farm is an animated version of the story from George Orwell.  On the day the farm is being repossessed and all the animals are being sent to the slaughter house, not the laughter house the animals decide to rebel.  The kick all the humans out, and start to work for themselves.  Snowball (Laverne Cox) is the pig with enough knowledge to determine the evil intent of the farmers.  While Napoleon (Seth Rogen) is his rival in power and leadership.  Lucky (Gaten Matarazzo) is a friend of both, and caught in the middle.  Boxer (Woody Harrelson) is a horse that is old but hard working.  Frieda Pilkington (Glen Close) is a billionaire bank owner who envies the farm and will do anything to get it.  Her team insists the animals pay for the mortgage, $1000 monthly.  The have a. big sell and make the money plus some.  Snowball sees a chance to improve themselves with a water wheel to generate electricity.  Napoleon uses his efforts to turn the rest of the animals against her, and they kick her out.  He keeps changing the rules intent on keeping humans out.  Napoleon manipulates the water wheel to kick Snowball out, thus he is the sole power.  He makes agreements with Pilkington to get a fancy car, starts walking on two legs, and sets the pigs above the other animals.  He then has the animals complete the wheel for electricity, but goes further to have Pilkington build a dam for even more power.

It finally all catches up with him and everything comes tumbelimg down.  This movie wasn't as could as I had hoped.  It is from Angel Studios.  

There are a couple of themes.  One is to stand up for what you know is right, instead of accepting another person's view.  Another is that capitalism has its faults; but lastly that communists are greedy and so that system will always have its corruption and will never work.

In Theaters: **** Project Hail Mary (2026)

This movie is based on the book of the same name.  The book was written by Andy Weir.  It is about a high school science teacher (Ryan Gosling) who is sent to space.  He is the only survivor of the three man crew.  His sleep condition has caused amnesia, but he is much further into space than he realizes on a desperate journey to see if they can figure out why the sun is dying and how to fix it.  

The movie starts very cerebral, and I felt very slow.  However when he meets an alien things pick up greatly.  This is Rocky (voiced by James Ortiz).  Turns out the movie is more about the relationship between the teacher and the alien than it is about the sun.  Sandra Hüller plays the project leader who forced the school teacher to go on the journey.

Very intriguing plot after it got going.  The theme of living with others who are different was also very good.  There is an interesting twist in the end which I won't give away.

At the Movies: I Can Only Imagine 2 (2026)

 This movie focuses on a couple of families, and a couple of songs.  It is about the musical group Mercy Me.  The families are first Tim and Hilary Timmons (Milo Ventimiglia and Arielle Kibbel), Tim is the opening act for the band Mercy Me, and he has cancer.  He wants to write a song that makes a difference.  The second family is Bart and Shannon Millard (John Michael Finley and Sophie Skelton).  Bart is lead singer for Mercy Me.  His son Sam (Sammy Dell) has diabetes.  He comes on the trip with his dad, and starts performing with Tim.  Sam doesn't take care of his sugar numbers and has a relapse, and does Tim with his cancer.  Bart starts taking seriously Tim's desire to write a song and asking Bart to finish it.  

The two songs are very similar and both based on the hymn "It Is Well with my Soul."  The first song is "Make it Well."  The second song is the new song written by Tim and Bart, which they sing for the first time at a concert.  Sam sings, and Tim is in the audience having gotten out of the hospital.  "Even If" proclaims you will be my God even if things do not go right.  

I enjoyed this show of faith.  The music is great as is the message.  Tim does not succumb to his cancer and he and his wife now have four kids.  Sam and Bart continued their careers and sometimes sing together.  

In Theaters: ****Rental Family (2025)

 This is a look at a Japanese custom, the family for rent.  These service do exist in Japan.  A down-on-his-luck actor, Phillip Vanderploeg (Brendan Fraser) is hired to impersonate family members.  His first case is a marriage which he executes allowing a woman to save face while moving to Canada with her lesbian partner.  He also takes a job pretending to be a girls father so she can get into a special school; and another where he acts as a reporter, interviewing a retired actor who is trying to save his former glory.  Both of these jobs lead to problems as he bonds with the people he is serving.  He has difficulty leaving the young lady; but she does get in the school.  And he takes the old man to his native area where he recovers a time capsule and memories of his deceased wife.

This movie leads to dealing with moral and ethical issues, and as a result the company changes.  This includes no longer doing apologies pretending to be women whose husbands have been unfaithful.  It deals with these issues in good fashion and the movie is interesting.  As much as My Big Fat Greek Wedding teaches about a new culture, this movie does the same.

Shinji Tada (Takehiro Hira) is the owner of the business.  He too has rental family at home.  Aiko Nakajima (Mari Yamamoto) is the woman who has to pretend to be a wife stealing woman.

In Theaters: Movie Review: ****^Raya and the Last Dragon

 This is an offering from Disney but has the feel of Japanese Anime.  It has a definite Asian flavor with writers from Malaysian and Vietnamese backgrounds.  Kellie Marie Tran of Vietnamese descent and Star Wars voices Raya. This movie is very entertaining.  The fantasy world Kumandra fascinated me with its dragons and rivers.  This is a great family movie and teaches not only perseverance but also trust and loyalty.  I would recommend this movie to others.  It is playing locally in Kingman as well as available through Disney +