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.

DC Movie Review: ****Batman Returns (1992)

 Michael Keaton returns as Batmas, and this time has a different nemesis, Penguin (Danny DeVito, but also has a second nemesis/ally Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer.). But the evil behind everything is the money man, Max Shreck (Christopher Walken.)  In a way Shreck creates Catwoman as he kills her, throws her out of a building, but she keeps coming back.  She puts off her meek secretary person and becomes the Catwoman.  Michael Gough plays the butler, Alfred. Penguin is mad at the world, and has been living in the sewers since his parents threw him there when he was a baby.  His hands were deformed.  He finally decides to come out of the sewer, and with some manipulation is on the verge of becoming mayor.  After he controlled Batman's Batmobile, and tried to frame him for murder and being a general bad guy, Batman turns the switch as he recorded the Penguin and plays back his audio when he is making a speech seeking the mayorship.  Penguin had said some mean things to Batman about the citizens of Gotham.  Penguin had planned to have his penguins blow up Gotham, but again Batman hijacks his frequency of control and congrols them himself.  The come down on the Penguin's lair and destroy it.  

The relationship between Batman and Catwoman is interesting, as it is a love hate relationship.  As people they like eachothr,  but as Batman and Catwoman they always fight.  They are allies towards the end, after she had allied with Penguin, but found him too ruthless.  

Movie is directed by Tim Burton.  It is a fun ride, with interesting backgrounds for Catwoman and Penguin.  Batman stops Penguin and Catwoman gets her revenge on Shreck, and he doesn't have nine lives.

Movie Review: ****Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

 There are a whole cast of characters.  The movie starts after Janet Van Dyne has been rescued from the  Quantumverse.  Cassie Lang has developed a love for science and has created a way to communicate with the Quantumverse.  Her message is sent, which upsets Janet Van Dyne who shuts it off, but too late.  Someone has heard their mesage and sucks the five into the Quantumverse.  Here mother Van Dyne must face her past.  Worse than facing her past, she must face Kang the Conqueror.  She at first helped him, then realized his goal was to destroy time lines and universes.  She sabotaged his project.  He now wants it restored to give himself ultimate power and captures Cassie and uses her as leverage to get Ant Man to help fix his device.  This is done and now he turns very rageful.  Only through Antman's many intelligent ant can everything be put right.  But is it?  Future Antman movies will let us know

Paul Rudd as Scott Lang/ Ant Man

Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne or the Wasp

Michael Douglas as Dr. Hand Pym

Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne

Kathryn Newton as Cassie Lang

Jonathan Majors as Kang the Conqueror

Movie Review: ***^Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

This movie represents a fascinating look at the Agatha Christie classic.  The cast of character is also very interesting.  Kenneth Branagh plays our detective hero, Hercule Poirot.  Bouc, his traveling companion is played by Tom Bateman.  And then the other passengers on the train, who all become the subject of an investigation as Poirot is called upon to solve a murder where a passenger is stabbed a dozen times and killed.  Other actors include: Penelope Cruz, Willem Dafoe, Judi Dench, Johnny Depp, Josh Gad, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr., Michelle Pfeiffer and Daisy Ridley.  Kenneth Branagh also directed.  Each of these characters comes together with the other is a most peculiar way, which is what makes for the twist at the end of the movie.  I can't say I enjoyed this version better than the original from the 1970s.  However it does see true to the story, and the mystery.

Movie Review: ****^Ladyhawke (1985)

This is one of my favorite movies ever.  It portrays the story of a couple Navarre and Isabeau (Rutger Hauer and Michelle Pfeiffer), who have secretly engaged themselves to be married because of their love.  They confess this love to a local monk (Leo McKern) who unwittingly divulges this to the bishop, and Isabeau's guardian, who, when he hears of this, becomes jealous, putting a course on the couple.  As such, he is a wolf by night, and she is a hawk by day.  They are always just passing each other, but not quite able to touch.  When Gaston (Mathew Broderick) escapes from the bishop's prison, Navarre decides it is time to act, and recruits Gaston to help him break into the bishop's castle, so he can kill the bishop. 
A wolf hunter is sent to capture Navarre, but he evades capture.  The hawk is wounded, in a scuffle with the bishop's guards.  They flea to the monk's monastery for refuge.  The monk has discovered a way he can be redeemed, but Navarre is just intent on revenge.  In their journeys, the wolf falls through the ice of a lake, and Gaston is scratched trying to rescue him.  They do make it to the city, Navarre with his hope of revenge, and the monk with his hope of redemption.  Great sword fight between Navarre and the Captain of the guard (Ken Hutchinson).  I love the action, the sword play, and the mysterious things surrounding this couple.  Very well done.