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: ****^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: Galaxy Quest

This movie is made on a very outlandish premise, but it actually works, and is very enjoyable.  What if an alien race had been watching your old space television episodes, and had seen your exploits, and heroics, as shown in the t.v. series?   And this race of people were in bad need of heroes and rescuing?  And they had built a ship to all the specifications mentioned in the show?  Even if they were stupid?  And all they needed were the people from those ships to captain and pilot the vessel.  And they had the means to travel over large distances and come and get you?  Of course the would do so.  And would you actually be the hero you had portrayed in the t.v. episodes?  Or would you just be an old has been who goes around to old sci-fi conventions were you mingle with all the nerds?
Tim Allen stars as the Captain.  Other crew members are Gwen DeMarco (Sijourney Weaver), Alexander Dane (Alan Rickman) and Fred Kwan (Tony Shalhoub).

Movie Reviews: ****^Holes

I like the movie Holes.  Based on the book of the same name.  This is a Disney Movie.  It is fun.  The premise is that Stanley Yelnats (Shia LaBeouf) is sent to a youth correctional Camp Lake Greenlake, a camp without a lake nor much greenery.  It is in remote Texas.  What this camp does have is daily chore of digging a hole five feet cubed, the length of a shovel wide both ways and that deep.  Not a lot of water, but plenty of dust.

However this area was not always so dry.  But is hasn't rained since the murder of Sam the onion man (Dule Hill) because as a black man he had befriended a white woman, Kissin' Kate Barlow (Patricia Arquette).  Kissin' Kate as a result went from school teacher to bandit, leaving a wake of murder and theft.  One theft was that of Stanley Yelnats I.  Otherwise the family may have been living in luxury.  As it is they struggle as Stanley's father (Henry Winkler) tries to invent a substance to counteract foot odor.

When arriving at camp, Stanley realizes this is no fun camp.  He meets Mr. Sir (Jon Voight) the camp director and Dr. Pendanski (Tim Blake Nelson).  At camp Stanley IV befriends Zero (Khleo Thomas).  Zero is a cast off of society who has been separated from his mother.  They realize, after Stanley finds an old lipstick tube with the initials KKB, that the warden (Sijourney Weaver) is looking for Kissin' Kate's treasure.  Zero and Stanley run away from camp, into an uninviting desert environment with rattle snakes, scorpions and poison spotted lizards and no water.  This is the same area where Stanley I was stranded after being robbed.  He saved himself by going to the thumb of God.  Stanley and Zero do the same.  They see a rock in the distance that looks like a thumb.  There they find a small oasis with onions, Sam's onions.  As they rest, they realize they know where the treasure is.

This movie shows the importance of family, through the generations.  Turns out Zero and Stanley are also connected through the generations.  I like movies about family, because families are important.