Movie Review: ***^ Leave No Trace

 A father and son choose to live in the forrest (outside of Portland).  The father, Will (Ben Foster) suffers from PTSD.  He sells his medication from the VA to buy supplies.  His daughter, Tom (Thomasin McKenzie) and he live together quite comfortably.  They have their own little home in a tent.  And are able to take care of themselves, until Tom is seen by a logging crew.  Shortly after police and social services intervene.  The government finds them a place to live and work.  However Will has difficulty living with others, so the run.  This time they head to Washington state with higher elevation and colder temperature.  Will takes a fall and breaks his leg, but they are rescued and taken to a commune type place.  They stay until Will heals, but he again gets antsy.  They take off again.  But Tom sticks up for herself, says she likes living where she is and turns back.  However they stay in contact as Tom leaves him supplies regularly.  

This is a good study of personalities and PTSD, of being young and trying to make your way in the world.  This family does not consider themselves homeless, but society does.  

Movie Review: **** The Proposal (2009)

 In this movie Sandra Bullock plays the boss, Margaret Tate, and Ryan Reynolds the executive secretary, Andrew Paxton.  Tate has been holding him back not wanting to lose his skills and his hard work.  He has been there for three years.  However when immigration shows up, (Tate is from Canada) Tate hatches a scheme to marry Paxton.  He goes along, but he was scheduled to be in Alaska for the 90th birthday of his grandmother (Betty White), so they travel to meet his parents.  For her side she has no family.

Tate gets caught up in the idea of having family again.  And they bit by bit start to create a romance.  However when it comes time for the actual wedding, Tate admits what she has done, and is headed back to New York where she will be deported.  Paxton tries to catch the plane before she leaves but fails to do so, and has to travel to New York to propose.  She has gone from the mean boss to someone who is finally real.

Pretty fun movie.  Paxton's family has a large estate in remote Alaska.  At one point an eagle catches the dog.  Tate throws her phone and the eagle drops the dog, but makes off with her phone.  She will be out of touch with work. 

 

Movie Review: **^ Hancock (2008)

 Hancock (Will Smith) is a super hero, at least he has super powers, but it seems everything turns out wrong for him and he causes lots of damage when he does his heroing.  However he finds a friend, Ray (Jason Bateman) who takes him on as a case of reconditioning.  But it is his wife that is Hancock's mate.  

Hancock woke up at the doctor some years ago not knowing who he was, just that he has special powers.  However he is drawn to Ray's wife, Mary (Charlize Theron).  Only Mary also has powers.  Mary was with Hancock, but left him because if they are together they start to lose their powers.  And that happens again.  They lose their powers and are vulnerable to attack.   

Hancock thwarted Red's (Eddie Marsan) bank robbery.  He is brewing for revenge.  He recruits some thugs and where their powers are weakened they are in real danger.

This is in the lower teir of super hero movies, but in the end it turns out.

Sandra Bullock Movie Review: **** Gravity (2013)

 When everything goes wrong that possible can go wrong on a space mission, this is the movie.  This movie is very intense, as the space craft is subject to a massive space debris collision.  The ship is torn apart, and so our two surviving astronauts must space walk to a space station, with depleting oxygen.  One (George Clooney) gives himself up to get the other (Sandra Bullock) to the station.  It is not in much better shape.  She boards a vehicle to get away, but it gets caught on wires and a chute.  She finally gets free, but discovers no gas.  When things are desperate she reaches out and talks with an Inuit.  Even though she can't communicate she gets hope from a baby crying, and from the dogs howling.  She is ready to give up, but with the help of the ghost of Clooney, she burns the gas reserved for breaking to get free.  She is headed for the Chinese space station.  She gets there but the debris also gets there.  She pretty much falls to earth.

This movie is very tense as lives are in danger through out.  It does show the need for connection and the will to survive.  The special effects are great.  I do not know how they replica zero gravity and the spinning and everything.  I would recommend it to others.  

Movie Review: ***Men In Black (1997)

 Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith star as the Men in Black, a team of super secret agents who fight crime amongst aliens who come to our planet from other worlds.  The bad thing is there is a bug who has come to find the galaxy which is on Orion's belt.  Turns out Orion is a cat, and the belt is his colar.  World's will kill for the galaxy.  This is a comedy action movie which has a very good premise; and who knows who might actually be an alien.  I enjoyed it.  Linda Fiorentino stars as a morgue doctor and future recruit.  Rip Torn stars as the boss.  Vincent D'onofrio stars as the bug.  Bugs are killing machines.  

Movie Review: ***^ The Great Escaper (2023)

 This movie is a portrayal of an older couple, Bernard and Irene Jordan (Michael Caine and Glenda Jackson), who live in a nursing home together.  The story is based on the true story of Bernard Jackson, 90 years old, leaving the nursing home to attend the 70 year anniversary of D-day in France in June 2014.  The telling of the story brings back many memories, good ones and traumatic ones.  It is also about growing old together.  

I think the movie told its story well.  Especially good was the relationship of the old couple.

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.  

Silent Alfred Hitchcock Movie: **Champagne (1928)

 I think this is the Alfred Hitchcock silent movie I like least.  The story is about the daughter (Betty Balfour) of a champagne tycoon (Gordon Harker), whose father refuses permission that she marry her boyfriend (Jean Bradin).  She flies her father's plane to meet her boyfriend who is on a yacht going to France.  Her boyfriend has sea sickness and she meets a mysterious stranger (Ferdinand Von Allen).  She receives a telegram from her father who warns her about marrying him, so she proposes to him.  They argue over her having asked for his hand.  He later regrets this and looks for her to apologize, and finds her playing chess with the stranger, so they quarrel again.  The father meets them in France, and announces the family fortune has been lost.  The boyfriend leaves and the father thinks he is only interested in money.  The daughter is robbed and consequently they are destitute and father and daughter take a dilapidated apartment.  Boyfriend returns again to apologize and she rebukes him saying she is going to take a job.  She works in a restaurant where she sees the mysterious man who hands her a note to contact him if she is in need.  The boyfriend does not approve of the job and they argue again.  Her father also does not approve and says it was a ruse his having lost the family money.  She is mad at both her father and boyfriend, but the mysterious stranger pays for her trip back to America.  Turns out the mysterious an works for her father to keep her safe.  The boyfriend, unaware of this decides to attack him but father intervenes to say he no longer objects to the wedding.  Our couple of love birds now argue about the wedding arrangments as the movie ends.

This movie flounders because it really doesn't have much to say.  

Movie Review: **** In Time (2011)

 Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) is on a mission to undo a lopsided society.  In this society everyone is given 25 years, after which you no longer age.  However then you have to get your own time, and if your time gets to zero, you die.  In this way those with time can keep the world from becoming overpopulated.  When Salas' mother (Olivia Wilde) dies because Salas culd not get her more time before she died, he sets out on this vendetta.  Someone who wants to die gives him 100 years, and this gets him into a richer high society neighborhood.  There he meets Sylvia Weiss (Amanda Seyfried) whose father (Vincent Kartheiser) has benefitted by the system--living at age 25, forever.  His wife, mother and child all appear the same and are all 25 in terms of aging.  He first Salas kidnaps her, sort of but she wants to go with him, and they begin to change the system, by stealing years from banks.  The Timekeeper (Cillian Murphy) tells Sylvia's father she doesn't appear to want to be rescued.  Salas and Sylvia make a pretty good team.  There is always a bigger bank.

This universe has some very intriguing points and nuances which makes a good movie.

Tom Cruise Movie Review: **** Minority Report (2002)

 This is a science fiction that is a bit hard to understand.  It is a futuristic movie, taking place in 2054.  In Washington, D.C. pre cogs (peope with cognitive functions where they dream of future murders, and are used by the police to prevent future crimes.  Many people have been arrested as a result, and placed in a comma.  The murder rate has dropped to zero.  However one of our police, Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) shows up on a future crime report, killing someone he doesn't know.  He runs, and eventually gets to the bottom of a murder which was miss handled in the past.  A woman was murdered twice, once prevented by the precogs, but the second did happen, Ann Lively (Jessica Harper) was drowned.  One of the Precogs was her daughter (Samantha Morton).  Anderton steals this precog.  She is considered the strongest. 

Someone has been manipulating the system, and that person is very powerful.  A coworker (Colin Ferrell), rival of sorts, also started questioning and goes to the director (Max Von Sydow), and is murdered.  Anderton's (Kathryn Morris) wife is also involved, and is the person who discovers the true murderer.  

Directed by Steven Spielberg.  Even though this is hard material, with futuristic computers and such, I think is comes off well.  

Movie Review: **** Coach Carter (2005)

 Coach Carter (Samuel Jackson) takes a position as basketball coach even though he knows it is a tough neighborhood and the team has n9t had much success.  He sets some conditions for the players, 2.3 GPA and attend classes and sit in the front and wear a tie on game day.  They actually find a great deal of success on the court, but when the progress reports come to the coach, he realizes most of the team is not fulfilling the conditions of the contract.  He locks the gym and suspends games.  The forfeit a few games as a result; and the community has a conniption.  They go to the school board who overrules the coach and says games will restart.   Coach Carter chooses to resign.  The issue is important to him as too many kids do not go on to colege in Richmond, California where this story takes place.  However the players stivck with him.  They bring their grades up and get back to basketball.  This movie provides some exciting play.  They lose to the best team in the state in the playoffs by a last-second basket.

Samuel Jackson is very good.  Channing Tatum and Rick Gonzalez play basket ball players.  Robert Ri'chard plays Coach carter's son and als basketball player.  

Movie Review: ***^ Music from Another Room (1998)

 As a boy, Danny (Jude Law) helps hs father deliver a baby.  At that time he declares he is going to marry the baby some day.  Jump forward 25 years and Danny is a down on his luck man who begins working making deliveries, and he runs into the same family.  The baby, Anna (Gretchen Mol) is now engaged.  Danny expresses his love, but it falls flat.  Anna has a sister, Nina (Jennifer Tilly) who is blind and over protected.  Danny begins to help her expand her life.  They go to a dance and she meets Jesus (Vincent Laresca) who gets her to dance.  From thee they form a relationship, and eventually marry.  As she grows, the family becomes more open and free, and Danny finds his place with them.  

John Wayne Movie Review: ****The Sands of Iwo Jima (1949)

 Sergeant Stryker (John Wayne) is a tormented person.  He has an alcohol problem, and is tough on his men.  But he hopes he has taught them enough that it might save their lives.  Of course nothing ever works 100 percent.  After a hard fight up Mount Suribachi, Stryker is killed by a sniper's bullet, just before the raising of the flag by the Marines on the mount.  Stryker's death was not expected.  I though Wayne always lived.  After his death the discover he has a son he is not able to see, a reason for some of his torment.  Ira Hayes played himself in this movie as one of the men who raises the flag, and as a member of the unit Stryker trained and commanded.  

Tough fighting but an enjoyable movie.  Wayne was nominated for an Oscar for this movie.  

At the Movies: ****^ Mercy (2026)

 This movie takes on AI.  It is placed in 2029 Los Angeles.  Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) is confined to a chair when the movie begins, and he is charged with murdering his wife (Annabelle Wallace).  Raven is a police officer with L.A.  He was instrumental in gaining the first conviction through a system called Mercy.  He is given 90 minutes to prove his innocence or be executed.  Apparently the contraption he is connected to can do that immediately.  Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) is the face of the AI system which has accused Raven of murder, with 98 percent certainty he is guilty of murder.  Everything points to him being the only person in the house, and they have access to cell phone and camera information.  He also has his police partner (Kali Reis).  Together they begin to unravel a plot.  That plot gets more and more complicated, and results in the kidnapping of his daughter (Kylie Rogers).  The plot involves the brother (Chris Sullivan) of that first person executed by Mercy.

This movie is very entertaining.  It is different than any movie I have ever seen in that Raven is in a chair, but able to interact with people far away in the field.  This includes asking many questions of different people.  Even the judge begins to glitch as the guilty percentage slowly goes down.

John Wayne Movie Review: **** The Alamo (1960)

 This is an epic movie of the Battle of Alamo directed and produced by John Wayne.  John Wayne also plays Davy Crockett.  Richard Widmark portrays Jim Bowie and Laurence Harvey plays Colonel William Barret Travis.  Smitty, the young man sent away to get reenforcements is played by Frankie Avalon.  Two of John Wayne's kids are in the movie.  Patrick portrays a member of Colonel Houston's staff and his daughter portrays a small girl who survives the final attack.  His son Michael Wayne is credited as a co-producer.  Another daughter also played a townsfolk as did his wife, Pilar.  In the move there is a budding love interest thrown in between Crockett and Flaca (Linda Cristal).  Crockett sends her away to be safe.  There were women in the church who were spared.  All the defenders were killed, about 200.  There were 400-600 casualties of San Ana's troops.  

This movie is not totally accurate in its portrayal of the Alamo.  However it has some good points.  It shows a very large Mexican Army.  It shows lots of marching and pageantry.  And it has some intense battle scenes.

The public loved the movie, the fourth highest grossing movie for the year.  Critics were not so kind.  It did eventually make a profit, but not initially as it has lots of cost over runs.  This is the only film Wayne directed and it is considered more a sketch about Wayne and his political feelings and o0inions than about the Alamo.  

Epic Historical Movie Review: **** Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)

 This epic covers the Elizabethan period in England where they were waring with the Spanish.  Queen Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett) is single with no children nor prospects.  However she is attracted to Sir Walter Raleigh (Clive Owen), who has started a settlement in Virginia.  However Raleigh falls for her handmaiden, Bess Throckmorton (Abbie Cornish).  She becomes ;regnant so they marry.  Raleigh desires to return to America, but the Queen forbids him as she needs help with the Spanish who are coming to make war.  Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland (Samantha Morton) betrayed the queen in trying to have her assassinated by Thomas Babington (Eddie Redmayne).  The queen with the evidence orders her ezecution, giving Spain an excuse to come to war.  Spain had. been using Mary just for this purpose.  However things do not go well for Spain and the Spanish Armada, due to the weather, and due to firing the boats and the fire reaching the Spanish fleet.  

Enjoyable and interesting history, which I must admit I am not very up on European history, but good to see how it all fits in.  

Musical Movie Review: ****^ August Rush (2007)

 August Rush/ Evan (Freddie Highmore) is growing up in an orphanage.  He swears he can hear the music of his parents, who he has never met; music is all around in the air.  The other boys tease and are cruel, and eventually he runs away to New York to find his parents.  He parents, an Irish singer in a band, Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) and a cellist Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell) are looking for him and each other.  Lyla's father (William Sadler) forced Lyla to leave when she wanted to stay with Connelly.  He also told Lyla her son had perished in a car accident when he was born premature as a result.  Evan is already past ten years of age, when Lyla's father tells her what he did.  

After going to New York, Evan meets Wizard (Robin Williams) who runs a group of children who play music and beg for him.  He is like a modern Fagan.  From Wizar August learns guitar.  He names Evan August Rush.  Lyla has recruited the help of Richard Jeffries (Terrance Howard) from social services to help find her son.  At a time when August is on the run, as the police are intervening in the operation of Wizard, he enters a church and meets a girl, Hope (Jamia Simone Nash).  It is she that discovers that August is a prodigy.  He learns quickly, and also writes music.  He plays piano with a two minute lesson.  He even plays the organ at the church.  He gets into Juilliard as a result.  The professor of his composition class is impressed.  He is invited to conduct his own piece in Central Park as part of a concert

.

August has believed all along that if enough people hear his music, his parents will find him.  It all comes together.

The August Rush music is unique and exciting.  Hope sings at the concert, and the music twirls around as if riding a circular wind.  I highly recommend this movie.  Even if just to list the the music.  Lyla and Connelly also lay their unique brands of music.

Dr. Seuss Movie Review: ***^The Cat in the Hat (2003)

 The best way to describe this movie is there is a whole lot of strange going on.  The Cat (Mike M
yers) comes to entertain two children, Sally and Conrad (Dakota Fanning and Spencer Breslin) who are home with the babysitter (Amy Hill) who sleeps through everything.  Mom (Kelly Preston) is away at work.  The neighbor (Alec Baldwin) wants to get Conrad sent to middle school so he can have more time with mom.  The Cats methods of entertaining are not really normal, and when Thing 1 and Thing 2 get out of the box things really go haywire.  A fun race by the Cat and the kids to beat the neighbor to the house so they can clean up--which seems impossible.  

At the Movies: **** David (2025)

Pretty fun romp at the movies and the story of David, and Saul.  It is a historical animatd feature.  The movie starts with David as a shepherd and ends with him as a king.  He is ordained of the prophet Samuel to become king after Saul disobeyed the prophet.  But then he has to actually become king.  He fights Goliath in the name of the Lord.  However he eventually becomes an enemy to Saul.  From Angel Studios.  David loved Saul's son, Jonathan.  He weeps when he dies.  Taken from first and second Samuel in the Bible.  

I would recommend this movie.  The music is very catchy, especially Shalom which David sings to Saul to calm him.  David is voiced by Phil Wickham.

Christmas Movie Review: **** Christmas in Connecticut (1945)

 Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) writes a cooking column for a magazine.  In her column she talks of her farm in the country, and her cooking skills, her husband and baby.  Problem is these are things only in her column and not in real life.  Her boss, Alexander Yardley (Sydney Greenstreet) wants to host a returning seaman, Jefferson Jones (Dennis Morgan), for Christmas.  He was shipwrecked for sometime with little or no food and needs Christmas with a family with good food.  After inviting the seaman, the boss also invites himself.  

In coming up with a solution she decides to marry a friend, John Sloan (Reginald Gardiner) who has been asking her about marriage, and spending Christmas at his farm in Connecticut.  She also invites her uncle, who is a chef, Felix Bassenak (S.Z. Sakall) to come and cook.  The baby will be handled by an actual baby who is tended by Sloan's maid.  The preacher will marry them before anyone arrives; but the others arrive too soon and they are not married.  

As she gets to know the sailor, Lane is more and more stricken.  However she lays her part as a married woman with a baby.  Comedy comes in as Lane doesn't know cooking, or caring for babies.  As she gets to know Jones better, she also has to postpone the wedding,  Felix helps her in this regard.  

Except for her budding love for the sailor, things are going well.  However she and the sailor get in a sleigh, and the horse takes off with them.  They are arrestrd for horse stealing.  Felix is left to ten the baby.  When the mother picks up, she is observed by Yardley, who proclaims kidnapping and calls the police.  Everything now has to come out.  She is fired, but then rehired with a raise as Felix tells hr boss she is going to a different magazine.  

I found this movie to be fun.  The humor is nice and there are some slapstick situations.  Felix tells Jones what has been happening and he funs fun chasing her around while she pretends to be married,  but really wants him too.