Part family drama, part thriller and excellent from start to finish, ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD is filled with riches. Billionaire Jean Paul Getty (an excellent Christopher Plummer) is one of the most powerful men in the world. Traveling the globe to expand his oil business, Getty built an incredible fortune. Driven by power, with little regard for anyone without focus, Getty keeps his family at a distance. When his 16 year old grandson John Paul (Charlie Plummer) is kidnapped, a huge mystery begins to unfold. Michelle Williams (The Greatest Showman, My Week With Marilyn) is Gail, John Paul's mother, who battles with everyone to take the kidnapping seriously and find her son. Gail's pursuit is exhausting and relentless. Getty assigns one of his right hand men Fletcher Chase (Mark Wahlberg in by FAR his best screen performance) to assist Gail to find his favorite grandson. As it becomes clear that the richest man on planet Earth is not going to part with a dollar to pay the ransom, the tension on both sides escalates. Director Ridley Scott is a terrific filmmaker. His film legacy (Alien, The Martian, Thelma and Louise, Blade Runner) assures that fact, but he continues to surprise. Scott moves this story forward at an incredible pace, slowly revealing more and more facts about people you grow to care about or despise. They aren't always on the side of the event you suspect. Plummer famously took over the role of Getty from Kevin Spacey after his swift fall from grace last year. Scott re-shot all of Spacey's scenes with Plummer one month before the film hit theaters. It's incredible to see how seamless the re-shoots are and how fantastic Plummer is in the part. I have no idea how Spacey played the role, but I am confident it didn't come close to Plummer. Romain Duris is fantastic as Cinquanta, a kidnapper who grows protective of John Paul. It's great to see Timothy Hutton (Ordinary People) on screen again as Getty's senior lawyer. I'm not a huge fan of Wahlberg, but given a straight dramatic role for a change, he is surprisingly good. Holding his own against Plummer in the final scenes, their last confrontation is a powerhouse and one of the best moments in a film. Beautifully shot, exciting from start to finish, some of the quieter moments of the film are the ones that stick with you the most. What a story. What a movie. ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD won't bring you happiness, but this twisted true story delivers on every count and gets an A+. After you see the film, google to find out what happened to these characters after the events of the film. Real life truly is stranger than fiction.

Steve Martin delivers a master class in physical comedy in 1984's ALL OF ME. Martin is lawyer Roger Cobb, anxious to move up the corporate ladder and finally given his opportunity when assigned the will of obnoxious millionairess Edwina Cutwater. Lily Tomlin is terrific as Edwina, spewing venom and sarcasm in her final days, while devising a new age plan to move her soul to another body. Victoria Tennant is the beautiful young women she has in mind, but wacky guru Prahka Lasa (Richard Libertini at his hilarious best) goofs and Edwina's soul moves into half of Roger's body. It's not a body switch, its a very funny merger, with Edwina controlling one side of Roger's body. Martin nails every movement and Director Carl Reiner (The Jerk) makes a great choice in letting us hear Edwina's voice inside Roger's head. Tomlin's always been a terrific verbal comic, spilling rapid fire dialogue as she finds herself horrified to be trapped inside a man. "I can't believe this, I can't even die right!" Martin said this was the first film he made with a traditional story and a real character that had a brain. It was his fourth and last film working with Reiner after "The Jerk", "The Man With Two Brains" and "Dead Men Dont Wear Plaid". He's right, Roger is the first one with a brain! The 80's brick phones and wardrobe add some unexpected chuckles, but Martin & Tomlin's comedy remains timeless. Fast & fun, it will leave you grinning. ALL OF ME gets a B. Libertini (Fletch, The In-Laws) damn near steals the movie. "Backinbowl. Backinbowl."

James Cameron has created some of my favorite movies of all time, "Terminator 2" and "Aliens" among them. If there's one consistent knock against Cameron in some of his films, it's that he's a much better filmmaker than he is a writer. ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL is the best film evidence of that allegation. It's beautiful, at times jaw-dropping to look at. The action sequences are well constructed, fun to watch and thrilling, but the story itself feels old, creaky and beyond predictable. Based on a 9 part manga series, Cameron seems to have left some magic behind during the adaption. Dr. Dyson Ido (a completely wasted Christoph Waltz) finds parts of a humanoid robot in the trash heaps below the floating wealthy world above a decimated Earth. That's right, its post "the big war" and the wealthy live in floating cities, treating Earth like a dump. Hmmm...that sounds awful familiar. Did anyone see "Elysium"? Anyway, Ido rebuilds the robot into the beautiful Alita. Everything you think will happen does, predictably but with incredible visual flair. Director Robert Rodriquez has always done digital wonder with small budgets. With $170 million at his disposal here, he creates incredible digital settings and action that are consistently dazzling. Too bad they are populated with such cardboard characters. Poor Mahershala Ali (Green Book, True Detective) looks completely out of place playing stock bad guy, Vector. Jennifer Connelly (A Beautiful Mind) does her best in an underwritten role and Jackie Earle Haley brings high energy to the CGI bad guy Grewishka. It's okay for a film to leave you wanting more, but not for its entire running time. Rosa Salazar (Maze Runner) is okay as Alita, our photo realistic but hollow hero. Maybe that's the best summary of the whole film. Beautiful but hollow, ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL gets a C.

The new documentary MEMORY: THE ORIGINS OF ALIEN promises to tell the untold story of Ridley Scott's 1979 classic. Alas, for any Alien fan who has purchased the LaserDisc, Boxed Anthology on BluRay or even casually invested in the film's history, there are very few new treasures. Filmmaker Alexander O. Phiippe created a film doc I loved called "78/52" detailing Hitchcock's classic "Psycho", but his inspiration seems to have failed and got mired in PC culture this time around. We see a bit of new footage behind the scenes, plenty of history of the brilliantly twisted HR Giger and his hyper sexualized designs of the Alien, some great input from writer Dan O'Bannon and his widow, but little new. The one completely new angle that Philippe adds is a boring, poorly conceived bookend scene of ancient Greek witches in a desperate attempt to explore the roots of Alien's story arc. There's also some very 2019 psychological ramblings about the creators and how the Aliens depict a patriarchal society, blah blah,blah. Does every film from 40 years ago have to be forced through the tiny little minds of today's society police to be acceptable? Alien fans don't give a crap about the politics of the film, anymore than Ridley Scott and his team had the myopic minds of today's acceptable standards in mind when they were making the sci-fi classic FOUR DECADES AGO. Ripley was a trailblazing female power role at the time, which seems lost on the eggheads droning on here. I can only imagine how their little Millennial heads would burst examining the hyper-testosterone fueled James Cameron sequel "Aliens". I'm sure there would be tears involved. With far too little Ridley, Sigourney and cast to be relevant, MEMORY only serves to waste 90 minutes that would be much better served going back to watch the original film in all its 4K brilliance today. Where's a Xenomorph when you need one? MEMORY is already forgotten and gets a D.

In 1989, Woody Allen delivered one of his all-time best films, "Crimes and Misdemeanors". The following year, his next film paled badly by comparison. ALICE stars Mia Farrow as a pampered, wealthy, kept & bored Manhattan wife. Her husband Doug (William Hurt) suggests that maybe she sell sweaters at a friend's upscale boutique. "You know sweaters", he implores. But Alice has decided she wants to be a writer. She thinks she may want to have an affair with a Dad she meets dropping off her children at their posh nursery. Joe Mantegna is the Dad, a jazz musician drawn to Alice. Woody digs a little too deep for the story line to propel Alice forward. She visits a Chinatown medicine shop, where an ancient alchemist (Keye Luke of "Kung Fu" fame in his final role) gives her magic herbs. These aren't just any herbs. They make her invisible so she can hear what her stuffy friends are really saying about her. They allow her to see the ghost of her first true love (Alec Baldwin) who takes her on a hand-held flight over NYC that seems awfully similar to Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder's flight over the Big Apple in "Superman". Woody seems like he's really straining from beginning to end. The Jazz references seem forced, Alice's allegiance to Mother Teresa is cumbersome and I couldn't tell if Woody was secretly hating these pampered, wealthy New Yorkers or finding some sort of comfort in their pompous lives. With a cast this talented, it's not a disaster. Judy Davis, Bernadette Peters, Julie Kavner, Blythe Danner, Gwen Verdon, Bob Balaban and Judith Ivey all cross Alice's path. Mia Farrow has a couple great moments, especially when she uses a potion to verbally seduce Joe. She drops her voice into Kathleen Turner territory, its hilarious. She also shows some chops in her dramatic scenes confronting her husband. But overall, its too long, strangely disconnected and Alice isn't interesting enough to carry a film. Allen proved in "Crimes and Misdemeanors" that he can deliver tense drama, dark humor and a suspenseful thriller in one package. It's one of my all time favorite Allen films. Perhaps that's why this follow up is so empty by comparison. One of my least favorite Woody Allen works, it gets a C-.

Disney's current rush to bring all its animated to classics to theatres as live action films has yielded mixed results. Even the Mouse House can't get it right every time. But they nail it with the hugely enjoyable ALADDIN. Having seen the original countless times when my daughter was 8 and it originally hit theatres, there are lots of family memories tied to the title. They've captured them all perfectly and blown them up into live action CGI wonders that bring nostalgic smiles. Will Smith (treading in Robin Williams legendary shoes as the Genie) brings a perfect pitch of tribute and updated spin to his role as our giant blue Genie, released by street urchin Aladdin, well played by newcomer Mena Massoud. Naomi Scott is stunning as Princess Jasmine and Director Guy Ritchie, who bombs as often as he succeeds with me, finds an unlikely perfect fit with the fable. Classic Songs like "A Friend Like Me" and "A Whole New World" are reinvented with a huge budget and state-of-the-art CGI. Ritchie brings his patented camera movements and sweeping vistas to life, zipping through crowded streets and palaces filled with exotic animals at a fast pace. Marwan Kenzari (Murder On the Orient Express) is a menacing Jafar and Nasim Penrad (SNL) delivers big laughs as Jasmine's loyal handmaiden. With over a Billion at the box office, audiences loved the film more than critics, but count me with audiences. Will's great, the cast is flawless and the visuals drip every part of the movie's $183 million budget. Adding in some touching new scenes that take a deeper dive on loyalty, power and family, Ritchie's created a new classic family film. Guy Ritchie and a great family film? What's next, Tarantino's take on Pinocchio? I know, it shouldn't work, but it does, beautifully. Aladdin gets a hugely enjoyable A.

After the original AIRPLANE movie hit theatres and made a bundle, Paramount was anxious to crank out a sequel. The original writers, the Zuckers & Abrahams wanted nothing to do with the sequel, so of course Paramount turned to...Ken Finkleman. Having worked with them on the disaster that was 'Grease 2", they decided he was their man. Let's call it the Finkleman curse, cause AIRPLANE 2 is another stinker. When the funniest parts of a sequel are the flashbacks to the original, you know you're in trouble. There are a couple funny moments, including Jack Jones appearance singing the theme from The Love Boat outside the mental institution and Wiliam Shatner's entire appearance in the climax but most of the movie is misfire after misfire with lame wordplay and visual gags built on the first movie. This time, it's a space shuttle instead of a plane and Sonny Bono is a mad bomber. From the original cast, only Lloyd Bridges knocks it out of the park. If you look up "unnecessary sequel" in the dictionary, it must surely show a pic of this poster. The last scene of the movie says "Coming Soon from Paramount, AIRPLANE 3!"....here we are 30 years later, but thankfully NO ONE is waiting after this stinker.....Airplane II crashes with a D.

Airplane! still holds a special movie memory for me as the hardest I have ever laughed in a theatre. Back in 1980, no one had ever really done this rapid fire style "throw everything at the wall" style comedy spoof. Of course since then the Abrahams/Zuckers have done it brilliantly in the Naked Gun series and the underrated "Top Secret" to name just a few. They take the classic airliner in disaster formula of "Airport" and "High & The Mighty" and add a million jokes. You have to also credit their brilliance in taking serious actors and putting them in very funny roles that they all play 100% straight. Who can forget Lloyd Bridges "Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue...", Robert Stack and his multiple pairs of sunglasses, Peter Graves "Have you ever seen a grown man naked, Joey?", and the brilliant Leslie Nielsen in his first comic role after many years in Hollywood as a serious actor. "Surely you can't be serious, Dr." "I am serious and don't call me Shirley." So many LOL moments, the best of which for me are Julie Haggerty blowing back up Otto the inflatable auto pilot and anything air traffic controller Johnny (Stephen Stucker) says. "Auntie Em! Auntie Em! It's a twister!" LOL. Comedy movies don't get any faster paced, funnier and laugh out loud enjoyable than this monster 1980 hit. Followed by a lesser comedy sequel set on the space shuttle. Airplane! is comedy gold and gets an A.

Action fans could do a lot worse than enjoy 98 minutes of Bruce Willis and the state of the art explosive effects team giving their all in A GOOD DAY TO DIE HARD. First, it's a horrible title, yipee-kay-yeah wouldn't Die Hard 5 have been better than that? Put that aside and sit back and enjoy Willis at his easygoing best and emerging Australian star Jai Courtney (Jack Reacher) as John McLane's son Jack, a CIA operative in over his head in Russia. John Mclane goes to get his boy out of jail, not knowing that he's an operative there to break out a Russian mobster with a whole lot of valuable secrets. It sounds laborious, but its actually a pretty well oiled machine and gets you just enough plot to be passable while Willis and team commence to destroy most of Moscow by handgun, machine gun, war helicopter, car, rope, you name it, the McLane boys do it. I thought it was a blast. Is Bruce Willis using a time machine? The dude is timeless, in great shape and in great humor. If you loved the first 4, you are probably going to have a good time here. GREAT music score by Marco Beltrami. Turn your brain off and the sound up and enjoy the ride. Willis and team get a B-.

If you need any proof that movies were much sexier in the 80's then they are today, look no further than the 1984 thriller AGAINST ALL ODDS. Jeff Bridges (in the best shape of his life and just about to film "Starman") is fading NFL Quarterback Terry Brogan. Brogan is cut by his team, deep in debt and offered a job by a life long friend who has made a lot of money on the wrong side of the tracks. Jake Wise (James Woods at his oily best) is manipulative, crooked and connected. He hires Brogan to go to Mexico and find his girlfriend Jessie (Rachel Ward) who's escaped his clutches and fleed the country. Jessie also happens to be the daughter of the uber wealthy owner of Brogan's former team. Mrs. Wyler (Jane Greer) wants her daughter far from Jake and wants nothing to do with Brogan either. Mrs. Wyler is neck deep in a major Los Angeles land deal that appears to have a million tentacles above and below the radar. Her right hand counselor Ben Caxton (Richard Widmark in classic form) rules everything and everyone like pawns on a chess board. But Brogan's moves are unpredictable, as are the film's maneuvers, especially in its last half. When Brogan and Jessie fall in love in Mexico and decide to stay there for awhile instead of coming back, everything spins out of control. Unfortunately, that's not a good thing for the film, which starts out strong, but flounders badly in its last half hour. The story becomes confused, people's motivations seem inconsistent and like Jake, we are left wondering exactly what is really going on. Bridges is fantastic, Woods is as well. Ward is interesting, but never quite pulls off the film noir Bacall thing she's going for. Director Taylor Hackford (An Officer and A Gentleman) executes the romance much better than he does the intrigue and we're left stumbling to an unsatisfying final shot. The first half is excellent. But......this one doesn't beat the odds and ends up with a B-.

What's the next show you should binge on Netflix? If you aren't one of the many millions who have done so already, drop everything and immerse yourself Ricky Gervais' brilliant After Life. Tamara and I finished the last three episodes of Season 1 and all 6 episodes of Season 2 last night. We limped away exhausted from laughing until our faces hurt and the almost breathless sobs of grief that were pulled up in us by Gervais brilliant writing. AFTER LIFE's subjects are close to home for us. In the past six years, we've lost our daughter and watched my Mom slip into the depths of Alzheimer's where she lives her life in hours or snippets of time instead of hours & days. Those subjects are not touched on by the series, they're delved into, along with addiction, grief, religion, atheism and social status but always with a brilliant balance of laughter and drama that heightens every moment into something much more tangible. Gervais stars as Tony, a recent widower who's lost the love of his life. Lisa (Kerry Godliman) secretly recorded video messages to Tony to watch after she's gone. Tony starts and ends most days watching them. His day job, which he floats into and out of at will, is as a reporter for a local, non-profit newspaper. His fellow staff are the most hilarious, eclectic bunch of characters you've seen since Gervais' classic original "The Office". Tony Way (Edge of Tomorrow) is Lenny, staff photographer and pudgy ladies man. Mandeep Dhillon (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker) is young new reporter Sandy. Diane Morgan (Me Before You) is office mystic, Kevin Hart megafan Kath and Tom Basden is editor and Tony's brother-in-law Matt. Like "The Office" and another all-time fave "The Vicar of Dibley", the cast is large and every person in Tony's life has impact on the story. A local sex worker, Tony's postman, a wealthy owner of the paper and the random lot of oddities that fill the front page of the local paper all provide targets for Tony's acidic attacks. But interestingly, none are quite who you expect them to be. Tony is one of the most miserable people on the planet. But in Gervais hands as actor/writer/director, you see behind the hateful barbs and sarcasm. You're with Tony alone, when the incredible pain of his loss overwhelms him. Gervais is a powerful actor. Having been through crippling grief, Tamara and I turned to each other several times and said "he's really captured the worst moments". Those times when everything feels meaningless and you dont feel like continuing. It's crippling. In After Life, it's tangible. Gervais brilliantly balances the tears with huge laughs. Some of my favorite moments are Tony's chats on a cemetery bench with Anne (the excellent Penelope Wilton) a recent widow who's husband's grave sits adjacent to Lisa's. Their conversations are so much more therapeutic than Tony's laugh-out-loud horrific sessions with his loose cannon, vile psychiatrist (Paul Kaye from "Game of Thrones") that they form the heart of the show. Tony also makes daily visits to his Dad in a care facility. Racked by Alzheimer's his father (the terrific David Bradley of "Harry Potter" fame) rarely knows who Tony is, but will often ask about Lisa. His Dad's care nurse (Ashley Jensen) is one of the first people to see past Tony's hard shell to realize there is a heart beating in there...somewhere. Gervais navigates an amazing journey across the two series. In lesser hands, Tony would grieve and get better, meet someone nice and move on to a comfy next chapter. Gervais doesn't settle for any false notes or storybook bullshit. Suicidal, buried in pain, racked with platitudes from well meaning people, Tony ponders taking his own life, saying that he'd "rather be nowhere with her than somewhere without her." Like real-life, AFTER LIFE is wonderful, profane, painful, hilarious and loaded with redemption and set backs. It's Gervais best work and one of my favorite, arguably my favorite series of all time. A+++

1988's A FISH CALLED WANDA is hilarious! Jamie Lee Curtis is at the top of her 80's stardom as Wanda, a thief working with Kevin Kline and Michael Palin on a diamond heist. As their post robbery plans fall apart, famous barrister Archie (John Cleese) is drawn into their web with laugh-a-minute results. Cleese and Palin achieve Python level laughs with great physical comedy and word play. Palin's stuttering Ken is brilliant as his assassination plot against an old woman who witnessed their crime goes very, very badly for the animal lover, Ken. This is one of Kline's funniest roles and he makes every line count (K-K-K Ken is trying to K-K-K kill me!). Cleese is endearing and brilliant in his best role. Watch his face when Otto pops up in his home unexpectedly as a CIA agent. Cleese's expressions while Kline is talking to his wife are worth the price of admission. The slowest approach to revenge in the history of film (using a steamroller), Archie's clever use of a portrait and Kline's devouring of an aquarium full of fish are all memorable moments! Adult, hilarious and a big hit, A FISH CALLED WANDA is quite a catch that we'll award an A.