They don't make movie stars like Robert Redford anymore. In 1984, four years after his last film "Brubaker", Redford returned to the screen in THE NATURAL . Beautifully shot, leisurely paced and set to Randy Newman's all-time great music score, it's a baseball fable that spans decades. The film opens with young Roy Hobbs (Redford) on his way to Chicago to play with the Cubs. There are glimpses of amazing talent and an anxious departure for the big city. But the story doesn't take the path you expect, with a sudden tragedy derailing Hobbs for almost 20 years. We move forward to the hapless New York Knights. Cellar dwelling, inept and frustrated, they can't believe it when Roy, far too old to be starting his career, walks into the clubhouse. Wilford Brimley (Cocoon) is Pop Fisher, the coach who refuses to play him, thinking its a bad joke. Richard Farnsworth (Havana) is the asst coach who sees something in Hobbs beneath the quiet surface. Darren McGavin plays a glass eyed, powerful bookie, Kim Basinger is Memo, seductive bad luck in a white dress and Robert Prosky (Heat) is The Judge, who thinks that any man can be bought. Director Barry Levinson (Diner) and writer Robert Towne (Chinatown) carefully craft an episodic but legendary mythology. Hobbs is superhuman with the baseball but a complete mystery off the field. Who is Roy and where's he been for 18 years? Glenn Close is Iris Gaines, Roy's girlfriend who saw him off in that train station for Chicago decades ago. When she returns, she's got secrets of her own. The heart of the film is on the baseball diamond and the Knights journey from the depths to a pennant contender is lot of fun. It's loaded with comedy , heart and romance for the game. Hobbs most legendary home runs in the film are now part of movie history, with Newman's music soaring up as lighting and thunder boom and the crack of Roy's bat sends the ball up and into the stadium like a rocket. Clocks and scoreboards shatter, lights explode in showers of sparks that drip down on the celebrating players like fireworks. While the first thirty minutes is shockingly unpredictable, the final thirty delivers exactly what you hope. Redford is terrific from start to finish and his growth from innocent farm hand to a sports legend is sports movie nirvana. There's nothing subtle about the storytelling. Virtuous characters seem bathed in golden light in almost every shot. Bad guys are wrapped in dark rooms and swirls of smoke, but Levinson's hand is sure and he pulls such great performances out of all his actors that you feel like you know them. Brimley and Farnsworth have never been better. The other man present across all those years is Robert Duvall as sports reporter Max Mercy. For decades, he searches for who Hobbs really is as a man. Mercy seems to be the only character who straddles the line between light and dark and Duvall's terrific jumping back and forth over that border. I loved Hobbs bat Wonderboy, hand-carved from a tree struck by lightning. Carrying it like Excalibur, Hobbs steps up to the plate and stares down the pitcher. If the pennant was my Holy Grail, there's no one I'd rather have at bat than Roy Hobbs. THE NATURAL rounds all the bases with an A+ and a lineup spot on deck to my all time top 100 lineup.

Packed with wall-to-wall laughs, action and gore, READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME is a hilarious & twisted horror sequel that does not demand you've seen the first film, I haven't! But I'm going to make a point of seeing it now. A very game cast, young & established, deliver a bloody entertaining good time. The film picks up right where the first entry ended, with Grace (Samara Weaving from "Babylon" and "Scream VI") emerging victorious from a lethal game that her new in-laws sprung on her on her wedding day. It was a "Most Dangerous Game" style human hunt, with her as the prey. Important to note that her wealthy new family and their guests had all sold their souls to the devil. When Grace defeats them, they each explode in a massive bomb of flesh and blood that's left her wedding dress a very deep red. But this chapter is just getting started. By defeating her new husband and in-laws and surviving until dawn, she's put a universal clause into effect that draws powerful families owned by the red dude from all over the globe. The aging patriarch of one of those families, The Danforths is played by Director David Cronenberg, who sets up his two children, Titus (Shawn Hatosy from "The Pitt") and Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar, very funny) to battle in the grand scale, very lethal hide and seek game. The families can only use weapons from the era when their bloodline first sold their souls, which makes for some fun choices. Gellar manages to use a long spike that should conjure up some great memories for Buffy fans. Grace wakes up in the hospital when her estranged sister Faith arrives. Kathryn Newton (Big Little Lies, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) kills it as Faith. She has no idea what she's signed up for, but before long, the two sisters are at a mega mansion, with the countdown about to begin for round two of the hunt. What made me laugh from beginning to end are the diverse families from all over the globe that range from weak to very ambitious. Elijah Wood (Lord of the Rings, Sin City) is perfect as the always calm family lawyer that sees over all the proceedings, making sure Beelzebub's rules are followed to the drawn-in-blood letter. Kevin Durand (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, The Strain) steals every scene he's in as Bill, a wild man who screws the rules and decides to take the sisters out early. His comic timing is flawless. Nestor Carbonell (The Dark Knight, Lost) slays as Ignacio, who's sniper skills maybe could have used a bit more honing. His young son Felipe (Juan Pablo Romero) may not be a teenager yet, but he's got Tony Montana level gunplay down to a science. Every family member carves out a niche and serves up everything from big laughs to some seriously lethal hand-to-hand combat. Weaving and Newton throw the entire sordid affair on their backs without straining, serving up just enough family angst in the middle of the scabbards, gunshots, rocket launchers and crossbows. According to the directors, 325 gallons of fake blood was used during filming with 140 gallons being used in the final event alone, serving up a hilarious, Tarantino style finale that left me laughing. What really kicks the fun off in style is having all 14 main characters in the film together on set as the rules are explained to Grace & Faith. Their expressions and interactions are entertaining and kudos to Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett for filming those scenes with a sense of scope that allows you to see them all at once, or in large groups. Lesser talent would have fast cut their way through all the characters and lost much of the hilarious interplay between deadly group dynamics as a whole. If you love horror, dark comedy and gore, this is an enjoyable, fast paced and laugh-out-loud game, winner take all. It gets a very solid B. READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME is a bloody feast of humor, action and double crosses that will keep you guessing all the way to the grand guignol feast of a finale. Now I need to go find Part One....

A complete cinematic train wreck, THE BRIDE! is an unwatchable, boring, moronic, self-important mess that starts badly and goes downhill from there. It's a good thing Jessie Buckley won an Oscar last weekend for "Hamnet", because she's horrible here, overacting so badly she makes Jack Nicholson in "The Shining" look monstrously reserved. To be fair to Buckley, Director Maggie Gyllenhaal is responsible for this mess. There is "swinging for the fences" and then there's this, an $80 million student film that just wants to vomit it's "so important" take on you until you submit. The film has no style beyond appearing very expensive and trying to be as LOUD as possible, always. What a mess. The film opens with author Mary Shelley (Buckley again, sporting an annoyingly garish, gruff voice that sounds like she's smoked eight packs a day for 100 years) setting up our story. This isn't going to be about ANY MAN, it's going to be about THE BRIDE! MEN are stupid and oppressive and WOMEN are not being heard! That certainly had merit when Shelley broke the rules and boundaries in publishing 'Frankenstein" at the age of 19 in 1816. Gyllenhaal has been vocal that women, from her view, haven't made much advancement in the 210 years since and she's created her impossibly brilliant & important opus to testify to that fact. Unfortunately, she's forgotten to create any characters or people we actually care about to convey her oh-so-very-important take, which she beats us over the head with every five minutes. Shelley immediately possesses the body of Ida, a mobster's girl in 1930's Chicago. In the first sign of just how bad Buckley has over-committed, she leaps to the tabletop, grinding away on mobsters in a fine dining restaurant, slurping oysters and breaking into long winded rants in Shelley's sandpaper voice as patrons look on and mobsters get pissed. Ida gets thrown down some stairs and killed by the mobsters in question. Meanwhile, Frank wonders into Chicago looking like the comic strip hero The Shadow, scarf across his face and hat in place. It's Christian Bale, a surprisingly urbanite version of Frankenstein's monster whose worst attribute seems to be the odor of rotting flesh he carries with him like Axe body spray. He's on a quest to meet Dr. Euphronious, played by Annette Bening (Bugsy, Love Affair). She's a cutting edge doctor exploring "revitalization" in animals, which sounds a lot like his Daddy's experiments to Frank. Before you can crank up the electricity and shout "She's Alive!" the doc and Frank dig up Ida and wake her up, the black ooze that they pumped into her corpse splashing across her face like a lurid tattoo. Frank takes a break just after the procedure to go to a Chicago movie house and watch a film with his favorite song and dance man, Ronnie Reed. Reed sings and dances his black & white way through a series of big numbers that Frank imagines himself in. As the film goes on, Frank will return to Reed's movies again and again (and again...) and we see his visions of he and Ida, oops, I mean The Bride! in these song and dance numbers. It's a bizarre allusion to another massive film flop, 1981's "Pennies from Heaven" starring Steve Martin. There were at least three scenes in that visually stunning film that carry more heart than the entire, exhausting 126 minutes of this turd. Ronnie Reed is played by Jake Gyllenhaal, who I can only imagine owed his sister a huge favor. Consider that debt paid in full, Jake. He's fine in the part and is the only actor who escapes unscathed from this celluloid manure heap. Frank and The Bride! (NEVER forget the exclamation point!!!!!) head off on a Bonnie and Clyde style crime spree from Chicago to New York, killing a bunch of dudes from street thugs to pervy cops. Gyllenhaal (Maggie, not Jake) must have been deeply inspired by Arthur Penn's 1967 classic because in that film, Clyde (Warren Beatty) was impotent, a condition shared by Frank until the murders fire him up. There is a scene on a train with Frank and The Bride! hiding on a train, on the lam. Ida is suddenly possessed again by Shelley and she starts singing "Falling In Love Again" at the top of her lungs. Her singing voice sounds like a blend of Bea Arthur in "Mame" and Al Pacino. I'm not sure what emotion writer/director Gyllenhaal was going for in that sequence, but like the rest of the film, it splats flatly on screen with a dull thud, simply serving as a bridge between one dull scene to the next. The entire film has virtually zero flow. At one point after the murder spree has started, we are introduced to two detectives, Jake Wiles (Peter Sarsgaard) and Myrna Malloy (Penelope Cruz). I thought, ok, maybe these are characters to drive the story. That lasted about two minutes. Poor Sarsgaard and Cruz, two great actors, are stranded playing one note characters that serve one purpose: Look! Wiles is lazy and knows nothing, yet he has the detective badge! Myrna is the woman really doing all the work with all the brains! MAN: BAD, WOMAN: GOOD!!! (this mess NEVER forgets its exclamation points!!!!!!) Just when I thought is couldn't get any worse, it actually manages to stage a song and dance number with Frank, The Bride and Ronnie Reed and the song is....."Young Frankenstein" fans get ready..... "Puttin' On The Ritz". It's staged with so little humor, style or sense of place that it just splats on the screen. At this point, it just became a test of patience to make it through this dreck. I have to give credit to the production design by Karen Murphy, (Elvis, A Star is Born) the entire film LOOKS great. The costumes by Sandy Powell (Gangs of New York, The Departed) are also excellent. Murphy and Powell create a real sense of time and place. Too bad Gyllenhaal populates them with such heavy handed crap. Bale does what he can, acting just as surprised at some of Buckley's antics as we are. Watch for this one to disappear quickly off every actor's highlight reel. There were moments during the film that I thought it most closely resembled 2024's "Joker" Folie a Deux" a film that I actually liked a lot. I was in the decided minority on that one, audiences hated it. I remember walking out of a packed preview as audiences voiced how much they hated the film. The end of THE BRIDE! was far different. The two other people in the theater just walked out in stunned silence, as baffled as I was by the complete waste of time and vision we just suffered through. Save yourself 126 minutes and leave THE BRIDE! at the altar. It's one of the worst films I've ever seen, splatting to the basement with an F.

As we get ready to watch the latest Andy Weir adaption, "Project Hail Mary" this evening, let's take a look back at my review of "The Martian" , the film adaption of Weir's first novel in 2015. When you look at Ridley Scott's three films within the Science Fiction film canon of the past 40 years, "Alien", "Blade Runner" and even (arguably) "Prometheus" stand out as modern film classics. Let's add another one to that group with 2015's THE MARTIAN . Based on first-time novelist Andy Weir's best seller, the film version starts fast and never lets up. As the film opens, botanist Mark Watney is among an international team on the surface of Mars, halfway through their mission on the surface. When a massive storm hits their camp and Watney appears to be killed, the rest of the crew quickly boards their craft for an emergency escape and the start of the very long journey home. As NASA soon discovers, Watney is very much alive. With only about a year's food supply and nearly three years before a rescue mission can save him, Watney must get very creative, very fast or succumb to a lonely, slow death on Mars. Matt Damon plays Watney with plenty of humor and intelligence, talking to the daily video log (and the audience) to share his feelings, his plan & details of his day-to-day existence. The film switches back and forth from Watney's solitary adventure on the red planet to the inner workings of NASA and JPL as they scramble to mount a supply mission and a rescue against all odds. Jeff Daniels is Teddy Sanders, the head of NASA, wrestling with the best way to present the truth to the public and the needs of the many versus the needs of the one (you're welcome Star Trek fans). Chewetel Ejiofor is terrific as the head of the Mars mission, alongside Sean Bean as Henderson, the astronaut trainer for the crew. Among the crew that has unwittingly abandoned Watney is Jessica Chastain as Lewis, the mission commander, a terrific Michael Pena as Rick Martinez, Watney's closest friend on the team and Kate Mara, recovering nicely from the horrible "Fantastic Four" earlier this year. The less you know of the plot the better, as Director Scott builds nice suspense throughout on how Watney will possibly survive, communicate and plan for the years ahead. The production values are beautiful and incredibly real. If this isn't what Mars looks like, it's what it OUGHT to look like. They have nailed the brutal yet stunning terrain and the workmanlike simplicity/scientific complexity of the Mars camp itself down to the finest detail. Like Tom Hanks in "Castaway", Damon carries more than half the film on his own. Alone on screen, he drives plenty of laughs and emotion as Watney. The final 30 minutes of the film are exciting and tense, definitely on-the-edge-of-your-seat time. Ridley Scott continues to make great film after great film, especially in the science fiction genre. He and his production team create an incredible world here that seems all too real, as do the characters that populate it. Schedule a voyage with THE MARTIAN , its a great trip that earns an A.

A feast for the eyes and the ears in Dolby Cinema, PROJECT HAIL MARY aims for the stars and beautifully blows past them by every measure. Adapting Andy Weir's best selling novel, Oscar winning Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have created a science fiction film for the ages. If you're old enough (like me) to have seen "2001" and "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" on the big screen when they were released, get ready to have that same sense of wonder again in the theater. The last time that Ryan Gosling played an astronaut, he was the emotionally closed off space pioneer Neil Armstrong in 2018's "First Man". Here, his man in space, Ryland Grace is the polar opposite. He's a science teacher who wakes up as the sole survivor of a deep space mission, light years from Earth without a clue as to why he's there. As memories begin to emerge, we experience them alongside him. As we know from the trailers, the sun seems to be dying. Our planet has sent a mission to explore the only apparent sun in the universe that has not been affected. The brilliance of the film's structure in the screenplay by Drew Goddard, who also adapted Weir's previous novel, "The Martian" for the big screen, is that the flashbacks are as exciting and informative as Grace's dilemma on the ship. Luckily for us, the folks back on Earth are also an incredibly well cast lot. Sandra Huller (Anatomy of a Fall, The Zone of Interest) is reliably stunning in her first American film as Eva Stratt, a high level government official who targets Ryland for the worldwide scientific effort to find out what's happening to the stars. Gosling and Huller's interactions are so well written and acted that you hang on every word the entire film. It's a fascinating and unpredictable relationship. Lionel Boyce (The Bear) is great as Carl, a secret service agent assigned to Ryland and Ken Leung (Lost) is terrific as Yao, one of the astronauts on the mission who's not too sure how to take Ryland from their first meeting onward. The film's first half is a mystery informed by it's flashbacks. At about the midway point, Grace arrives at his destination in a very distant universe to observe the unaffected sun. Almost immediately another massive ship arrives and pulls up directly next to him, setting up a laugh out loud sequence in which Riley, definitely NOT a pilot, attempts to maneuver the ship away from the intimidating alien craft. But soon, the alien craft is reaching out to make contact and what follows for the last hour+ of the film is a carefully crafted, beautifully told sci-fi/human adventure that blew me away. It would be easy to say it had elements of "ET", "Contact","2010" and the previously mentioned "Close Encounters". I also saw a bit of "Silent Running", "Denis Villeneuve's "Arrival" and "The Andromeda Strain" within the story. But PROJECT HAIL MARY isn't a ripoff, a remake or a direct homage to any of those films. It's a unique story that inspires the same emotions of visual wonder that those films did in their day. I'm going to intentionally say very little about the astronaut that Grace meets on that other ship, even though the trailers, to me, give away far too much. The trailer that I attached below is my favorite, as it keeps that astronaut pretty hidden. But don't worry, even the longest trailer barely scratches the surface of what happens when two astronauts from different worlds are faced with the same threat to their respective home planets. It's important to note that practical effects, not CGI were used to create the other astronaut. It makes a HUGE difference on screen. Derek Arnold (Rogue One) creates real magic with the character. The visual effects team is top notch, creating spaceships, planets and space scenarios that I've never seen on film. Daniel Pemberton (Spider-Man: Across the Universe, The Materialists) creates a massive score that's at times playful and often awe inspiring in some of the film's most jaw dropping moments. It's as diverse in tone as the film itself, covering every range of emotions perfectly. Above all, the movie is a fun, suspenseful, fast-paced blast of humor, heartfelt drama and WOW moments that amaze. Lord and Miller have created something special here alongside Gosling, creating a single human character that you spend the majority of the film with, one-on-one. Gosling's always been likeable, but he takes that to another universe as a man discovering exactly who he is a very, very long way from home. A summer movie blockbuster that's arrived two months early, this is sure to be a blockbuster. I'm predicting a $100 million opening weekend, even WITH March Madness in play. An irresistible, perfect blend of heart and laughs, PROJECT HAIL MARY executes a perfect landing that I can't wait to see again. Fist my bump , it gets an A+ and sits alongside "Crime 101" as the best film of 2026, so far. Amazon/MGM is on a roll.

It all comes down to the music in the 1976 remake of A STAR IS BORN starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. This was one of Barbra's first efforts as producer/actress and she and then boyfriend (and hairdresser) Jon Peters throw it all at the screen in their version of the oft-told story of a rising and a falling star in love. Kristofferson oozes rock star charisma as John Norman Howard, hit maker, alcoholic and wild man. After a drunken, angry concert one night, he stumbles into a local bar and sees Esther Hoffman (Streisand) and immediately falls for her. They soon become a couple and as he fosters her career, she rises quickly to stardom, while he descends deeper into his self destructive addictions. It was surprising to me how good these two are together in the film, they have real chemistry. Kristofferson is much better than I remembered him being in the role and brings real authenticity (and some real upper range straining) to the concert scenes. There are some pretty goofy, dated scenes, understandable after FIFTY years, but the film holds up better than expected, especially during the songs. Streisand is a huge movie star for a reason and when her Esther is on stage singing her first surprise concert, in the studio singing huge hit EVERGREEN or in the film's final moments, she takes the film to another level. The scene with her recording Evergreen in the studio was filmed in one take, live. She's fantastic. Barbra famously wanted Elvis to play the Kristofferson role in the film. It would have been his first movie since 1969 and an amazing comeback. Presley was very interested, but his manager Colonel Parker famously turned it down because Streisand didn't come to him first. It's fascinating to think how this role could have turned Elvis's career in a different trajectory than the one that lead to his death the following year. About 25 minutes into the film, Esther and John helicopter into a massive outdoor concert, which was staged at ASU Sun Devil Stadium, providing us some surreal moments of seeing the stadium in it's mid seventies form, packed with 47,000 fans. My brother Mark actually attended the all-day concert that was staged starring Peter Frampton, Santana and Montrose, gathering the crowd you see in the film. Phoenix natives will also see plenty of scenes shot at Gammage and at the old Ramada Inn down on Van Buren. Look for a young Gary Busey as John's road manager. Film sound trivia buffs: this 1976 film was the very first to be in Dolby Surround sound, before this movie there were never separate tracks that placed sound behind the audience. In the new Anniversary edition BLU RAY with DTS master audio, the songs sound better than ever. A STAR IS BORN is definitely a vanity vehicle for Streisand, but when she takes center stage, she makes the film sing to a very enjoyable A-. It was surpassed in 2018 by the far superior Bradley Cooper/ Lady Gaga version that brillianty brought the story to another generation.

As a big fan of the 1976 Streisand/Kristofferson version of A STAR IS BORN, I had never seen the classic 1954 version starring James Mason and Judy Garland. Full transparency, I've never been a fan of Garland. Too mannered, too over the top. Hell I never even liked "The Wizard of Oz" as a kid, so I was in no hurry to see this. I was surprised just how great Garland is in this film, a major comeback for her in 1954. She plays Esther, a talented lounge singer looking for her big break. It arrives in the alcoholic, troubled Norman Maine, perfectly played by a young and terrific James Mason. Norman campaigns to get Esther her break and soon she's renamed Vicki Lester and rises to stardom. The film gives Garland plenty of opportunities to sing, including a great, quiet opening lounge number "The Man That Got Away" all the way to watching her perform huge production numbers on her movie sets. Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin deliver song after song, but as the nearly three hour story unfolds, you realize its less a Hollywood musical than it is a drama about alcoholism and two people whose fame and stardom are on opposite arcs. Mason is very good and his pain & regret at the end of the Oscar sequence and in the film's conclusion are surprisingly realistic. His performance holds up very well today. more than 60 years later. But Garland's performance is the real surprise for me. With none of the usual Garland/Liza over the top mannerisms that drive me crazy in their films, Garland is powerful and realistic from the opening scene to the last. Director George Cukor (The Philadelphia Story, My Fair Lady) brings old Hollywood class and style to this often retold story. We're already looking forward to the newest version starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper that will hit theatres in May 2018. If you've never seen this classic, check it out. There's a reason it's considered an American classic. It gets a CinemaScope wide, respectful A.

To be totally accurate, you'd have to say two stars are born with the excellent new version of A STAR IS BORN in theatres now. I don't think anyone expected Bradley Cooper to be this great of a director, but he's fantastic, immersing you in this world for over two hours and making you feel like you've never seen a live concert from this angle before, right from the film's opening moments to its perfect final seconds. His visual choices are strong and the film never lags. Lady Gaga's an amazing singer and entertainer, but that doesn't always translate into visible talent as an actress (sorry Madonna, but other than "Evita"...ouch) Gaga's already generated serious Best Actress Oscar buzz and it's all deserved. The story's been filmed multiple times before, but each film was both a hit and a snapshot of its time in history. I've seen and enjoyed the last two versions, Judy Garland and James Mason in 1954's big screen musical and Streisand/Kristofferson in the excellent 1976 rock opus. To me, they both pale compared to the raw energy and emotion of Cooper/Gaga. Bradley Cooper is Jackson Maine, a grizzled, tired superstar, playing night after night on the road and fueling himself with pills and booze. He's at the stage in his career where the audience sings along with the hits and he gives them what they want, night after night. One night after a gig, he wanders into a drag bar where he meets actress/struggling artist Ally, perfectly played by a stripped down, shy Gaga. Cooper both plays and stages these opening scenes perfectly, capturing their instant attraction and connection. The first hour of the film feels like a camera snuck quietly into two people's real conversations as they learn more about each other. It's raw, without a false moment. The chemistry between Cooper and Gaga is powerful. As Maine talks her into performing on stage with him and their impromptu duet goes viral, her star rises and Maine eventually feels his own demons begin to swirl. I'll say no more for those that dont know the oft told story, but for me, the choices this version makes on its path elevate it above previous versions. The supporting cast is flawless. two surprise performances from comedians are outstanding. Andrew "Dice" Clay is Ally's dad Lorenzo and he's excellent. After seeing him in Woody Allen's "Blue Jasmine" I knew he could act, but Cooper gets an even better performance from him here. Dave Chappelle is great in a straight role as Jackson's best friend from many years before, who grounds Maine long enough for him to appreciate what he's found in Ally. Sam Elliott (The BIg Lebowski, Road House) has his best role in years as Maine's older brother. Their scenes together are some of the best in the film. But at the center of the film are Cooper and Gaga. Cooper is a surprisingly good singer and stage performer, not a moment feels forced, you accept him as Maine immediately. Watching Gaga go from her first number on a tiny stage in the drag club to the film's final moments provides her so many moments that could have gone wrong, but she nails every one of them. She's terrific in every scene. All the songs, written by Gaga and Cooper along with Lukas Nelson or Mark Ronson are great. Cooper's opening scene performing "Black Eyes" lets you know immediately that you're not going to have to pretend for two hours that Cooper's a star, he sounds like one. His quieter "Maybe It's Time" is great, "Shallow" is powerful and the closing 'I'll Never Love Again" will likely win best Song at the Oscars. It's a moment. There's a great piece of dialogue from Elliott: "Music is essentially 12 notes between any octave - 12 notes and the octave repeat. It's the same story told over and over, forever. All any artist can offer this world is how they see those 12 notes." You can't offer those notes any more perfectly than Lady Gaga and Cooper as both Actor & Director play them here. It's the best movie of the year so far for me and gets an A+ and an immediate spot in my all-time Top 100 films.

Alan Alda not only wrote THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN , he stars as the title character, a hardworking senator with Presidential ambitions. His life is about to get a lot more complicated. After passing a long talked about jobs bill, Tynan's stock in Washington soars. He suddenly finds himself leading the opposition against a Supreme Court nominee with a very racist past. The lead champion of that same nominee is long-time friend Senator Birney, well played by Melvyn Douglas, who won an Oscar for "Being There" the same year that this film was released, 1979. Birney is aging badly, appears to be slipping and is calling in all his markers from his loyal friend, Joe. But Tynan finds more and more disturbing facts about the nominee, many of them from a new civil rights activist with deep political ties, Karen Traynor. Meryl Streep excels in one of her early big screen roles as Traynor. Her lust for justice and power eventually begins to halo onto Joe. Streep owns the screen in this film, released the same year as her breakout roles in "Manhattan" and "Kramer vs Kramer". Barbara Harris (Family Plot, Nashville) plays Joe's wife Ellie. She and Joe have made the decision to keep their family living outside Washington DC, leading to longer and longer absences by Joe from Ellie and their kids. Alda has always been a bit polarizing for me. I enjoy his work as Hawkeye on the classic TV series immensely. He was hilarious, biting and delivered some of the most groundbreaking TV satire of the 70's. His writing for the show also delivered a squadron of memorable episodes. This was his first big screen role and he filmed it while still in his role on "M*A*S*H". But on the big screen, I've always felt like he's playing to the back row. Too much. Too "big" for the big screen. I loved "The Four Seasons" but some of Alda's overacting made me cringe. I can't explain why he translates so differently on the big screen versus the small, but he's got the same big delivery here. His best moments are his quietest, discussing a political issue with his staff, talking about family issues with Ellie. I'm not saying that Alda is bad here, he just serves up a couple cringe moments. As Karen and Joe work together on the Supreme Court project, sparks fly, at least in the script. The two begin a torrid affair that I just kept scratching my head about because there is ZERO on screen chemistry between Streep and Alda. For me, the best moments are the political ones and anytime Harris is on screen. She's not a "poor wife" character. She's a successful woman on her own terms who's trying to evaluate what's left of her life after Joe breaks her trust. Harris holds your compete attention every moment she's on screen. Rip Torn (Men in Black) is a great add as a late seventies chauvinist pig of a Senator. His gumbo eating contest with Joe is pretty funny, as is the party in his home, his long suffering wife oblivious to his Southern debauchery. Joe's path is a fascinating one that I think Alda really captures well. He's torn between his longtime loyalties at work and his decades long marriage and responsibilities at home. Streep delivers her usual great take, creating a strong woman who may be in over her head. She serves up a great deal of character background that makes her attraction to Tynan's power all the more logical, even if the sparks never generate a flame. Seductions of many varieties drive the story. Only in the film's final minute does Alda's screenplay let his characters down, with a moment so unearned and illogical that it deflates the film. If Alda had made the choice to end the film 15 or 30 seconds earlier with a freeze frame, it would have been a far better movie. It seems the final seduction for Alda was the one to provide a happy ending. THE SEDUCTION OF JOE TYNAN strategized its way to a B- for this voter.

Jason Statham has become one of our most reliable action heroes, turning out one enjoyable popcorn action flick after another. His latest, SHELTER is no exception. Statham again reminds me of Charles Bronson in the seventies, who delivered a reliable action flick like "The Mechanic" or "Mr Majestyk" every 8 months or so. The difference is that Statham's thrillers have $50 million budgets that deliver grand scale action and thrills on a level Bronson only dreamed about. This time out, Jason is Michael Mason, a quiet man living a very solitary life in a secluded island in Scotland. We're talking a lighthouse, a tiny home and a boat house (with some pretty cool launch features). Mason's only contact with the outside world seems to be weekly supply visits from a young girl, Jessie. She routinely drops a large milk crate in front of his weathered door, mostly canned meat and vodka. Jessie is well played by Bodhi Rae Breathnach (Hamnet). When a sudden storm plunges Jessie into the sea during one of her supply runs, Mason dives into action and brings her into his home for recovery. Often in this genre, you are waiting for the quiet parts of the story to end as soon as possible so the action can get started. Its a tribute to Statham, Breathnach and Ward Perry's screenplay that this opening half hour is a solid, dramatic intro to Mason & Jessie. You're already invested in them before the action starts. When Mason is forced by circumstance to visit a nearby small town for medical supplies that Jessie needs, a local camera captures him and every screen at MI-6 lights up, scrambling a Special Ops team to take him down. Sounds predictable, but there's a lot more going on here than meets the eye and plenty I'm not going to describe. The always welcome Bill Nighy (Love Actually, Hot Fuzz) serves up a very slimy operative in senior MI-6 official Manafort, who's known Mason a very long time and is not excited to see him again. Dame Harriet Walter (Sense and Sensibility, The Crown) is deliciously evil as a Prime Minister with a whole lot of moving pieces on her political chessboard. Naomi Ackie (Blink Twice) is a blast as Manafort's second in command, who has a mind of her own and a growing suspicion of her bosses. Bally Gill is terrific as a very lethal assassin, Aziz, who is relentless in his pursuit of Mason and Jessie once they are on the run. And what a run it is. The farther that Mason & Jessie get from that island, the faster and bigger the action. A car chase through the countryside ramps up the action quickly and surprised me more than once with the sheer scale of the stunts and the action. Superb stunt work abounds, loved it. As you might expect, things really pop by the time Mason gets to London. The finale on and around the Thames is everything you want in a Statham action flick and then some. Director Ric Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen, Kandahar, Greenland) knows how to serve up crowd pleasing action and he's done it again here. SHELTER also added plenty of political thriller accents that serve it well, giving off "Bourne Identity" vibes in its last half to match the "Shane" and "The Professional" elements it also serves up. Statham did most of his own stunt work for the film, impressive! As long as Statham wants to keep turning out films like this one, "The Beekeeper" and "The Working Man", I'll keep turning up. His commitment to the audience shows in the material, elevating a popcorn action flick into something with decidedly more edge than expected. SHELTER gets a very solid, enjoyable B. Come for the action, stay for the intrigue.

We've all heard of the perfect crime. CRIME 101 is the perfect crime film. It's early in 2026, but I think it will be hard for any film this year to top this slick, intricately constructed mystery thriller. The best of its kind since Pierce Brosnan's "The Thomas Crown Affair" in 1999, CRIME 101 pulls you into four characters that will eventually collide on screen. Chris Hemsworth is excellent as James, a meticulous & mysterious jewel thief executing a precisely planned series of robberies against high stakes diamond couriers. His targeted crimes all take place a ramp away to the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles. He's very much in control and no one gets hurt. Mark Ruffalo is dynamite as Lou, a rumpled detective who's personal life is falling apart at the same time as his position on the force. He's too old school for the squad and decidedly not a team player, driving his younger partner Tillman (Corey Hawkins from "BlacKkKlansman" and "In the Heights") crazy. Tillman's career is tied to Lou's and the older man is not out to make any friends. Halle Berry is Sharon, a high level insurance broker who's company insures some of those hardest hit by James' robberies. She's a woman just into her fifties, long past partner at the firm and at a turning point. Berry has rarely been more tightly wound on film, she's an emotional powderkeg waiting to explode. Barry Keoghan (The Banshees of Inisherin, Saltburn) is his own kind of TNT, a young and violent thief who's anxious to take over part of James targets. He and James both report to a mysterious older figure, Money, played to grizzled perfection by Nick Nolte in a very welcome screen appearance. The supporting cast is beyond approach, including Jennifer Jason Leigh (The Hateful Eight, Fast Times at Ridgemont High) as Lou's fed up wife Angie, Tate Donovan (Argo) as Monroe, a very, very wealthy LA man who's pending wedding becomes James' latest target and Peyman Maadi (6 Underground) as Sammy, the jewelry store owner who is James' victim in the opening heist. There are two other MAJOR stars that contribute in superb ways to the film's flawless execution. The score by Blanck Mass (The Rig) is a perfect, haunting blend of mood setting music that somehow perfectly blends electronic, symphonic and power into a blend of Wendy Carlos/Tangerine Dream and Wang Chung's score for "To Live and Die in LA" into something wholly new and stunning. The photography by Erik Wilson (Better Man) captures Los Angeles in its darkest sheen and perfect blue skies, echoing the look of Michael Mann's "Heat" while literally turning the city on its head. This is a great looking movie. The combo of Mass and Wilson is a stunner. The film was adapted from a novella by one of my favorite crime thriller novelists, Dan Winslow. If you haven't read Winslow, you are really missing out. Writer/Director Bart Layton not only captures the tone of Winslow, he fills it with fascinating people in every corner. When the film explodes into action, it truly goes off. At one point, the characters on screen reference the 1967 Steve McQueen film, "Bullitt". It's a perfect touch point. That classic film was also, at its heart, a character study punctuated by a few scenes of now classic action, including one of the screen's best car chases. CRIME 101 features one of the best car/motorcycle chase scenes in memory, a high speed pursuit through a night time LA that blew me away. If you loved "Bullitt" or "Heat" or Michael Mann's "Thief" with James Caan (huge yes for me on all three) this film is going to blow you away. At least three times during the film, I caught myself thinking "this is an incredible movie" and smiling at how carefully constructed every scene is, leading up to a finale I never could have predicted. Like the rest of the film, it's flawless. CRIME 101 will be a very high hurdle for any film to leap this year. It's an exciting, suspenseful, perfect crime thriller that deserved to be a much bigger hit in theaters. My bet is that it will gain the same respect that Mann's films did in the years ahead. It steals an A+. Don't miss it.

In 1984, one of the dumbest sequels ever made was unleashed donning a bloody hockey mask, FRIDAY THE 13TH: THE FINAL CHAPTER. Corey Feldman and Crispin Glover are among Jason's targets this time, providing the only distraction from buckets of fake blood and a goofy plot. The film opens with a surprisingly casual bunch of cops and ambulance drivers cleaning up the mess from the last (and by far the best) 3D installment, "Friday the 13th Part 3". Jason's body is loaded into an ambulance and whisked off to the morgue, where he's very quickly off the stretcher and butchering horny nurses and medical examiners. Why he comes back to life, or even how the hell he got out of the straps on the stretcher in the morgue freezer are never explained. Leave any intelligence at the door when entering. The horrific dialogue is only exceeded by the heinous acting and the complete lack of logic of any of the players. We meet another bunch of horny, especially foul mouthed characters on the way to the area around Camp Crystal Lake, even though the blood isn't even dried from the last batch. Crispin Glover (Back to the Future) brings his usual off-the-wall delivery to his role as Jimmy, who's even more worried about getting laid than everyone else in the station wagon. 80's kids will remember Peter Barton from "The Powers of Matthew Star", here he's the victim with the best hair and shortest shorts. The house they are all staying in is right across the driveway from a Mom, daughter and her son Tommy, played by Feldman. Feldman is, by light years, the best actor in the bunch as the annoying 13 year old little brother. His actions and reactions always seem like they are from planet Earth. Which is a vast improvement over the rest of these yahoos. After a girl watches her boyfriend get killed by Jason in the basement, she goes back down into the basement to check it out. Bear in mind the guy yelled "Run Trish run!" a dozen times. Maybe she was stopped in her tracks by the other line he repeats as he's attacked with sharp garden tools. "He's killing me! He's killing me!" Um, yeah, we can see that ya dolt. Some other great dialogue: That horny nurse yelling at the morgue doctor: "Axel, you are the Super Bowl of self-abuse!" Cops at the scene of the mass killing: Vincent: [ looks at Jason's body ] "This the guy that's been leaving the wet stuff?" Officer Jamison: "Yeah. This time he got seven kids and three bikers. This time they got him." Tommy's Mom and sister: Mrs. Jarvis: "Someone left the front door open again." Tommy: "We're in the country." Mrs. Jarvis: "Well, what happens if a psycho wanders in?" Trish: "He'd probably challenge him to a game of Zaxxon." Good lord, who wrote this crap? The ending is a lame allusion to the final moments of Hitchcock's "Psycho". The good? Tom Savini's 80's make up is gruesome and bathed in fake 80's blood but pretty fun for this kind of classic slasher era flick and Harry Manfredini's music score is fun and exactly like you remember...."chh chhh chhh..ahh ahh ahh....." The title is a lie. This is, of course, NOT the Final Chapter. After it grossed $33 million on a $2.6M budget for Paramount, we all knew Jason was coming back. It was followed the next year by "Friday the 13th: A New Beginning". As for chapter four, it's NEVER scary, ALWAYS stupid and REALLY horny, stabbing and hacking it's way to a dismal D-. Enjoy the original trailer with that fantastic deep voiced narrator that ruled trailers when we all grew up!