Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A decent enough movie with two great actors and a useless Casey Affleck.

There are some movies that you just watch and enjoy and take them for what they are and then never really think about again. “The Old Man & the Gun” is such a movie. It is based on the true story of Forrest Tucker (Robert Redford) who was a career criminal and prison escape artist and geriatric bank robber. Mostly, though, it’s a story about getting old and not going gentle into that good night. This is an incredibly appropriate story for Robert Redford given this will also be the last movie he ever acts in.

The heart of the movie is Forrest’s relationship with Jewel (Sissy Spacek). On some level, it is a romantic relationship, but mostly it is just platonic with some great chemistry between the two. The best parts of the movie are just the two of them sitting on the porch of Jewel’s farm contemplating life. These parts contain some good dialogue and let two wonderful actors shine.

Since this is a robber movie, there also has to be a cop. That cop is John Hunt (Casey Affleck). I do not begrudge them having a cop, but 90% of Hunt’s involvement in the movie was just pointless. There is this whole side-plot with him versus the FBI that comes to absolutely nothing. There are all these moments with his family that I guess are meant to humanize Hunt in some way, but there’s not much to Hunt except these moments and the moments where the movie makes clear that he’s hunting Tucker. If it were up to me, there would be less Hunt and more moments with Tucker and his accomplices, Teddy (Danny Glover) and Waller (Tom Waits!) just shooting the shit.

“The Old Man & the Gun” is worth seeing even if it won’t make a lasting impression. It is an enjoyable time and a fitting homage to two great actors, one of whom will never act again. Whenever it pops up on the streaming service of your choice, be sure to give it a watch.

Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A unique retelling of the United States’ attempts to put a man on the moon. Beautiful and awe inspiring.

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the first men to reach past our atmosphere. Their mission: to boldly test the limits of engineering and science and the human body with the goal of being the first people to set foot on the moon.

“First Man” tells the story of the Space Race almost solely from the perspective of Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) and his wife, Janet (Claire Foy). This gives the movie a very personal touch. You get a real feel for what it’s like to be an astronaut and a real feel for what it’s like to be an astronaut’s wife. Neither is easy. The movie starts with the Armstrongs taking care of their young daughter, Karen, who has cancer and ends with Neil walking alone on the moon and leaving a little keepsake for eternity. In between these bookends are all the trials and tribulations that the Armstrong family goes through to get to that first moon landing. Neil is loving, but distant. Claire is strong and loving and the glue that binds the family together.

This is a solidly acted movie all around. Ryan Gosling and Claire Foy acting opposite each other is a delight. It is not easy to stand out in Ryan Gosling’s acting shadow, but Claire Foy shows that her shadow is equally as large and her ability to portray nuanced emotion is a wonder to behold. They are backed up by a solid ensemble of supporting actors including Jason Clarke as Ed White who was about the closest thing to a friend that Neil Armstrong had.

It is a bit strange watching this movie if you know the history. Going to space is a fairly dangerous occupation and this is all in the past. You see the lives of these men who you know are going to die and you know when they’re going to die and you are then at the scene when you know they will die and yet you feel that maybe, just maybe they’ll be able to avert their fate.

The mood of the movie is set wonderfully by the music. Space scenes are an homage to “2001: A Space Odyssey”. And I would never in a million years think that I would utter these words, but the music also makes effective use of a theremin. The theremin brings out this haunting sadness in the music that I would never have imagined possible for such a revolting instrument.

I am guessing that the people who would like this movie fall into two camps: those who like space history and those who like Ryan Gosling. The Venn diagram of those two is probably one giant circle for Ryan Gosling and one tiny circle for space history with the space history circle being almost entirely subsumed by Ryan Gosling’s circle. Which is as it should be. We are all just living in Ryan Gosling’s world.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A passable but lifeless story that, for reasons beyond me, tries to cast Tom Hardy as a loser.

I don’t want to get all Neil deGrasse Tyson on this movie, but it should have lasted only five minutes. Any vehicle that size that loses its heat shielding tiles upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere would burn up into tiny bite-size chunks and no human or alien could survive. This is especially true of aliens whose primary weakness happens to be fire. I’m glad I could get that off my chest.

Well, Marvel had a good run of fun, exciting, and worth watching movies. That streak has ended with “Venom”. This is a shame because giving villains their own backstory and their own motion picture vehicle is a great idea whose time has come. The problem is that Venom’s (Tom Hardy) motivations are minimally defined and kind of stupid and Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is the kind of good person who is really mostly just a dick pretending to be a good person when it suits him. Yes, Eddie Brock is Brett Kavanaugh. He even treats his girlfriend, Anne Weying (Michelle Williams), horribly. Come to think of it, the whole movie is basically about a being who nonconsensually invades people’s bodies and everyone around those people being mostly alright with it or afraid to speak up. Ugh. Did I just make this movie into a euphemism for rape culture? Even all the relationships are horribly dysfunctional! Anne inexplicably keeps Eddie in her life and helps him even though he shamelessly takes advantage of her and cruelly violates her trust. Eddie somehow learns to like having Venom inside him even though Venom is clearly using him. Gah! I have completely ruined this movie for me.

Ok, so, besides the whole “Marvel deciding to make a major motion picture whose lead character is a rapist” thing, there are parts of “Venom” that are fun. I couldn’t for a minute buy the whole Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock as a loser thing, but there was some good banter between Eddie and Venom at times and there are some legitimately funny moments. The action scenes are fun, though I could have done without the exploding on impact drones and the CGI is sometimes a little over used and hard to follow. The movie doesn’t quite know what to do with Michelle Williams, which is a shame because she is great. She should have her own superhero movie.

As I wrote the review, I came to the realization that I should probably have rated the movie two stars instead of three, but my rating is all the way at the top and here I am way down here at the end. The effort of changing it is too much for me. And really, three stars is an accurate assessment of my enjoyment level for the movie before I decided to let my brain take over and ruin my fun. I must now go try to kill it with alcohol. Oh, and you can probably skip “Venom”, though there’s almost certainly going to be a sequel and it’s going to star Woody Harrelson so I’ll probably end up going to see it because Woody Harrelson is delightful!

Jean-Paul’s rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A dramadey that had me smiling from start to finish. Also a crime thriller. Also a satire. What I’m trying to say is there’s a lot going on here.

Emily Nelson (Blake Lively) is the kind of mother that all suburbanite parents hate; beautiful, successful, confident, wonderful husband, self-absorbed, narcissistic. Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is the kind of mother that all suburbanite parents hate; beautiful, over-achieving, aims-to-pleasing, perfect in every way, all while being a single mom. Emily is the spider to Stephanie’s fly and all the suburbanite parents know it so when the two meet, they all know one thing: This is going to be fun. The two quickly strike up a friendship and become besties, but Emily isn’t exactly the type to have a bestie, but she is the type to have a pet. And like a determined pet, when Emily goes missing, Stephanie will stop at nothing to find out what happened to her.

“A Simple Favor” starts as kind of a satire on suburban life. There’s a lot of petty sniping at the very perfect Stephanie and at the very easy to dislike Emily. It then morphs into this weird, uncomfortable drama as the friendship between Stephanie and Emily grows very one-sidedly deeper as Stephanie falls completely in awe, if not in love with Emily. Then it turns into a who-done-it when Emily mysteriously disappears. Throughout the whole thing, the movie has a delightfully wicked sense of humor that ties everything together.

Both Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick are wonderful in this movie. They play almost polar opposite characters but have this perfect chemistry even as opposed characters that I so want to see them in either a buddy comedy or as a superhero duo. Or maybe as the evil and good conscience sitting on the shoulders of Kristen Bell who gets into wacky hijinks.

The movie also stars Henry Golding as Emily’s husband, Sean Townsend. First off, how lucky is Henry? He has gone from relative obscurity to being in two awesome films in a single year, the other being “Crazy Rich Asians”. Second, it didn’t click with me when watching the movie, but the married couple are Emily Nelson and Sean Townsend. They kept their last names! Not only that, but their child is named Nicky Nelson. They used the mom’s last name! Little thing, but still kind of cool.

“A Simple Favor” is fun and well acted and has a few “why in the world did they do that?” moments, which can be forgiven. It is well worth watching and you would be doing yourself a disservice if you do not see it. I had a smile on my face for quite some time after leaving the theater.