Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A somewhat faithful retelling of Turner’s Rebellion with some campy Hollywood crap thrown in for kicks.  Pretty good acting, though.

Turner’s Rebellion is a very strange footnote in history to build a narrative reclaiming movie over.  “Narrative” isn’t the right word, but I can’t come up with a word that fits.  For those of you who don’t know, the original “The Birth of a Nation” movie was both groundbreaking movie making and pretty racist in its portrayal of Blacks as lesser human beings and the KKK as righteous protectors.  So when a Black filmmaker/writer/actor creates a movie called “Birth of a Nation”, as Nate Parker has done, there are strong overtones of reclamation of a racist past in the hopes that people will remember the latter instead of the former.  That’s why it’s strange to me to use a story of a religious zealot who led a failed slave revolt that indiscriminately killed slave-holding families and resulted in the brutal subjugation of both slave and freed Black as a vehicle to reclaim that narrative.

Then there’s Nate Parker’s unfortunate history of taking advantage of a drunk and passed out woman as a sophomore in college, of which he was acquitted of rape charges, of which he also shows no remorse even though he admits it was morally wrong, whatever that means.  Though horrible, this wouldn’t be germane to the movie at all if it wasn’t for Parker’s use of two ahistorical rape scenes (one absolutely brutal) to drive Nat Turner’s quest for vengeance.  Using the rape of a woman as a plot device for a man to take revenge is lazy film-making at its worst.  It’s inexcusable in modern film.  Especially for a film which has Oscar buzz.  Doubly especially for a film created by a man who you can’t help but wonder is saying, “What I did isn’t rape, THIS is rape”.

Despite all of its baggage it’s a decent enough movie, though I’m not sure why there were such rave reviews leading up to its release.  There are some brilliant moments, capped in my mind by the hauntingly sad rendition of Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”, and great acting all around.  These pluses kind of get overshadowed by pointless Hollywood moments like “the face-off” and “the betrayal”, of which the former is eye rolling and the latter is ham-handed.  All of this leads me to the conclusion that “Birth of a Nation” will only be remembered for Nate Parker’s unfortunate choices both in life and in story choices and not as a narrative redefining film.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A movie with some charm but pales in comparison to the 1960 version.  A little long but still better than “Seven Samurai” in that it didn’t waste an hour showing a peasant crying in a barn.  “But look at Kurosawa’s masterful use of lighting and shadow”, blah blah blah.

I can really sum up this review by just saying go see the 1960 version of the movie and be done with it.  But that might just be nostalgia talking so a reviewing I shall go.

When looking for when the original movie was released, I discovered that there was also a TV series with the same premise back in 1998-2000.  So yeah, this ground has been covered quite extensively.  And there’s good reason for that.  It’s a compelling story filled with a motley bunch of do-gooders and over the top bad guys and underdogs who persevere despite adversity.  Really, though, it’s the motley bunch of do-gooders that we’re here to see.  2016 doesn’t disappoint in that respect.  The cast of misfits, led by Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt, are entertaining if a little flat around the edges.  The villain, played by Peter Sarsgaard, is sufficiently over the top without being cartoonish.

The biggest issue with this movie, and maybe the original suffered from it as well but I do not recall, is one of motivation.  Why are these seven people helping these poor villagers in what is almost certainly a suicide mission?  The only two that really make solid sense are Chisolm’s (Denzel Washington), pride and revenge, and Jack Horn’s (Vincent D’Onofrio), piety and righteousness.  Jack Horn is probably the best character in the film and despite little face time, he manages to tell a complete story.  The rest vary from “to get my horse back” to “I am a Comanche” to “I’m with him”.  More depth here would have been much appreciated and it is the one thing I appreciated about Kurosawa’s original.

My one other major complaint is how lazy the action was.  The final fight was kind of an underpants gnome version of a plan.  We’ll put almost everyone out in front of the town and somehow this will lead the bandits into the middle of town where we can pick them off.  This abhorrent plan could be forgivable if it led to some cool, if useless, action sequences, but there was not much to really see.

Like I said at the beginning, just go see the 1960 version if you’ve never seen it.  Barring that, just wait for this movie to appear on your favorite streaming service.  It’s not a bad movie, but it’s been done before and better and you have better things to do with your life.

Oh, and funny story.  For the longest time I thought Jack Horne was played by the guy that played Hodor on “Game of Thrones”.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A story that everyone should hear.  Suffers slightly from poor direction.

Everyone likely remembers the events of January 15th, 2009 when US Airways Flight 1549 emergency landed onto the Hudson River with 155 souls on board and all lived to tell the tale.  It was an amazing feat in so many different ways.  You have Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger (Tom Hanks) and First Officer Jeff Skiles (Aaron Eckhart) deftly water landing a plane with no working engines.  You have the ferry pilots who raced to the scene to rescue the survivors.  You have the scuba teams.  You have the fire fighters.  You have the police.  You have the Red Cross.  All these disparate groups came together and worked tirelessly to save the stranded passengers and crew.  Very few cities in the world can pull off what New York did that day.  The people on that flight owe their lives to a combination of excellent infrastructure and even better first responders.

The world needs a hero, though, and that hero is Sully.  His name and likeness were plastered on every news show and late show for weeks.  His life is not at all atypical of most airline pilots.  Flew when he was young.  Flew during the war.  Made a career as an airline pilot.  His is a simple story of lifetime commitment and practice and nerves of steel under extraordinary circumstances.  Heroes don’t fall apart until after the crisis has passed.

If there is a bad guy in this film, it’s the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), US Airways, and Airbus who try to pin the water landing on human error.  US Airways and Airbus make sense.  They have a lot riding on proving that there’s nothing wrong with their craft.  The NTSB, however, doesn’t make much sense.  It makes me wonder if there were liberties taken in the portrayal of this governmental entity or if they really do take that much guidance from the airlines and manufacturers.

The only real issue with the film is one of flow.  Sully’s younger years are thrown in as kind of an afterthought and they don’t really add to the movie except to show that he’s been flying planes for a really long time.  They show the landing multiple times to little effect.  Then there’s the weird plan crash dream that gets repeated too.  They’re all odd choices.

Despite the flow issues, this is still a movie that is well worth watching if you don’t know the whole story of the Miracle on the Hudson and its aftermath.  It’s got Tom Hanks in it so you at least know you’re going to be treated to good acting.  As a plus, Aaron Eckhart kind of steals the show in the scenes he’s in and he seems to work well with Tom Hanks.  I’d like to see the two of them do another movie together.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: Two buddy movies in one.  Great dialogue.  Banks suck.

“Hell or High Water” is a buddy movie.  In fact, it’s two buddy movies.  You have the two brothers who are bank robbers and you have the two Texas Rangers hot on the robbers’ trail.  All of this is set in the backdrop of rural Texas where foreclosures are rampant and banks prey upon the elderly in schemes to get their land.  Really, this film could have been shot in any rural community in any state, but Texas has one thing going for it that make it the correct choice; it contains Texans.

The bank robber brothers are Tanner (Ben Foster) and Toby (Chris Pine) Howard.  Tanner is a career criminal and Toby is of the quietly desperate persuasion who turns to crime to pay for his recently dead mother’s land before the bank forecloses on it and the oil it hides, but also so he can provide a sense of safety and security for his two estranged children by giving them the deed to said oil.  Yes, they rob banks, but much of the film actually takes place in cars or in diners or on their mother’s land as the two brothers talk through life.

The Texas Rangers are Marcus Hamilton (Jeff Bridges) and Alberto Parker (Gil Birmingham).  Hamilton is near retirement and Parker is his long suffering partner.  They pursue the Howards with a sort of quiet determination.  This is what real police work looks like.  They go from bank to bank looking for clues and patterns and then just sit in restaurants and hotel rooms waiting for the robbers’ next move, eventually trying to be a step ahead before that move occurs.

This movie is what I call a talkie.  Yes, banks get robbed, cars are chased, and violence ensues, but those are just tiny pieces in a story that is only marginally about crime and law and order.  Instead it’s about relationships and trust and loyalty.  Both the cops and the robbers in this film exhibit all of those characteristics and the line between them is only what life has dropped on each.  All of this plays out with some terrific dialogue.  A talkie.  One well worth your attention.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 4/5 stars

Bottom Line: A true story about two schmucks who look at a website to make money from the government.  It’s a lot better than that sounds.  Boy, the Department of Defense is messed up.

Imagine if there were a website where anybody could bid on landing government contracts where you could supply weapons to our armed forces.  Well, there is!  And that’s the basic premise for “War Dogs”.  Efraim Diveroli (Jonah Hill) has a small time company that takes small bids from said website which the big companies won’t bother with and fulfills the arms orders.  As he grows and makes a name for himself, he convinces his friend, David Packouz (Miles Teller) to join him.  Things do not progress smoothly.

The timing of the release of “War Dogs” couldn’t have been better what with the announcement that the U.S. Army can’t account for $6.5 trillion dollars.  The procurement process for the Department of Defense is broken beyond repair.  While the problems between the audit and the events in “War Dogs” are unrelated, together they show the amount of dysfunction in the department that spends over half of our government’s discretionary spending.  And before you get worried, no there is not $6.5 trillion dollars missing.  That would mean every dollar since 1993 the Department of Defense spend is missing.  This is more of an issue with bad paperwork and multiple accounting systems across disciplines causing items to be accounted for multiple times.  Still, it’s no way to run a department.  But I digress.

“War Dogs” is a well put together movie.  It takes an incredibly complicated real-life story and streamlines it so that it is easy to follow while still telling a solid story.  It also helps that Jonah Hill plays a really convincing asshole.  The second act of the movie slows down some near the end which kind of messes with the wonderfully established flow of the movie, but it picks up again in the final act.

As with all “based on a true story” movies, it would be nice to know what was real and what was manufactured and there are a few moments in this movie where things set up a little too perfectly and you wonder if it was done that perfectly for the film’s sake or if, of all the crazy things these two knuckleheads did, these select scenes happened that perfectly in real life.  Regardless, what we have here is a movie that is well worth your time and money, if only to get a glimpse into the shadier side of what is done in our name during war time.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A fair to middling children’s movie.  Cute in all the ways it needs to be.  Karl Urban will always be Dr. McCoy.

I don’t remember much from the original “Pete’s Dragon” cartoon from the 60s, but I know this remake has almost nothing in common with it except there is a kid named Pete (Oakes Fegley) and that there is also a Dragon named Elliot.  This 2016 version is decent enough in an “everyone learns their lesson way too easily” sort of way, but it’s not a good sign when the height of drama happens in the first five minutes of the movie where Pete is left orphaned in the middle of the woods after a car crash that takes both of his parents.  Pretty grim stuff by Disney standards, but it’s handled admirably.

Bryce Dallas Howard is Grace, a motherly type forest ranger who, along with her daughter, Natalie (Oona Laurence), finds Pete in the forest and helps to reacclimate him to civilization.  I remember thinking when seeing she was in the movie, “Oh, Bryce Dallas Howard is in this film I like her.  What do I like her in?” Turns out that the answer to that is nothing.  I like her in nothing.  Well, no, I like her in stuff, but “Pete’s Dragon” may be the best movie she’s ever been in, which isn’t saying much.  I liked her in this too and I am happy to report that she did not run through the forest in high heels. *cough* “Jurassic World” *cough*

I feel bad for Karl Urban.  He’s a decent actor.  He’s also indelibly imprinted into my brain as Dr. McCoy from the new Star Trek franchise.  In “Pete’s Dragon”, he plays Galvin, a self-absorbed lumberjack who is constantly pushing boundaries for no reason whatsoever and who is as close to an antagonist as the film comes to.  The problem is every time there is a close-up of him, I expect a Bones witticism to escape his mouth.  Maybe he lacks facial depth which is why he was so good in the “Dredd” movie where he was kept in a helmet the entire time.

Robert Redford plays Meecham, Grace’s dad and the only adult to believe that dragons are real.  Hint: they are.  He belts out his lines in a very Robert Redford-y way.  It’s hard not to like him even if this wasn’t exactly the most challenging of roles for him to play.

Then there’s Elliot the Dragon, played by about a million animators and artists who obviously spent most of their time watching puppy videos on YouTube.  Elliot behaves in almost every way like a dog would except in those moments when they needed her/him to behave elsewise.  This makes him an enjoyable, if hollow character.  I guess there are also humans who only seldom (seldomly is a useless variant word even though it would sound much better here) show intelligence, but we don’t make movies about them, now do we?  Also, would a dragon who breathes fire really be covered in fur?  Intelligent design, my ass.

“Pete’s Dragon” is a cute movie for the kiddies and a good movie for adults to share with their kids.  Beyond that, it’s decent enough of a film if you’re into those feel good movies without much of a point.  Despite it also being released in 3D (which I didn’t see it in), there’s not much need to see it on the big screen, though some of the forest scenes are pretty majestic.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: Fun and funny.  A little short on plot.  A better villain would have been nice.

My childhood has been ruined by the remaking of a beloved classic only with an all female cast.  Oh, the horrors!  Ok, not really, but that was actually a thing that happened to Trump supporters, er, I mean misogynists around the world.  Holy crap, what is wrong with people?

First off, this movie is legit funny.  There are all sorts of different kinds of comedy to be found throughout.  Slapstick, black, deadpan, juvenile, you name it.  Besides a large comedic lull filled with a boring ghostbusting action sequence, I found myself both laughing and smiling throughout.  I’ve never seen a movie where various parts of the audience laughed at different things like they did in this one.  It’s a strange experience, but hearing someone guffawing at something I only cracked a smile at actually made for a better movie viewing experience.

When you’re rebooting a sequel, you have to walk a fine line between keeping yourself the same as the source material and making the material your own.  This reboot does a great job of walking that line.  First off, the cast is terrific.  They all mesh well and have believable relationships.  Erin Gilbert (Kristin Wiig) and Abby Yates (Melissa McCarthy) are estranged friends thrown back together by the appearance of the ghosts.  Jillian Holtzman (Kate McKinnon) is Abby’s science nerd sidekick.  Patty Tolan (Leslie Jones) is the street smart know it all.  The show stealers are Kate McKinnon  and Chris Hemsworth as Kevin the extra stupid secretary.  I could spend all day watching Holtzman outtakes.  The movie is also full of wonderful secondary characters played by Zach Wood and Ed Beagley Jr. and Karan Soni, just to name a few.  The reboot movie also pays homage to the original movie like crazy.  Almost everyone from the original cast has a bit part walk on.  They tribute most of the iconic symbols throughout.

My biggest complaint by far is the completely one dimensional villain.  Rowan North’s (Neil Casey) only defining characteristic is picked on dork out for revenge.  Kind of lame.  It would have been comedy gold if they had made him a Men’s Rights Activist (MRA).  Make his whole raison d’etre trying to get back at women for the perceived slights done to him over the years.  Read an MRA site if you dare.  The material is endless.  Then a band of all female Ghostbusters shows up to defeat him.  In fact, someone should dub over Neil Casey’s voice with a litany of MRA complaints.  Maybe for the sequel.

Because of the various types of humor and the diverse audience reactions to said humor, I’d definitely recommend seeing “Ghostbusters” in the theater if you can.  If not, it’s still a very fun comedy worth your time to watch.  I’m a little worried that the humor might not hold up very well upon a second showing, but I’m looking forward to when it shows up on whatever streaming service hooks its tendrils into it.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 2/5 stars

Bottom Line: Horrible plot.  Lazy story.  Some good action.

Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) is retired from retiring from retiring from retiring from trying to find out the truth about Operation Treadstone.  He spends his days looking disgruntled and knocking out menacing looking brutes in one punch in back-desert prize fighting matches.  Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) is working for a brilliant hacker who wants to use information he finds to bring down The Man.  She spends her days breaking into hacking collectives and using their resources to hack into CIA databases gaining access to more than enough information to bring down The Man and inexplicably relocating Jason Bourne because she found an extra tidbit on Treadstone that he might be interested.  We’ll ignore the fast that she could just have gotten this information to Bourne by releasing it into the wild and accomplishing what she set out to do in the first place because otherwise we wouldn’t have a movie.

Maybe we shouldn’t have a movie, though.  I mean, if you’re going to make a spy thriller, can you at least make your super spies act even remotely competent at their job?  In a world where you know facial recognition is everywhere, can you at least make an attempt to blend in, Nicky?  Maybe a baseball cap?  Or at least dress like you didn’t just come off of a runway in Paris?  I know this is all Hollywood objectification of women BS.  If you’re going to be a woman, you have to look good and stand out even if you should be going for the exact opposite.

Then there’s The Asset (Vincent Cassel), a man who has such an axe to grind with Bourne that he should never be put on the mission to eliminate Bourne to begin with.  You see, Bourne released sensitive data that compromised CIA programs and led to The Asset’s capture.  He cannot forgive Bourne for putting CIA personnel at risk.  So of course he starts racking up a CIA body count larger than anything Bourne ever did just so that he could get to Bourne and kill him.  Makes perfect sense.  And don’t even get me started on CIA Director Robert Dewey (played skeletally by Tommy Lee Jones).

The only redeeming thing about this movie is some of the action sequences are pretty cool.  That is not nearly enough to recommend spending time nor treasure on this movie.  Hopefully, Jason Bourne forgets about Treadstone for good from this point on.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: An enjoyable action movie that throws physics straight out the window.  Karl Urban is a better McCoy than DeForest Kelley ever was.

“Star Trek” has largely been a cerebral franchise.  It embraces science even if it has to make the science up in order to do so (see inertial dampers).  Sure, wars and fights occur, but the focus has been more towards the “meet new civilizations” aspect than the blow the crap out of everything aspect that most action movies boil down to.  With the reboot, “Star Trek” began its slow embrasure of the latter at the unfortunate expense of the former.  Now, with “Star Trek: Beyond” and Justin Lin in the director’s seat, we’re at the point of full on action movie.  The Star Trek geek in me weeps a little.  But, whatever, I know what I’m getting into, let’s review an action movie!

No, wait, the physics.  Can we talk about the physics for a minute?  I can ignore the holographic projections that are somehow smart enough to interact with the rough natural environment so perfectly that they can fool seasoned warriors (a new technology, by the way, that seems to be in the sole possession of one woman abandoned on a planet).  I can even ignore the action movie trope of a vehicle falling off the cliff and the person jumping and catching onto the cliff edge as it falls.  What I can’t ignore is the saucer section of the Enterprise crashing through mountains and remaining mostly intact.  What I can’t ignore is the same saucer section, now on the ground, also being used in a chase scene where the whole thing flips over and the villain gets crushed by it while the heroes somehow manage to clear the area and not even in one of those cool “the villain gets crushed by the very edge as the heroes slightly outrun them” ways.  What I can’t ignore is taking another, much older, ship and crashing it through even more mountains.

The movie also criminally under-utilizes the star villain.  I won’t say who it is because it’s kind of a reveal, but I’ll give you a hint: He’s black.  A movie where a black man is the villain?  Shock of all shocks! #blackrolesmatter

All that said, “Star Trek: Beyond” is a fun action movie.  It moves at a brisk pace so that the plot doesn’t really matter, which is good because it’s kind of weak and produces more questions than it answers.  And sure, there’s a bunch of technology created for the sole purpose of making a cool action scene, but those scenes actually work.  I sincerely hope that the movie franchise veers back to its more cerebral roots, but in the meantime I’m just going to enjoy the ride.

Oh, and Karl Urban! I want to see an entire movie of his Dr. McCoy riffing off of both Kirk and Spock.  I know it’s hard to say that someone does a character better than the original since Urban is basically out-DeForest Kelleying DeForest Kelley, but man does he nail the role.

Jean-Paul’s Rating: 3/5 stars

Bottom Line: A mildly entertaining kids movie.  Not much for adults.  Visually gorgeous.

Pets have secrets.  The minute you leave them alone, they throw wild parties and visit other pets and talk and behave all around like teenagers.  Well, at least for the first fifteen minutes of the movie they do.  Then they mostly do all the same stuff right out in the open for all humans to see.  So really the movie should have been called “The Not So Secret Lives of Pets”.  The “Secret Lives” parts of the movie are clever and fun, but there’s only so much you can do with it while also trying to tell a story and advance a plot.  Except if you’re Pixar.  In fact, upon seeing the previews for “The Secret Life of Pets”, I started calling it “Toy Story 4” because of the similarities, but the truth is this movie is lazier than the worst Pixar film (“Cars”?).

The basic premise of the plot is that Max (Louie C.K.) has a loving owner who one day brings home another dog, Duke (Eric Stonestreet).  Max doesn’t like Duke and tries to get rid of him.  Duke returns the favor.  They find themselves alone on the streets.  If you had to guess what would happen to two pet dogs that find themselves in this situation, what do you think would happens next?  If you said, “They get caught by the dog catcher”, you win a prize!  Like I said, lazy.  The rest of the movie is them trying to get back home.  There’s enough to be entertaining, but nothing particularly worth recommending.

And now a brief word on stereotypes in Hollywood.  While the cast for this movie is slightly more diverse than a Republican’s list of summer interns, it still lacks diversity.  Where it does have diversity is in the form of the main villain, a psychopathic bunny named Snowball played by Kevin Hart who, you may know, is black.  So the one main role that goes to a black man happens to be the villain.  Wonderful.

If you want to see a good animated movie that’s out now, go see “Finding Dory“.  If you’ve already seen that, “The Secret Life of Pets” pales in comparison, but is still not bad, especially if you have children.  There’s plenty of cuteness, a tad of cleverness, and lots of beautiful.