Category: movies

Rebel Ridge (2024)

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Intense.

I recommend this movie. Rotten Tomatoes 96%.

PLENTY of action. But a surprisingly nuanced plot.

Aaron Pierre is a star.

He reminds me, in this film, of Jack Reacher. The man does not like guns.

Rebel Ridge is a 2024 American crime action thriller ….

The film stars Aaron Pierre as Terry Richmond, a former Marine who has the funds needed to post bail for his cousin, unjustly seized via civil forfeiture by a small town’s corrupt police force. …

Don Johnson as Chief Sandy Burnne is a bad guy. But not the worst cop of the bunch.

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Will and Harper

On By Rick McIn anti-smoking, education, ethics, GOP USA, government, happiness, human rights, movies, things getting worseLeave a comment

An important film.

Unscripted road trip.

Touching.

It’s about friendship. Life. … Aging.

Acceptance about who you are. And being tolerant of others to be who they want to be.

I was quite charmed by the warm welcome Harper got dropping into a random Oklahoma biker bar. (You can still smoke in Oklahoma bars?)

Face to face, people are most often welcoming and open minded. Even rednecks in country bars.

Since 2020, right wing politicians have been attacking the rights of transgender people — simply as a way to motivate their most deplorable voters. Very few of those haters have ever once had an encounter with a trans person.

Considered and attempted suicide rate of transgender people in the United States

from 2000 to 2022, with a forecast from 2023 to 2030

Right wing politicians and influencers like Musk and J. K. Rowling are partially responsible for those suicides.

I admire Will Ferrell trying to bring trans folks some hope with this movie.

I’d to do the same if any of my friends announced they were transitioning.

It’s a complicated process. And different for every single person.

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I found the ending of this movie just perfect.

Challengers – 2024 Tennis Movie

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I can’t recommend this film to everyone — but it is certainly brave and original in many ways. NOT your typical Hollywood sports movie.

Film students will study it.

So. Much. Slow motion.

Some will love it. Some hate it.

Andrea Petkovic played on the tennis tour for 16 years … and still felt they got the tennis vibe surprisingly right.

The film’s original score was composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. A remixed version was released in collaboration with Boys Noize. It’s very different than other movie background tracks. More YouTube than Hollywood.

Challengers is a 2024 American romantic sports comedy-drama film …

It follows the love triangle between an injured tennis star-turned-coach (Zendaya), her low-circuit tennis player ex-boyfriend (Josh O’Connor), and her tennis champion husband (Mike Faist) across 13 years of their shared relationship, culminating in the latter two’s match at the ATP Challenger Tour.

Zendaya, O’Connor, and Faist trained for months with former tennis player and coach Brad Gilbert to prepare for their roles. …

The film received positive reviews from critics and grossed $94.2 million worldwide. …

Zendaya’s best friend and personal assistant Darnell Appling portrayed the umpire at the New Rochelle Final. He’s got the look.

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Arthur the King (2024) 

On By Rick McIn books, movies, sport - amateurLeave a comment

Another sentimental, feel-good dog movie. Yet I liked it.

Arthur the King is based on a true event Arthur – The Dog Who Crossed the Jungle to Find a Home by Mikael Lindnord.

In the film, the captain of an adventure racing team befriends a wounded stray dog named Arthur, who accompanies the team on a grueling 435-mile (700-km) endurance race through the Dominican Republic.

The actual suffering of a real Adventure Race World Championship is not shown in a Hollywood movie, of course. But there are bits of reality in the film.

Note ➙ Adventure Racing World Championships 2025 will be hosted 22 SEP – 6 OCT out of Penticton, B.C.

Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.

My Spy – 2020 film

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I mostly liked the sequel, My Spy The Eternal City — so went back to watch the original.

Another lightweight silly comedy.

My Spy is a 2020 American action comedy film …

It follows a CIA agent who finds himself at the mercy of a precocious nine-year-old girl in a family that he and his tech support are surveilling while undercover. …

Dave Bautista is great for comedy.

But the secret of this comedy is Chloe Coleman as Sophie, a nine-year-old elementary school girl who blackmails J.J. into training her to be a spy.

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Eruption by Michael Crichton & James Patterson

On By Rick McIn books, moviesLeave a comment

A missed opportunity.

It’s obvious that a Volcano story would fit well into the Michael Crichton collection.

And it will make a great Hollywood blockbuster. Sony won the bidding war and, enlisting ‘Free Solo’ creators Jimmy Chin & Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi to direct.

Skip the book, watch the eventual movie.

Eruption is a 2024 novel by Michael Crichton and James Patterson, based on an unfinished manuscript by Crichton at the time of his death.

It is Crichton’s 29th novel, … and the fourth of his novels published posthumously.

A thriller about an eruption of Mauna Loa on the Island of Hawaii, the novel was unfinished at the time of Crichton’s death in 2008, but was completed years later by Patterson, at the behest of Crichton’s widow Sherri.

I wanted more scientific detail, like in other Crichton’s books — and less argument / conflict between the team members assembled to save the world.

This one is more James Patterson’s short chapters and fast pace. At times I lost track of the plan on exactly how the day was to be saved.

Great Movie ➙ Bridge of Spies (2015)

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Somehow I missed this film when it first came out.

Bridge of Spies is a 2015 American historical drama film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg, written by Matt Charman and the Coen brothers, and starring Tom Hanks …

Set during the Cold War, the film tells the story of lawyer James B. Donovan, who is entrusted with negotiating the release of Francis Gary Powers—a convicted Central Intelligence Agency pilot whose U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union in 1960—in exchange for Rudolf Abel, a convicted Soviet KGB spy held by the United States …

… received six Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, and won Best Supporting Actor for Rylance.

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My Spy The Eternal City

On By Rick McIn movies1 Comment

A silly comedy. I enjoyed all the oddball characters in the cast.

Critics hated it.

This is a sequel. I missed the original.

JJ is persuaded to accompany his daughter Sophie on her school trip to Italy, where they become involved in a terrorist plot.

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The Great Wall (2016 film)

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Matt Damon, Jing Tian, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe … this movie should be good.

But it received mixed-to-negative reviews from critics, and was considered a box-office bomb for losing up to $75 million.

A bad plot. But super interesting special effects on the Great Wall of China.

During the reign of Renzong Emperor, a group of European mercenaries travels to China, searching for gunpowder. A few miles north of the Great Wall, they are attacked by a monster.

Only Irishman William Garin and Spaniard Pero Tovar survive.

They sever the monster’s arm and bring it with them. Upon reaching the Wall, they are taken prisoner by the Nameless Order, led by General Shao and Strategist Wang.

The Nameless Order exists to combat Tao Tie, alien monsters that arrived from a meteorite and attack once every sixty years.

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The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

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A silly lark of an action film.

Director Guy Ritchie is super talented. He should make a serious film.

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare is a 2024 spy action comedy film directed, co-written and co-produced by Guy Ritchie, and starring Henry Cavill, Eiza González, Alan Ritchson, Henry Golding and Alex Pettyfer.

Based on the 2014 book Churchill’s Secret Warriors: The Explosive True Story of the Special Forces Desperadoes of WWII by Damien Lewis, the film portrays a heavily fictionalised version of Operation Postmaster. …

Ian Fleming … would use Operation Postmaster as the inspirational basis for his James Bond novels.

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