The Ravine

Emotional, faith-filled story from Keoni Waxman about forgiveness and redemption. Excellent moving camera and heart-felt performances from the cast.

The Day Shift

“Now hiring: circus performers for vampire comedy.” The contortionist vampires are the most original touch to what is otherwise a conventional and by-the-numbers vampire hunter comedy. Jamie Foxx et al celebrate the well-worn tropes with fun and flair: daylight, fangs, wooden stakes, and killin’. LOTS of killin’. It’s an acceptable airplane movie that won’t really resonate, despite all the cool twists… of the contortionists.

Bullet Train

A lot of this is told in flashback - a chaotic, non-liner timeline like a little kid trying to tell a joke. Assassinations and heists gone wrong which lead-up to this point – a motley crew of quick-witted killers occupying an empty train and fighting over a shiny McGuffin. As a killer trying to rebrand himself as a non-killer, Brad Pitt is always best when he plays a doofus, and he delivers expertly as he brawls with the witty, witty, witty hostiles. Sometimes you wish they would shut up and get to the killin’. At times the physical comedy is hilarious, but it takes a while to get to that. It’s not suspenseful, so it behaves more as an escalating comedy; shallow but fun.

Prey

Surprisingly and refreshingly original take on the old Predator franchise. So, so, so many Native American/indigenous details. Who knows if it’s historically accurate. It feels accurate and authentic, thanks in much part to the performance of the lead Amber Midthunder. Her hatchet throwing, dog training, and general physicality bring a grounded baddassery to the proceedings when the battle with the big-bad begins. And one of the best dog performances in while. (I’m not sure how they did that.) This was a great summer movie. It should have been in theaters.

Lightyear

Whereas other Pixar movies focus on the emotion and relationships in times of crisis, Lightyear is primarily an action movie with some sentiment and poignancy injected in -- sometime sincerely and sometimes cynically. Of course the animation, the voice acting, and the music are all “stellar.” But it’s not a boo-hoo, make-me-cry kind of Pixar movie. Thoroughly entertaining, though, but not super-deep.

Nope

Someone needs to call me and explain this one to me. At its core, it’s a typical UFO yarn - trying to get a glimpse of the alien to find out what they want and maybe get a photo. It’s "Close Encounters." But Jordan Peele et al fill out scenes with so much distracting cuttiness and weirdness, you forget it’s just basically a Twilight Zone episode. Some of the distractions are cool. The horse farm location, for example. But other subplots are *bananas* and left me throwing up my hands in frustration. What. The. Hell? Still, a highly-ambitious story by a filmmaker who takes his sci-fi really seriously, and that’s appreciated. But I’m flummoxed. I’m going to need a power-point.