The movie Flash of Genius, which came out in 2008 represents some of the best reasons why we go to the movies and in this case the true and amazing story of how two major car companies Chrysler and Ford went out of their way to steal a great invention from a genius inventor is a great story that just had to be told.

Almost nobody has ever heard about Robert Kerns, he is the inventor of many things but most famous for the invention of the intermittent windshield wiper that was filed with the US Patent Office on December 1, 1964. The idea for this invention came to him because he was blind in one eye to to of all things a cork from a wine bottle. He thought while driving that wouldn’t it be great if a windshield wiper worked like the human eyelid. This invention came to him in 1964 and after Ford and Chrysler stole his idea which was patented it took until 1978 and 1982 before the patent infringement cases started in court! The fact that it took this long is both a tribute to his perseverance and the outrageous delays of the court process where a company can file continuances for years to avoid paying the penalty for stealing another persons idea right out from under them. After almost 20 long years of legal battles and delays, Kern’s finally won his lawsuit, eventually getting paid 30 million from Crysler and 10 million from Ford Motor company. Along the way, he alienated all his friends and was divorced from his wife due to the stress and pressure of all those years of fighting this incredible injustice. As far as other people telling a man like this to just “get over it” or “move on”, all I can say is – “walk a mile in my shoes”. I am one person who fully understands what Kern’s went through and also understands how nobody else can really understand what its like to live with injustice at this level for that many years. This movie also shows what companies can do to individuals because they have unlimited funds and they know the ordinary person filing the lawsuit does not.

Due to the many delays for almost half of Kern’s life he had several mental breakdowns, eventually dying of brain cancer which was caused complications with Alzheimer’s.

This movie was well acted by Greg Kinnear who played Robert Kerns and his wife who was played by Lauren Graham

This movie is about a great story from history and should be seen.

This is one of the few movies that I can remember and maybe of all time where there is really only one character for the entire movie. There are some minor peripheral other actors in this film, but for the most part, this movie is about a Shark Attack and survival and the actor for the whole movie is Blake Lively. The last movie I remember that starred only one person was “All Is Lost” with Robert Redford which came out in 2013. That movie was extremely well done and I thought that Redford should have gotten an Oscar nomination for this role but he did not. As far as Shark movies, this film is one of the best I have seen in terms of the realism of a shark attack and the incredible damage they can cause to a human being. I think that this film must have been shot with a real shark and then superimposed with Blake Lively because the realism of the shark attacking​ and killing 3 other people was so believable.

If you are afraid of sharks then this is not the movie for you. For everyone else, I highly recommend​ this film.

The release of “Independence Day Resurgence” is the sequel to the original movie which came out 20 years ago. This is probably the longest period of time between sequels in movie history, especially when you consider how much money the original made in 1996. As I have reviewed in this blog, the original Independence Day was a very good movie with a very stupid and bad ending. This movie had excellent special effects but overall a bad story and an ending that was not as bad as the first but was still a mostly bad ending. The plan to beat the Aliens at the end of this film was extremely convoluted and mostly made no sense. With 20 years to think of ideas for another huge alien movie I definitely expected better than this story and most especially the ending.

Most of the original cast are in this film, the notable exception is Will Smith who dies somehow in the last 20 years but this was never explained. This new version has his son taking over the jet flying and fighting the aliens along with the daughter of the President of the Unites States in the last movie. Judd Hirsh seems to have been placed into this movie after the fact with a crowbar and does not seem to belong in this story at all. Hirsh is on a boat, almost killed, then winds up on a bus and then by some miracle winds up in the Salt Flats at the end of the movie where he reunites​ with his son for the final battle of the movie. He also looks the exact same age he was 20 years ago, which could have been some kind of an oversight with the makeup. The cast overall is effective, but there was way too much build up in this movie before the action or the story really starts. The other stupidity, which also exists in the first movie is allowing the President to join in the Jet fighting and high risk of death dogfights​ with the alien spacecraft. Of course in real life, this would never be allowed, but it is allowed in both of these movies. Overall I was pretty disappointed with the story in this film, but not with the special effects.

Go to this movie to see the special effects and not for the story or satisfying ending.