When a great Television icon like Mary Tyler Moore dies, we are all immediately reminded of the work they have left behind. Without any doubt, the Mary Tyler Moore show, most especially during the last 5 years of its seven-year run from 1970-1977, will be known as the greatest situation comedy of all time. The unique and once in a lifetime collaboration of great actors like Edward Asner, Ted Knight, Betty White, Gavin McCloud, Cloris Leachman and Valerie Harper will most likely never been seen again. Then add the great writers, like David Lloyd, James L. Brooks, Ed Weinberger and Stan Daniels who wrote such great and funny episodes and you have the ingredients of the best comedy show ever produced. I will never forget the day in March 1977 when this great show went off the air, it was a very depressing and I thought it ended way too soon. I am always reminded of the value of a great comedy show like the Mary Tyler Moore show when a tragedy like Mary’s passing today on January 25, 2017 happens. A great comedy show can lift your spirits temporarily for 30 minutes, and when your life is in a depressing and dark place like mine was in the 1970’s these 30 minutes can mean everything to you. To this day I can remember almost every funny line from all the episodes of this TV show. The great timing and rhythm that this unique comedy had set it apart from all others. The Mary Tyler Moore Show is a standard of comedic perfection that can never be surpassed.

Mary Tyler Moore tried again with other TV shows after this show ended, but she was never able to set herself apart from her Mary Richard’s character. Years later she did go on to win a Tony Award on Broadway for “Whose Life is it Anyway” and was nominated for an Academy Award for “Ordinary People”, that was released in 1980, won for best picture that year and is one of the best movies I have ever seen.

What is most extraordinary about “Ordinary People” is that every one of the actors that appeared in this movie was not only outstanding and at the very peak of their movie careers, but none of them ever got even close to getting a role that good again. This is most disappointing for Mary Tyler Moore, who was so good in this role as the mother of a suicidal son. She proved to everyone in Ordinary People that she was not only a great comedic actor but a great dramatic actor as well.

Mary’s passing today will be hard for everyone who loved the Mary Tyler Moore show to rationalize, but at least Mary is finally past her many years of suffering with Type 1 Diabetes. Mary also had a good deal of tragedy in her life, that included the accidental death of her only son by gunshot in 1980.

I will never forget Mary Tyler Moore, her great show and the 30 minutes of escape it gave me so many times during some very dark days in the 1970’s.

I agree with most of the nominations below however, Tom Hanks should have been nominated for best actor for “Scully”, Amy Adams should have been nominated for best Actress for “Arrival” and Jessica Chastain was a major omission for best actress for “Miss Sloane”. Taraji P. Henson was essentially the lead actress and is equally as deserving for a nomination as Octavia Spenser for Hidden figures and also did not get a nomination. Perhaps the solution for these obvious omissions is to increase the number of nominations like they have done for movies.

On top of this Viola Davis in Fences is not a supporting actress, her time on screen warrants a Best Actress nomination and this is also true with Dev Patel, who is in almost every scene. I would like to learn the logic of how the Academy decides these categories which very often it makes no sense. The worst example of this was Timothy Hutton in “Ordinary People” in 1980 who was the lead actor, was in every scene, but was nominated for best-supporting actor and did win the award.

The movie La La Land received 14 nominations, now tied for the most in Oscar History. La La Land is very good, but both Manchester by the Sea and Fences are better movies overall, in my humble opinion. The movie the “Lobster” is nominated for best original screenplay, even though it was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Manchester by the Sea should win in this category, but like the Golden Globes, the odds are that La La Land will win this award as well.

Best picture:
“Arrival”
“Fences”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Hell or High Water”
“Hidden Figures”
“La La Land”
“Lion”
“Manchester by the Sea”
“Moonlight”

Lead actor:
Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”
Andrew Garfield, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Ryan Gosling, “La La Land,”
Viggo Mortensen, “Captain Fantastic”
Denzel Washington, “Fences”

Lead actress:
Isabelle Huppert, “Elle”
Ruth Negga, “Loving”
Natalie Portman, “Jackie”
Emma Stone, “La La Land”
Meryl Streep, “Florence Foster Jenkins”

Supporting actor:
Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”
Jeff Bridges, “Hell or High Water”
Lucas Hedges, “Manchester by the Sea”
Dev Patel, “Lion”
Michael Shannon, “Nocturnal Animals”

Supporting actress:
Viola Davis, “Fences”
Naomie Harris, “Moonlight”
Nicole Kidman, “Lion”
Octavia Spencer, “Hidden Figures”
Michelle Williams, “Manchester by the Sea”

Best director:
Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”
Mel Gibson, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”
Denis Villeneuve, “Arrival”

Animated feature:
“Kubo and the Two Strings”
“Moana”
“My Life as a Zucchini”
“The Red Turtle”
“Zootopia”

Animated short:
“Blind Vaysha”
“Borrowed Time”
“Pear Cider and Cigarettes”
“Pearl”
“Piper”

Adapted screenplay:
“Arrival”
“Fences”
“Hidden Figures”
“Lion”
“Moonlight”

Original screenplay:
“20th Century Women”
“Hell or High Water”
“La La Land”
“The Lobster”
“Manchester by the Sea”

Cinematography:
“Arrival”
“La La Land”
“Lion”
“Moonlight”
“Silence”

Best documentary feature:
“13th”
“Fire at Sea”
“I Am Not Your Negro”
“Life, Animated”
“O.J.: Made in America”

Best documentary short subject:
“4.1 Miles”
“Extremis”
“Joe’s Violin”
“Watani: My Homeland”
“The White Helmets”

Best live-action short film:
“Ennemis Interieurs”
“La Femme et le TGV”
“Silent Nights”
“Sing”
“Timecode”

Best foreign language film:
“A Man Called Ove”
“Land of Mine”
“Tanna”
“The Salesman”
“Toni Erdmann”

Film editing:
“Arrival”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Hell or High Water”
“La La Land”
“Moonlight”

Sound editing:
“Arrival”
“Deep Water Horizon”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“La La Land”
“Sully”

Sound mixing:
“Arrival”
“Hacksaw Ridge”
“La La Land”
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”
“13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi”

Production design:
“Arrival”
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”
“Hail, Caesar!”
“La La Land”
“Passengers”

Original score:
“Jackie”
“La La Land”
“Lion”
“Moonlight”
“Passengers”

Original song:
“Audition (The Fools Who Dream),” “La La Land”
“Can’t Stop the Feeling,” “Trolls”
“City of Stars,” “La La Land”
“The Empty Chair,” “Jim: The James Foley Story”
“How Far I’ll Go,” “Moana”

Visual effects:
“Deepwater Horizon”
“Doctor Strange”
“Jungle Book”
“Kubo and the Two Strings”
“Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”

One of the things you never expect with an action movie, where the entire point of the film is an excuse for explosions, fights and gunplay is for that movie to be extremely boring. You might expect the movie to be stupid, as are all of the XXX movies, or it to have a ridiculous convoluted story that mostly makes no sense, corny over the top dialogue maybe, but never boring. The new movie “XXX The Return of Xander Cage” achieved this one rare feat of being boring and for the entire middle of this film, nothing really happened as it seemed that everybody in the film was sleepwalking through their part. I actually lost interest in the entire story at around the mid-point of this ridiculous movie. As far as the script for this bad film, it is all over the place and mostly makes very little sense. The entire process of getting from the beginning of this very bad film to the end, where there is some action is long and drawn out waste of time. I was looking at my watch the entire two hours hoping and waiting for the whole nightmare to be over.

Vin Diesel returns to the XXX series for the first time since 2002 as does Samuel L. Jackson. In 2005 Ice Cube took over the starring role in the movie “XXX: State of the Union” that was another bad movie and Ice Cube makes an appearance at the end of this film, that all movie goers pray will be the last in this series, but it probably will not be.

Run from this very bad movie that is a total waste of two hours.