One day there will be a study from some college or psychologist who will try to figure out why people like Vampires so much. Could it be the eternal life thing or the weird ways you can kill a Vampire or their thirst for blood? I have never been a fan of Vampire or Zombie movies, and as far as films like this latest Underworld, this is just the latest in a long list of films in this franchise starring Kate Beckinsale. As long as these movies keep making money there will be more of them and probably most of the reason for their popularity is because of Beckinsale and her attractiveness on screen. But as far as the overall quality of these films, there is not much to speak of.

For this latest installment, “Underworld: Blood Wars”, there are long scenes of set-up for a payoff in a later scene that involves huge battles between different factions of Vampires or Vampires vs Ware Wolves. In my opinion, the set-ups for these war scenes took too long and made the movie more boring than it should have been. The special effects are nothing more than what we have seen before in the previous movies in this franchise, so there is really no reason to see this movie because if you have seen any of the other movies, then you have really seen this film already. It is all the same thing, repeated over and over again, therefore I do not recommend this movie.

“The Devil Wears Prada” came out in 2006 and is great film for a number of important reasons. The acting was very good, starring Merrill Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. But for me, this movie was so great because it tapped into the stress and anger so many of us have to deal with every day when we work for other people. The Devil in this movie is played perfectly by Merrill Streep and during the entire story, she reminds all of us of one of my favorite quotes: “Power Corrupts Absolutely”. Merrill plays a famous fashion executive Miranda Priestly, loosely based on an actual fashion executive, Anna Wintour and in scene after scene, she is incredibly rude, condescending, short tempered, vicious, and abusive to everybody, especially her new employee played by Hathaway. Some scenes in this movie are difficult to watch, especially for those of us who have had to put up with abuse at work, to make a living. We all know that Priestley is so abusive to people because she can be, she answers to no one, and she has no sense of human compassion for other people.

I asked myself many times during while watching this film, why does poor Andy, played by Anne Hathway, have to put up with so much abuse by her boss, played by Merrill Streep and even her co-worker, played by Emily Blunt? Well, because if she doesn’t, she loses her job, potentially damages her career, loses money and it could take her a long time to get another job, if she can at all. So she contains her anger every day, doesn’t complain, or report this constant abuse and rudeness to the company or Human Resources. Stress builds and in some cases can even damage your health after months or years of abuse. There are many bosses in companies in this world who are decent, treat people with respect and remember what it was like when they had the job that their employee now has, but unfortunately, this seems to be too few and far between.

I really liked the messages at the end of this movie, where integrity wins out over screwing over someone else. Rising above it all, realizing that you have to like yourself as a human being first, before doing things that are beneath who you are to get ahead. We all like to believe that we could be Anne Hathaway at the end of this movie, but how many of us really could be, considering the payoff you would leave behind?

It is hard to believe that this movie came out over 10 years ago, and because of the work-realism, very relatable story and messages about making a living, I highly recommend The Devil Wears Prada.

The movie “Hidden Figures” is one of those rare great films where you have so many conflicting emotions while seeing it. In my case, the emotions included respect for how brilliant these 3 black women from the south were in the early 60’s. So brilliant that they were able to break into a field completely dominated by white men, which means that they had to be far smarter than anyone who had the job they got at NASA. I was amazed that all 3 of these women were able to get anywhere near the education they would need to get the jobs that they had, considering the prejudice and injustice they had to overcome during their lives just because they were black women. The other emotion I felt was anger over the disrespect these 3 women received because of who they were, even being forced within an institution as respected as NASA to use what they called “colored bathrooms”. Despite all of this, especially in the case of Katherine Johnson, they were able because of their mathematical brilliance to put many of their white male co-workers to shame and in several instances, save the Space Program and some lives along the way.

The movie Hidden Figures is about 3 women who worked at NASA during the early years of the Space Program, even before IBM Mainframe computers were used to perform all of the massive calculations necessary to get a rocket into space and return a space capsule flown by a man back to earth. These women were Katherine Johnson, played by Taraji P. Henson, Dorothy Vaughn played by Octavia Spencer and Mary Jackson played by Janelle Monáe. Of these 3 women, Katherine Johnson had the largest part of this great historical story, mainly because her work was the most instrumental in getting the United States into space to compete with the Russians, but more importantly due to her incredible genius at calculating orbits and complex mathematical equations, actually saved lives. From Katherine’s first day of being transferred to the part of NASA that was focused on planning and calculating the orbits of spacecraft, she was discriminated and disrespected by everyone she worked with, for being the only black person and the only black woman in her group. This included having to run over one half mile to a different building to use the “colored women’s bathroom”, which sets up what was in my opinion the best scene of this movie when her boss, played by Kevin Costner, questions where she is for 40 minutes at a time during a workday. Kevin Costner is also outstanding in his role, one of the best he has had in many years.

The other two women were also very impressive. Mary Jackson became the first woman engineer at NASA and Dorothy Vaughn became the first African-American supervisor at NASA and taught herself coding to eventually become an expert FORTRAN programmer. Both of these women also had to overcome long odds and long hours to gain any traction in their career, as the corporate world at NASA would “change the finish line”, whenever any of them had an opportunity to get promoted or even get a small raise.

What got me the most about this extremely impressive story was the realization that when so many people are oppressed by bigotry or sexism, so much potential and contribution from so many gifted people are lost for all humanity. How many geniuses do we lose to bigotry, money or circumstance or just being born in the wrong place or time, or to the wrong parents, never to realize their full potential to perhaps one day cure a major disease, or invent something invaluable to the human race? How many brilliant women never go into math or science for the simple excuse that they believe that this is a man’s job. When we realize that a brain is a brain then we recognize that a person’s sex or race have nothing to do with their intelligence or creativity. Unfortunately, humanity has lost so much due to so many years of injustice and stupidity making the fluke miracle of these 3 women, that nobody has ever heard of before all the more amazing. Why these 3 pioneers have not been honored by the President long before they have been or more widely known in this country, over 50 years after they accomplished so much for the US Space Program is another reason why I got so angry while watching this movie. Everybody has heard of John Glenn and Alan Shepard, but what about Katherine Johnson, whose mathematical genius made their famous spaceflights possible in the first place.

Kirsten Dunst and Jim Parsons also make solid appearances in this film as co-workers who made the lives of these 3 great women as difficult as possible.

Hidden figures is a highly informative and well made historical movie about the early years of the Space Program and receives my highest recommendation.