With the amazing wave after wave of sexual allegations that have destroyed the careers of so many in Hollywood, music and even Broadcasting, one has to be amazed that Woody Allen is still able to make whatever movie he wants and still hires some of the best names in the movie industry. Ironically, Allen’s son with Mia Farrow, Ronan Farrow was the journalist who started the dominoes falling with Harvey Weinstein and after he fell, it seems that the new reports of sexual abuse are never ending and careers and lives are ruined every day. The allegations against Woody Allen go back to 1992 and one can only wonder if this news came out now that Allen’s career would have survived like it did in 1992. Why Woody Allen was able to survive in 1992 when so many careers are now over for good, for charges that are in most cases far less than what Allen was charged with is another question. One could argue that Woody Allen is the greatest and most prolific screenwriter of all time, making the tragedy of what happened to him in 1992 all the more tragic, whether or not the accusations are true. All movie fans can only wonder what it must be like to be Woody Allen after his incredible career and great movies and fame, only to have something like this happen to him to shine a bad light on his legacy.

Allen’s new movie “Wonder Wheel” is about a husband and wife, played by Jim Belushi and Kate Winslet who live on a boardwalk in Brooklyn right under a giant Ferris wheel called Wonder Wheel. I wondered if Allen’s use of this Ferris wheel was a metaphor for life or the story in this movie, but perhaps the idea of people living so close to a noisy amusement park and huge wheel fascinated Allen and he just decided to put this idea in a movie. This part of Wonder Wheel reminded me of Allen’s masterpiece Annie Hall, the only comedy to ever win best picture in 1977 because the main character in that film, Alvie Singer, played by Allen lived under a roller coaster when he was a child. I thought this entire story of Wonder Wheel was well done and believable and lead up impressively to one singular moment towards the end where Kate Winslet’s character has to make a decision to either do the right thing, or selfishly save her own life.

Like many of Allen’s recent movies, this one is completely serious that absolutely no comic moments. For all true Woody Allen fans, we are all hoping that one day he will revert back to his the comedy phase of his writing career and give the world another Annie Hall, but for now that seems like a remote possibility as Woody only seems to make mostly serious movies now.

Overall, I thought this was a solid movie and also included singer Justin Timberlake as one of the main characters. I am actually surprised at the low 30% ratings on rotten tomatoes as I would have given this movie a solid 75 out of 100. The acting was very good and even though the story did drag at parts, it kept my attention and had a great singular moment as I mentioned before with a good ending. I recommend Wonder Wheel.

Without a doubt, Star Wars which was first released 40 years ago in 1977 is the most prolific and profitable franchise in movie history, now spanning 9 films.

Some 20 years ago the inventor of this amazing movie idea, George Lucas, decided to make 3 new movies starting in 1999, after saying for years that his Star Wars idea was only going to be a movie trilogy and he would never make another sequel. The 3 new Star Wars movies received a level of success and critical acclaim that was far less than the first 3 movies received and perhaps because of that, Lucas decided to sell the entire franchise to Disney for 4 billion dollars some years ago. Two years ago “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was released and the world now knows that there will probably be a new Star Wars movie released every December for the foreseeable future. The second movie, released in 2016, “Rogue One” was the first Star Wars movie that involved characters that were outside the original franchise, but this new one, “The Last Jedi” contains both the new characters introduced in The Force Awakens and the original characters that go back to the original movie released in 1977.

Everyone knows that a Star Wars release is virtually a guaranteed huge money maker and due to that obvious fact, very often due to the pressure to produce another film every years with so many special effects and action the screenplay takes a back seat, and in my opinion, that is the main problem with this film.

I have never been a fan of rapid-fire Michael Bay scene changes with no explanation or continuity or connecting thread as several stories move forward and then switch to another part of the story, then back again, then to another scene and before you know it, you have no idea what is going on and the entire experience becomes more annoying than entertaining. This movie plays like it was written by 5 screenwriters with so many different scenes and story lines going at the same time for over 2 hours. There are great special effects like like all of the Star Wars movies, but like I have said many times in this blog, special effects will never be a band aid for a poorly written screenplay or bad original story idea. While I don’t think The Last Jedi is by any means a bad movie, for me it was not good enough movie because of the “all over the place direction”. I expected more with this film and because of the rapid fire disconnected story telling, I was overall disappointed.

It was quite depressing to see the late Carrie Fischer in her last film role and in some ways, Mark Hamill, who looks looks much older than his 66 years. Perhaps the rapid aging of Fischer and Hamill is a reflection of the incredible highs and lows of their respective acting careers and after both of them reached such a huge highs 40 years ago, they found like so many that trying to be a Hollywood actor is an extremely difficult and precarious life choice.

See this movie for the special effects and the action scenes, but not for the great story.