“The Farewell” is a true story about a large Chinese family who believe that if an older person gets Cancer, its better to lie to them because the fear of dying is worse than the disease itself. After seeing this movie its hard not to believe in this tradition born from of the Chinese culture. What sense does it make to tell an old person they have this horrendous disease, when they can live out their last days in comfort and without fear? Another perspective is, how often are doctors wrong about how long a person has left to live, giving more credence to this idea of lying to an older person about having Cancer.

The Farewell is one of the few movies I have seen that is equally in English and subtitles and both were very well done. The acting was also very good, even though at times it was hard to understand some of the English speaking. The sub story of the entire family lying to their grandmother about lung cancer is an impending wedding with the brother of the main character Billi, played very well by actress Awkwafina. There were some emotional and even very funny scenes in this film despite the depressing diagnosis of the beloved matriarch of this family.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for The Farewell are an extremely high 99% and I give this movie a 90% rating and strong recommendation.

For all of the movies in the long running Fast and Furious franchise, temporarily suspending all sense of logic and common sense is mandatory before spending two hours realizing just how ridiculous just about all of the stories are. One thing about this spin off of the Fast and Furious movies is that there are less cars being driven This movie involves secret agents, one of them, the sister of Shaw, played by Vanessa Kirby, a half human half robot played very well by Idris Alba and a programmable virus that could kill the population of the world. This part of the story does not make sense, but that is not what movies like this are all about.

In this version the special effects are very well done, with numerous fight scenes involving Hobbs, played by Dwayne Johnson and Shaw, played by Jason Statham. The ending scene involving a helicopter and a series of trucks all chained together that looked extremely dangerous to film and was the best action sequence in the movie. What is always most entertaining about action movies like these are the stunts and fight scenes and this one delivers as expected.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for Hobbs and Shaw are a below average 67% and I give this movie 75%, mainly because of the well made action scenes and some of the comedic banter between Hobbs and Shaw. There will definitely be a sequel to this movie and perhaps another spin off involving Alba’s robot character.