The definition of empathy from Dictionary.com: The psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

Regardless of anyone remembering the story of Harriet Tubman from high school history, everyone owes it to themselves to see the new movie “Harriet”. Finally realizing the full story of Harriet Tubman will give everyone even more appreciation to what this great woman did to save so many people from slavery.

What was so great about Harriet Tubman was her empathy for other people. Once she escaped slavery herself to the city of Philadelphia, a miracle in itself, Tubman returned many times to save other slaves without regard for her own safety. In the end she saved 70 other slaves and some years later, actually led a battle in the Civil War that rescued an additional 750 slaves – an amazing story that I never knew about.

As with every movie about the horrendous and cruel world of pre-Civil War slavery, watching many of the scenes in this film will make any normal person’s skin crawl, with the constant use of the N word, and the endless cruelty of the slave owners towards human beings that they believe are their property. The best line in this movie from Harriet Tubman is “No person should ever own another person”. This one sentence could be considered the entire reason for the Civil War.

The acting in this movie is outstanding, starting with Cynthia Erivo, who plays Harriet Tubman, who was known as Minty when she was a slave. The rest of the cast are mostly unknown actors, with the exception of Janelle Monáe who plays a free black woman who lives in Philadelphia and provides a great contrast between herself Harriet Tubman after she escaped from slavery.

Harriet has solid critical numbers, including 72% from Rotten Tomatoes and my rating is about 80% due to the very well told story about an important part of American History. I recommend Harriet.

For “Last Christmas”, starring Emilia Clarke, the question is; can it still be an uplifting story, if the main character is a struggling young woman named Kate, who is almost homeless? Who has to sleep in the couches of her few remaining friends to survive? Who has a bad job working as an elf in an all year Christmas store in London? Who has tried for years, like so many other young people with a dream, to break into show business with no prospects and no luck?  Unfortunately, despite the likability of Kate and her endearing smile regardless of her horrendous lot in life, I found this movie mostly a downer because there is nothing funny about any young person with a life like this. There will never be anything uplifting about being homeless, a reality faced by far too many millions of people in this world.

There is also a very unusual love story in this film, with a twist that I did see coming but was still very well done.  Kate’s love interest Tom is played very well by actor Henry Golding. The other issue is that there are too many back stories mostly unrelated to the main story that at times seem disconnected and erratic involving Kate’s sister and her mother, played by actress Emma Thompson, who also wrote the screenplay.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for Last Christmas are a low 49% and my rating is about 70% only for the acting of Emilia Clarke and music of singer George Micheal, with a very marginal recommendation.

The new movie “Jojo Rabbit” will be a mystery to most people. Why it was made? What is the point? How can anyone think that anything to do with Hitler or Hitler youth could ever be considered a farce or even remotely funny? Why is Scarlett Johansson or Sam Rockwell in this horrendous mess? Most importantly, why are the critical ratings as high as 79%? None of this makes any sense and for me as an avid moviegoer, I could not wait for this horrible waste of 2 hours to finally be over. Sitting through this disaster was hard to do, and for much of the 2 hours it was very hard to not leave early.

My theory about the positive critical reviews is that this movie is very different than any other movie, with a young German boy being followed around by a muse who looks like Hitler, with a teenage Jewish girl living in a closet in his house. What is interesting about this story or even remotely entertaining? This entire idea is different bad and never different good.

Despite the positive reviews of Jojo Rabbit this movie should be avoided at all costs and my rating is only 10%. Run from this mess of 2 hours.