Monthly Archives: May 2021

Movie Review: The Father

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There was only one controversy in this years Oscars awards ceremony. Everybody was expecting the late Chadwick Boseman to win the Academy Award for best actor – becoming the 3rd posthumous award winner in Oscar history along with Peter Finch for “Network” in 1976 and Heath Ledger for “The Dark Knight” in 2008. Aside from this controversy, anyone who sees the great actor Anthony Hopkins play an older man suffering with dementia in “The Father” will have will immediately understand how Hopkins had to win best actor this year, and that would include Chadwick Boseman himself.

Even despite this horrendous year long Pandemic, I have been very surprised how difficult it has been to see a movie of the quality of The Father in the last few months. The Father has been in very few theaters and on demand in recent weeks. Nothing has been normal during with movie releases during the last year due to the Pandemic and we can only hope that this will return to more normal soon.

There have been quite a few movies about Alzheimer’s and Dementia in the last few years, but The Father is the first one I have ever seen that tells the entire story of the suffering, frustration and terror from the victim’s perspective. Throughout this entire 2 hour story the main character Anthony, played brilliantly by Anthony Hopkins confuses one person with another, remembers events that never happened, forgets events that did happen, does not know if he is living in his own house or the house of his daughter. He also never remembers that his youngest daughter died in a car accident some years earlier. All of this is made more agonizing by the screenwriter, who thought to tell this story through Anthony’s eyes until he eventually has no idea what is happening – almost as if he was being put through the most cruel of all college pranks. The acting of Anthony Hopkins, most especially within a devastating scene at the end of this film is some of the best I have ever seen. Of all the horrendous diseases and afflictions humanity has had to endure – Dementia and Alzheimer’s are two of the very worst. This movie shows the ravages of this disease better than any movie I have seen.

The acting is outstanding by all the actors in this movie, including Olivia Colman, Olivia Williams and Imogen Poots. I agree with the 98% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and I highly recommend this movie.

Movie Review: Wrath of Man

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For those who think that the new Jason Statham movie “Wrath of Man” has karate-like-action in it – you will be very disappointed. This is the first 100% acting with no Karate movie that I think Statham has ever made in his career. Much to my surprise there was no martial arts action in this entire film.

Different variations of this story have been done before. “A gang of high end armored car robbers over time get more and more bold in their heists, culminating in a robbery involving numerous armored cars carrying over 160 million dollars.” The elaborate back story, involves Statham – who plays a character named H after he and his son become victims of circumstance due to one of the armored car heists that the gang pulls off. This mutates into a revenge story, that works and then does not work – mostly because the entire story is told within a tangled time line that goes from back to front, to back again, to the middle and then to a conclusion involving a seen-before machine gun fight. I have never seen any movie that has this many time line changes before – but somehow it was possible to follow all of these flashbacks, despite the insane and risky way this story was told.

I was a surprised to see actor Josh Hartnett in this film, who has had a greatly reduced career the last few years after peaking a decade ago – once again showing the world how precarious a career as an actor can be.

Overall, I thought the acting was good enough, but the story too elaborate and complex to believe. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are accurate at 68% – and because of the crazy way the story was told, I give this film just a marginal recommendation.

Amazon Movie Review: American Dreamer

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When the company UBER was founded in 2009, there has probably never been an important invention that took advantage of another invention (The Smartphone and the internet) more than this company. UBER is the perfect merging of technologies that since 2009, has changed the world. Now anyone in the world can dial up their smart phone and hail a car driven by an ordinary person in the most efficient way, that uses amazing technology. UBER has generated billions of revenue for not only the company but also for millions of people around the world.

Like most things, even though UBER is a fantastic technology, there is a downside. The movie “America Dreamer”, released in 2018, starring Jim Gaffigan is about this downside. Actor and stand up comedian Jim Gaffigan plays Cam, a down on his luck UBER driver who is divorced and unfortunately for him, has little money, little prospects for a high paying job and owes child support payments. Cam’s desperation for money increases when it looks like he may have to go to prison for missing too many payments to his wife – a sad comentary on the realities of life and marriage in this country. There is one scene where the police show up as Cam and his x-wife are on the front lawn and he is pleading just to talk to his son for a few minutes. One of the saddest and most pathetic moments of this desperate man’s existence.

One day Cam picks up a vicious drug dealer who pulls a gun on another dealer while Cam looks on. Any person would have immediately driven off after seeing this, but Cam does not, setting the scene for a series of events that are entirely based on Cam’s desperation to get money. Unfortunately too many of Cam’s actions are far fetched, even despite his desperation to save his life. Nobody would do most of the things Cam does in this story which for the most part represent some serious flaws in the screenplay.

The acting is very good both with Jim Gaffigan and Robbie Jones who plays Mazz, the drug dealing criminal Cam picks up.

Once again the Rotten Tomatoes review of 53% is way off with my rating in the 75% range, mostly for Gaffigan’s acting which is outstanding. With Gaffigan’s acting ability in many films over the years, he just might be the first stand-comedian to win an Academy Award. I give American Dreamer a solid recommendation, despite the occasional flaws.