Movie Review: She Came to Me


Somewhere in New York City, probably over a year ago, there was a dinner party with actor Daniel Day-Lewis, his wife, writer director Rebecca Miller and several other actors including Anne Hathaway, Marisa Tomei and Peter Dinklage. During this dinner, a favor-bank was created that included possible movie deals and future collaboration. Unfortunately, one of the deals was an agreement to make the new movie “She Came to Me”, where even the title of this strange production makes little or no sense.

This entire story seems to be entirely about being as extremely different as possible, never interesting or good. This all starts with the two main characters Steven Lauddem, played by Peter Dinklage who is a writer of Opera and Patricia Jessup-Lauddem, played by Anne Hathaway who is a therapist. From the start of this movie, we are expected to believe that Anne Hathaway is married to Peter Dinklage, which in the real world is highly unlikely. It turns out that Steven has been creatively blocked for 5 years, unable to turn out another Opera and his frustrations are having a negative effect on the marriage. This leads to a meeting between a drunk Steven and Katrina Trento, played by Marisa Tomei at a bar, who is of all things a tug boat captain. Within 30 minutes we realize the problem with this film, trying so hard to be different, weird and strange, forgetting any attempt just to be good. A tug boat captain? Really?

Then Katrina and Steven have a one-night stand, later finding out that Katrina is a love and sex addict. A sex-addicted tub boat captain – easily a character we have never seen in any movie before. Who is now obsessed with Peter Dinklage? Soon after Steven breaks free of his creative block by falling by falling off of a pier and while under water is suddenly struck with a new idea for an Opera. Another implausible scene.

There is a subplot with Steven and Patricia’s son Julian and the daughter of their maid that later becomes the main plot with a final series of scenes that are an attempt for them to get married for Julian to avoid a possible statutory rape charge. It turns out that the husband of the maid is a court stenographer and also a Civil War reenactor – covering all the bases as far as professions within this story. Convoluted and insane, as the characters and plot are all over the place forcing different ideas and nonsensical situations, forgetting about quality or respecting the audience.

There is a scene with Patricia going crazy during a session with one of her patients and starts taking off all her clothes while screaming – that is one of the most insane out-of-place crazy scenes I have seen in any movie, much less one that is supposed to be a thrown-together romantic comedy. It was hard to believe that Anne Hathaway agreed to shoot this scene, considering it was bad enough she was in this film in the first place.

It makes no sense that any screenplay in this stage of a creative writing process was greenlighted before about 5 more re-writes, much less 3 named actors agreeing to make this movie, that was nowhere near ready to start shooting. This film reminded me in some ways of the movie “Maybe I Do” that was released in February of this year and included several well known actors who once again agreed to make a movie before reading the script first.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this film are a correct and very low 46% that could be even lower at 25%. This movie is a very surprising big miss, especially considering the named actors involved.

Movie Review: The Exorcist: Believer


The way things are going, with so many Exorcist movies in the last 50 years, the decisions makers in Hollywood will probably never realize that equaling the horror and quality of the original “The Exorcist” released in 1973 will ever be achieved.

The stories of the audience’s reaction to the original film were unprecedented in movie history. This included: Many moviegoers vomiting at the horrific graphic images on screen. Others fainted or just left the theater, nauseous and trembling before the film was even half over. People were telling their friends and family members to “not go” to see this movie. This level of red-hot interest in a horror movie has never happened since The Exorcist was released, 50 long years ago. Since 1973 there have been 7 Exorcist movies, and several other movies with the word Exorcist in the title, including the recent and very bad “The Pope’s Exorcist”, reviewed in this blog, starring Russel Crowe.

The reason why the original Exorcist will always be more horrifying, is a documentary itself, to analyze why this movie is always at the top of all lists of the scariest and most unsettling movies ever made. No horror director has ever gotten close to matching the original, including the latest installment, “The Exorcists: Believer”. With this new film, there is a good attempt at the beginning to at least be different, with two young girls walking in the woods, and then walking into what looked like a man-made ditch (something that two young girls would never do), and then becoming lost for 3 days. Then somehow transported to a farm, some 30 miles away, thinking they were only lost for a few hours. Soon after they are found, they slowly become possessed and the rest of this story is the obvious exorcism climax scene for both girls, which I thought was poorly done with not enough buildup before the final climax scenes.

This film has three well-known actors, Leslie Odom Jr., who plays the father of one of the girls, and Ellen Burstyn who plays Chris MacNeil, the mother of Regan, the girl who was possessed in the original movie. I was rather surprised to see Linda Blair at the end of this movie, considering that her part in the original film at age 14 has caused her more downside than upside in her acting career. After starring in a movie like the Exorcist that was so horrifying, it would be impossible to play any other part because the audience will always think of you as that possessed young child. Becomming type-cast in any role has been the curse of far too many television and movie actors.

The ultimate problem with this Exorcist sequel, with another one following in 2025 “Exorcist: Deceiver” is that there was not enough originality, and an ending that was dissapointing, rather than new and ground breaking. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this film are a very low 20%, with my rating 30 and a solid miss for this one.

Movie Review: The Creator


On Wednesday, September 13, 2023, the leaders of all the major tech companies testified to the United States Senate about their concerns to regulate and control AI technology. These leaders included the CEO of Microsoft, Tesla and Google. Some of the comments after the 3 hour meeting included, “The consequences of getting AI wrong are severe.”, from Elon Musk. Bill Gates spoke of AI’s potential to feed the hungry. Satya Nadella from Microsoft said “When it comes to AI, we shouldn’t be thinking about autopilot. You need to have copilots.” Someone always has to be overseeing AI to make sure it does not fall into the wrong hands, or go haywire.

AI has been one of the most important topics of conversation for over a year now, it is the new reality of the world. It was obvious that given the possibilties that will follow AI that tens of thousands of screenwriters around the world have started screenplays and there will be many AI movies in our future.

Unfortunately one of the first AI movies is the new movie “The Creator”. The story is basically about an ongoing war between AI-created machines and humanity. After a software error, according to the AI robots humans created a massive nuclear explosion, destroying the city of Los Angeles. The story starts from the aftermath of this nuclear accident and different battles between humans and robots, but not much else. There is nothing new in this story, other than a few well-done special effects. With something as interesting and new as AI, one would expect a much more imaginative script.

The movie stars John David Washington as the main character Joshua, who is a soldier who loses and then tries to find his wife Maya played by Gemma Chan. Joshua also befriends a young child robot Alphie played by Madeleine Yuna Voyles, a story line that seems more about chase scenes and explosions than any interesting story. The story of this film is all over the place, with many disconnected scenes, that also include lead soldier Colonel Howell, played by Allison Janney.

Unfortunately the first of what will probably be a string of AI movies that will follow, is a big miss. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a low 68%, with my rating 60% and a recommendation to miss this film.