Monthly Archives: September 2025

Movie Review: Highest 2 Lowest

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The new movie “Highest 2 Lowest” is the latest Spike Lee-directed movie. His last film was five years ago, “Da 5 Bloods”, released in 2020 on Netflix. This is the 5th collaboration between Spike Lee and Denzel Washington who stars in this film as a music mogul in New York City named David King, who is a major risk taker and has built a music empire that is either doing well or about to collapse from bankruptcy.

There are several speeches in this film about risk, success, and failure that are very well written, all ultimately about what is most important in life: how hard it is to succeed, and how easy it can be to lose everything are some of the best parts of this story.

There is a huge deal that David King is trying to make with this company that surprisingly turns into a kidnapping of David’s son, Trey, played by Aubrey Joseph, and a mistake by the kidnappers that adds many story twists and impossible decisions, making this movie a standout kidnapping story.

The acting is outstanding, including David King’s best friend, Paul Christopher, played by Jeffrey Wright, and his wife, Pam King, played by Ilfenesh Hadera. Former NBA player Rick Fox plays himself as a high school basketball coach, and there are several references to his time in the NBA and especially the great playoff matchups with the Boston Celtics.

The twists towards the end of this story and the ending are very well done and never predictable, with my only negative comment involving the too-long music montage fillers at certain parts of this film.

The rap star A$AP Rocky is great in his role as Yung Felon, with some of his arguments and speeches with Denzel Washington at the end of this movie performed very impressively. The singer Sunni Valentine plays an aspiring singer Julie Tucker, with her only appearance at the end of this film, with a great performance of her song “Highest to Lowest”, trying to convince David King to sign her to a music contract.

The Rotten Tomatoes consensus of 90% is correct this time. I agree with this rating and highly recommend this film.

Movie Review: The Long Walk

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The description for the new movie “The Long Walk” is one of the strangest in the history of movies.

After a worldwide financial disaster where everybody lives in extreme poverty, a group of about 50 young men agree to compete in a contest where they have to walk nonstop until there is only one person standing. The winner of this contest will be given a substantial amount of money, although the exact dollar amount is never specified in this story. The rules are that if anyone walks at a pace slower than three miles per hour, they are given three warnings and then they are shot in the head. So in this contest, there is a 98% chance of death and only a 2% chance of winning. Right from the beginning, this story makes no sense because nobody would enter a contest that has a 98% chance of death, regardless of how extreme the global poverty is.

The main character, Raymond Garrity (Cooper Hoffman) enters this contest to both help his mother out of extreme poverty and to avenge his father, as we find out much later in this story. The best part of this film is the developing friendship between Garrity and Peter McVries (David Johnson), which grows during this entire story.

Mark Hamill plays The Major, a cruel military leader of this walking contest. There are many scenes of extreme violent death as we repeatedly see young men shot in the head or body, which I thought was over the top, unnecessary at this level of extreme gore. Worse was a scene of a man defecating while trying to maintain the three-mile-per-hour walking pace. Why the director and producers decided to show something this grotesque is anyone’s guess. What is the future of the actor who decided to take a part like this in this movie?

The acting is good overall, despite the insane story, with a way too high 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating. My rating is a 70% pass, due to the extremely unnecessary scenes of death, people being shot in the head, and disgusting scenes. It is hard to understand the point of a film like this, other than making a movie that has never been done before. Considering the over 350 miles of walking in 5 days, there is no way any human could walk this far, nonstop for that many days at a three mile and hour pace.

Movie Review: A Little Prayer

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The new movie “A Little Prayer” is one of the most subtle and quiet movies I have ever seen. This story is about the small middle-class lives of people who live in average ranch houses and work in a small local sheet metal factory owned by Bill, played by David Strathairn, who is a Vietnam veteran.

Numerous stories comprise this quiet tale, including the infidelity of Bill’s son, David (Will Pullen), with a coworker, Narcedalia (Dascha Polanco), who both work at the sheet metal company. David is cheating on Tammy (Jane Levy), who lives with him in his parents’ house. It turns out that David has some serious emotional problems as a war veteran after his return from IRAQ, which adds another dimension to David’s serial cheating. It was good to see Jane Levy again after the cancellation of her very good TV show “Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist” in 2021.

The most difficult to watch part of this film is the return home of Pattie (Anna Camp), who is an abusive mother to her 5-year-old girl, with several scenes that were hard to watch. Pattie has returned home because she left her husband and is in the middle of a divorce. I found it unusual that nobody in the family objected to Patti’s constant berating of her child, Hattie (Billie Roy), which I thought at times was too much and amounted to overkill.

This story demonstrates that a movie does not have to be shocking, overly different, with explosive emotional scenes to be an excellent film experience. Problems come to all of us regardless of age or financial status. A Little Prayer demonstrates so many problems in a subtle and quiet way that I have never seen in any movie.

This film is extremely well acted, with a very high 92% Rotten Tomatoes rating, and I agree with this rating and highly recommend this movie.