Monthly Archives: November 2025

Movie Review: Eternity

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A movie about what might happen in the afterlife has not been a common idea in many years. The last one is the very good film written and directed by Albert Brooks, “Defending Your Life” (1991). This new one, “Eternity” starring Miles Teller as Larry, who dies after choking on a small pretzel, while his wife Joan played by Elizabeth Olsen is slowly dying of Cancer and is about 80 years old tries to cover new ground on this fundamental question for all of humanity.

In this story, the afterlife is like a giant Airport, where an A.C. (afterlife counselor), played by Da’Vine Joy Randolph, and John Early as Anna and Ryan, greet you when you arrive and then take you through all the rules you need to know before you can select your eternity.

It turns out that Joan was married once before to a young man who was killed in the Korean War, Luke, played by Callum Turner and two months later she married Larry and spent the next 67 years with him.

The rest of this movie, after they all arrive in this afterlife Airport, is waiting for Joan to make a decision on who she wants to spend eternity with. Unfortunately, this one decision that dominates this movie does not seem to be a strong enough premise to keep the audience’s attention for the entire two hours. This also includes the somewhat predictable twist at the end of this story.

Attempts at humor mostly fall flat, and the story is slow and boring in too many areas and too long. There are some small good parts, with much of the dialogue coming off like a B movie. There is not not enough to recommend here, and I do not agree with the too high ratings of 77% on Rotten Tomatoes, with my rating a 50% and a solid pass.

Movie Review: Jay Kelly

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The story of the new film “Jay Kelly” is about an aging, famous actor who experiences the highs and lows in his career as a successful movie star while trying to figure out if all of that fame and money was worth it, considering his divorce from his first wife, and his estrangement from his two daughters who hate him for abandoning them so many times while he traveled the world, acting in movies.

Jay Kelly (George Clooney) seems the perfect actor to play this part, due to his age and many years of fame in the acting profession. Kelly’s long-time agent, Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler) is at odds much of the time with Kelly as they disagree about what the best movie roles that Kelly should play at this stage of his career. The other ongoing conflict is whether Ron and Jay are really friends or just business associates, because for many years, Jay has been paying Ron 15% of all of his earnings. This argument comes to a climactic conclusion at the end of the film. Adam Sandler is once again very good in one of his few serious acting roles, the last one being “Uncut Gems” (2019). Sandler should do more serious dramatic acting roles, rather than continue to make mostly unfunny comedy movies that for too much of the time, do not work.

There is some good dialogue and messages about life in this movie, especially in the many arguments between Kelly and his daughters, with Jay trying to convince his daughters and himself that he was not a bad father, he was just trying to do two things that could never coexist at the same time. Be a famous and wealthy actor and be there for his daughters when they were young.

There is an argument and fight between Kelly and a mostly failed acting friend (Billy Crudup) from years ago, that is told through the many flashbacks in this film, as Kelly went on an audition to read with his friend and then wound up getting the important part. Part of the acting profession, due to its constant rejection and precarious financial reality is the extreme jealousy of so many very talented actors who just never get their lucky break.

This movie has a large number of well-known actors, including Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough,
Stacy Keach, Isla Fisher and Greta Gerwig, the wife of the director and co-writer of this film, Noah Baumbach.

The conclusion of this movie is about a major tribute to Jay Kelly in Italy, and the train ride Jay took to get through the many towns and villages in Italy. The tribute showed some movie scenes in the career of George Clooney, and not new scenes for his fictional character in this story.

Mainly for the life messages and solid acting in this film, I do agree with the 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and do recommend it.

Movie Review: Wicked: For Good

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There are many things to admire about the two Wicked movies, the final one, “Wicked: For Good,” released on 11/21/2025. This movie has been in the planning stages for many years, and both films were shot together, starting in December 2022. The entire production was put on hold in July 2023, and then resumed and finally wrapped in late January 2024. The production costs for the two films was a huge $455.8 million and after receiving a tax reimbursement from the U.K. resulted in a net cost of $370.7 million.

What I admire the most is the large amount of man-hours that went into creating the elaborate sets, musical arrangements, costumes, screenwriting, and acting for two movies based on the long-running Broadway play. The brilliant move that the producers of Wicked pulled off was releasing Wicked in two films over a period of a year. The reasons were that the movie would be too long, and as we find out in the latest release, there are too many slow and boring parts in the second movie that would have ruined the high ratings and box office if these scenes were included in the first movie. Brilliantly, the first movie, which received a very high 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, set the stage to maximize the profits the second movie will make, as the anticipation for the second movie a year later increased the odds of much higher box office, despite the much lower 70% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.

The problem with this second film is that much of the story is too slow and erratic, with not enough interaction between the two main stars Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo). The ending does have a very well-done and highly emotional reunion between these two characters, with an emotional song at a level of quality more frequent in the first movie. The story about how Elphaba becomes a wicked witch, because of her quest to help animals who are not being treated well by the Wizard of Oz, is somewhat convoluted within both films.

Unfortunately, the low Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 71% are correct this time, mainly because of the high quality of the first movie and the drop-off in the second movie. The rabid fans of Wicked will mostly be disappointed at the pacing and quality of this last movie. The most obvious solution would first be to have more scenes with Glinda and Elphaba with them acting and singing together. To be true to the Broadway play, there were just too many slow-moving and unnecessary parts in this second story.

For any true fan of “Wicked” it would be impossible not to see this second movie, which does have enough good parts to recommend.