As a movie blogger, based on a very high opinion poll on Rotten Tomatoes, sometimes I am obligated to see a movie that I ordinarily would not see.

The movie “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” has 98% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, so out of curiosity, and even though it has subtitles, I decided to see it. This movie is about a woman in her early 30’s who paints portraits of three other women who are living with her. One woman is older, another who is her age and another in her mid teens. Other than that, there is no story, no direction, no plot and no reason to understand why this non-movie was ever made. I have no idea why the ratings are so high, other than the well done photography of a surrounding ocean, house and cliff, somewhere in France.

For this film, I decided to leave early because the mindless boredom was so unbearable. As I left the theater I thought of a purpose for this very bad movie, with no story. One day while on cable, it could cure insomnia for hundreds of thousands of people, who just cannot get to sleep. Run from this extremely boring waste of two hours.

Real life is never like a movie, but most of us hope that life would turn out like many movies do. With a happy ending. Justice brought to those to deserve it, triumph to those who have earned it. The events of January 26, 2020 when 9 people died in a Helicopter crash that was completely preventable were so tragic and senseless that none of what happened will ever be understood or rationalized. This tragedy reminds all of us, that life is not a movie.

Yesterday 2/24/20 was the Kobe Bryant memorial. The number 24 and 8 shot clock violations in NBA games to honor Kobe Bryant’s daughter’s basketball jersey number and 24 is Kobe’s and this was a one of a kind event that has never happened in the history of professional sports.

None of us will ever see a better example of courage than Kobe’s wife, Vanessa Bryant standing in front of 20 thousand people at Staples stadium and millions around the world, talking about about the horrendous loss of her 13 year old daughter Gianna and her husband Kobe, who was only 41 years old. Then Michael Jordan stood at the same podium, crying while talking about his best friend. Nothing compares to this. It is all horrendously tragic and one of the worst events we have ever seen. The videos of Vanessa Bryant and Michael Jordan are very hard to watch, and I have decided to include them in this blog.

For the new movie “Call of the Wild” starring Harrison Ford and a CGI dog, the first hurdle is to make sure that the CGI of the dog and especially the facial expressions of the dog are as perfect as possible. For the most part the technology for the dog and the special effects works, but there were several times when the CGI did look fake, especially with some of the dog’s facial expressions. I was surprised to realize that Harrison Ford is only in the last half of this movie, with the first half involving a dog (named Buck) and his life pulling a sled along a mail route in Alaska.

I thought the story was simple but effective like most Disney movies that are about animals. My guess is that the low Rotten Tomatoes ratings of only 64% are mostly because of the story, and the belief that most viewers are going to expect something stronger. The special effects are very well done, with the several dogs in the story as well as a very large brown bear. This is also a very good movie for dog lovers, showing the intelligence and loyalty of mans best friend.

My rating for this movie is a about 72%, a bit higher than the Rotten Tomatoes consensus and I do recommend For the new movie “Call of the Wild” starring Harrison Ford and a CGI dog, the first hurdle is to make sure that the CGI of the dog and especially the facial expressions of the dog are as perfect as possible. For the most part the technology for the dog and the special effects works, but there were several times when the CGI did look fake, especially with some of the dog’s facial expressions. I was surprised to realize that Harrison Ford is only in the last half of this movie, with the first half involving the dog (named Buck) and his life pulling a sled along a mail route in Alaska.

I thought the story was simple but effective like most Disney movies that are about animals. My guess is that the low Rotten Tomatoes ratings of only 64% are mostly because of the story, and the belief that most viewers are going to expect something stronger. The special effects are very well done, with the several dogs in the story as well as a very large brown bear. This is also a very good movie for dog lovers, showing the intelligence and loyalty of mans best friend.

My rating for this movie is a about 72%, a bit higher than the Rotten Tomatoes consensus and I do recommend Call of the Wild as a good but not great, family movie.