What is more interesting than the new film, “Motherless Brooklyn”, directed by Edward Norton, is the 20 year timeline on how this film was finally made.

This story all started in 1999 when Edward Norton purchased the rights to Jonathan Lethem’s novel Motherless Brooklyn. It was first decided to change the time of the film from 1999 to the 1950’s. Then 13 years went by until Edward Norton finally completed the writing of the script. Then another 2 years until 2014 until Norton decided to direct the movie himself. It then took another 4 years to finally start shooting this movie in February 2018 and within weeks on March 22, 2018 a fire broke out in one of the buildings used for production and a firefighter Michael R. Davidson of Engine 69 was killed in the fire. Production finally resumed over a week later, but there are outstanding lawsuits suing Norton’s production company that are still pending.

The point of all this is to remember that the road from idea to shooting, to end of production and then release of any movie can very often take many years, many millions of dollars and after all of this, the end result can be a movie like this one, that is both too long and too boring. Why so much time and effort was spent to make this film, that does not have enough of an interesting story, escapes me. This also escapes the critics who are giving this movie a very anemic 65% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a number that I unfortunately agree with.

This story is about political corruption in Brooklyn in the 1950’s and one of the most impressive things about this film is the attention to detail, with every parked car on every road filmed a car from the 1940’s or 1950’s, then add the period clothing and then set design and the budget for this film that looks like it might barely break even must have been very high.  Another tell tale sign of a movie that will no do well, is the small number of theaters in my area that show this movie. 

I thought the acting in this movie was good, regardless of the problems. Starring Edward Norton as a private investigator who has a severe case of Tourette’s Syndrome, Bruce Willis who has a small part in the beginning, and Alec Baldwin who has some very good scenes at the end of this film.  It seemed to me that introducing Tourette’s, was not only unnecessary but perhaps an idea to make a long and mostly boring movie more interesting. For me, this did not work, and neither do the 25 or so episodes of Tourette’s by Norton’s character. I can only wonder how Edward Norton feels after spending so many years trying to get this movie to theaters only to have below average ratings after so much effort for so long. That is the movie business in a nutshell, perhaps the most difficult and most risky business in the world.

Due to the mostly boring and too long story, I agree with the critics this time and do not recommend this movie.

“Terminator: Dark Fate” is the sixth Terminator movie in the franchise and what was done very right with this latest installment was that James Cameron, threw out all that happened in the previous movies and started all over again with a new timeline. This was the only way to continue this great movie franchise that started in 1984 with the original “Terminator” film.

In the last Terminator movie, “Terminator Genisys”, released in 2015, the timeline was so complex and convoluted that the entire film made no sense. Eventually, with any story that involves time travel, an understandable and common sense story can get lost very quickly. This newest Terminator movie restarts the original idea created in the original “Terminator”, with a new Armageddon created by robots with the same reason for time travel. This time, to go back in time to end the life of a young Mexican woman who was helping humanity to defeat the machines, before she had a chance to save the human race.

With all of Terminator movies, the special effects are extremely good, but this one is one step better than the previous films because some of the action scenes are spectacular at a level that it is hard to believe that even with computer generation, the director was able to pull off some of the amazing action.

This latest installment, brings back Linda Hamilton, who last appeared in a Terminator movie in “Terminator Judgement Day”, that was released in 1991. Her appearance in this sequel is vital to the story line and most will be surprised at how she had aged, because she does look older than her 63 years.

The new protector of the young Mexican woman, Dani Ramos, played by Natalia Reyes, is actress Mackenzie Davis who is a enhanced human, not a robot that I thought was a very good additional idea for this story. Arnold Schwarzenegger is once again in another Terminator movie, having appeared in all of them expect for “Terminator Salvation”, released in 2009. This time around Arnold has not only aged, but over the years has developed very human characteristics, including even empathy for other human beings. Another great new idea is that the new Terminator has all the technology of the liquid metal version introduced in 1991, but this one can actually split into two terminators, with the second robot only skeletal.

The critics on Rotten Tomatoes are wrong again, giving Terminator: Dark Fate only a 70% rating. For the special effects alone, this movie should be given at least a 90% rating and I highly recommend this film.

The critics are saying that the new movie “Black and Blue” is a story we have seen before, about crooked cops, drug pushers and some very bad people who live in the some the worst areas of New Orleans. What the critics have missed is that when the production is very well done, like this one is, it doesn’t matter that we have seen some of this before.

The unusual aspect of this violent and realistic police drama is that the entire story centers around police cams that by law, are all placed in the center of the jersey’s of all police officers. Due to the many incidents involving police officers over the years, including too many illegal shootings, police h cameras provide evidence that can convict or exonerate someone in court.

This story involves a young female police officer, Alicia West, played very well by Naomie Harris who not only witnesses a murder, but also records the murder on her police cam. The rest of this film is about officer West trapped in a very dangerous part of New Orleans, fighting for her life and trying to bring the film evidence to a part of the New Orleans police department that is not corrupt. I am surprised by the low ratings on both Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB, because this film was well done and well acted, including actor Tyrese Gibson, who plays a local shop owner who gets caught up in helping Alicia West bringing the recorded video to justice.

I give Black and Blue a solid 75% rating and once again, the critics are wrong.