The movie “Western Stars” is a concert given by Bruce Springsteen and his wife Patty Scialfa in a barn somewhere in the American Northwest. This movie is not only for die hard Springsteen fans because even if you are not a fan of Springsteen, its impossible to not respect many years of dues that he has paid, and his talent as a singer and song writer. There are about 15 songs in this relatively short movie with each song preceded by some scenes in the countryside, narrated by Springsteen previewing each song. The cinematography showing the scenery of the American West is very well done. I thought all of the songs Springsteen sang during this movie were very good.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Western Stars is a very high 90%, my rating is about 75% mainly for my respect and appreciation of Springsteen, who is now 70 years old, and his impressive career.

The people who lived in the dark days of 1880 did not even have light or electricity and it is hard to imagine a world like this, 140 years ago. Human kind has advanced so far in 140 years that anyone who lived in those times could never have imagined what has happened in a relatively short a period of human history. Someone had to invent generators, electricity and the light bulb and essentially the 3 inventors responsible for the inventions that changed the world were Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla.

The movie “The Current War” is not only about these amazing inventions, but also about the ruthless political and personal war between Edison, Westinghouse and Tesla over the use of AC (Alternating Current) and DC (Direct Current). Edison was the inventor of Direct Current and Tesla invented Alternating Current and eventually collaborated with Westinghouse to compete against Edison to light different cities over a 12 year period. The conflicts and “current war” between these 3 men went on until 1892 when AC eventually won the war. All of the conflicts could have been avoided if these 3 men forgot about their ego’s in favor of what was best for the world based on the cost of providing power and light. AC was always considered cheaper but much more dangerous than DC.

Unfortunately, Edison spent much of his time during this current war by trying to discredit AC, telling the press it would kill many people and even at one time held a demonstration to the press, where he electrocuted a horse; just to prove the dangers of AC. This movie does not paint a positive picture of Thomas Edison and how he handled himself during this stressful period. Eventually AC was used to electrocute a man on death row and unfortunately the first time this was used, it did not work effectively and the poor man had to be electrocuted several times until he died.

The problem with this film, pointed out by a number of critics is how erratically the story was told, bouncing between different scenes too quickly and not explaining enough about what was going on within each part of the story. This film is a very good account of an important time in history, but the story telling could have been done much more cleanly and efficiently. For this reason, I agree with this part of the criticism of this movie. It is also rather suspect that this movie was produced in 2017 and has not been released until October 2019, the implication here is that much work was put into re-cutting this movie long after shooting was completed.

I recommend this movie for its excellent account of an important time in history, but I do agree with the critics about the erratic story telling and give The Current War a mild recommendation.

In February, 2007 there was this extremely strange story about a female NASA Astronaut, Lisa Novak – who in a fit of jealousy drove across the United States to Orlando Florida to confront her former boyfriend and his new girlfriend. She took many items in her car with her on the cross country trip, including diapers so she would not have to stop, to improve her time for the trip. What is most interesting about this story, diapers aside, is that nobody would expect a highly educated and intelligent Astronaut to do anything insane and irrational like this, that included spraying her former boyfriend with pepper spray. It is well known that NASA Astronaut’s are chosen not only for their high level of intelligence, but also for their ability to stay calm within any extreme situation, making this story from 2007 that much more shocking. The question then is, is this story interesting and strong enough to make a movie about it, 12 years later? Unfortunately the critical consensus is no. There are some good ideas here, including the fact that any human being can crack under extreme stress or work injustice, but there is not enough story here to keep an audience interested for two hours.

“Lucy in the Sky” stars Natalie Portman and Jon Hamm, two very well known and bankable stars who took this movie most likely because they were impressed with the work of director Noah Hawley in the TV Series Fargo, which has been outstanding. Unfortunately, this is one film that should have been made as a documentary produced for Netflix or Amazon and never a major movie release.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Lucy in the Sky are extremely low at 22% and the movie has been released in very few theaters, most likely due to the very low ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. My rating is more in the 50% range, agreeing that the movie is not good, but it does not warrant a rating of only 22%. This one should be skipped.