Producing any motion picture requires the risk of millions of dollars. Even for the lowest budget movies that are only released to a smaller subset of art houses around the United States, there is still the risk of a very significant amount of money.

Managing risk producing a movie is where the Movie industry is more like the Insurance industry. When there is an idea for any new movie idea, if there is a guaranteed “built in” audience because of name recognition, some of the risk of spending millions of dollars can be reduced. Even if the TV show, in this case the “Charlies Angels” of the 1970, was bad or even stupid, does not matter, because it is believed that there will still be enough of an audience, to mitigate the risk of spending so much money. This same idea happened two years with the release of the horrendous Baywatch movie. Name recognition with no thought of a story idea, or any kind of a screenplay turned out to be one of the worst movies of 2017.

In this case of the new “Charlies Angels” movie, the hope is that there will also be a sequel, as there was in 2003, for the last time a Charlies Angels movie was released in the year 2000. However this movie is so bad, with critical ratings so low, I doubt that there will be a sequel. The problem with this film is not enough time was put into the screenplay, written by the director who also acted in this film, Elizabeth Banks. The story is ridiculous, disjointed and for the most part made no sense. This entire movie is an excuse to pass one action scene onto the next one, mostly made up of explosions, gunfire and karate.

This movie starts with two Charlies Angels played by Kristen Stewart and newcomer Ella Balinska totally dominating about 8 other armed men in a Karate fight, which is another problem with a movie like this one, believability. There is nothing wrong with Karate in any action movie, but there will always be a problem with preposterous Karate action showing 2 people out fighting 8 others, especially when the other 8 people are also armed.

For those old enough to remember the original Charlies Angels TV series, this movie is better than the TV show, but not enough to make any viewer not feel embarrassed for anyone who is acting in something this ridiculous. The 1970’s TV series was exploitative of the women involved, and just about ruined the career of all the actresses who appeared in the show. Only the late Farrah Fawcett who appeared in TV movies after she left the series after the first year had some kind of a career after Charlies Angels.

I was surprised to see an actor of the caliber of Patrick Stewart in this bad movie, along with Elizabeth Banks and Naomi Scott. There is nothing worth seeing here, no new ideas and a bad story. I agree with all the bad ratings, 57% on Rotten Tomatoes and a very low 4 out of 10 on IMDB. This film should be skipped by everyone, including the few die hard fans of the TV show and the even fewer fans of the last Charlies Angels movie released in 2000.

The movie “A Good Liar” marks the first time that great actors Helen Mirren and Ian McKellen have even appeared in the same movie. Considering that Mirren is 74 and McKellen is 80, both with very long and distinguished careers, it is hard to believe that they have never acted together.

A Good Liar is about a scam artist, Roy Courtnay, played by McKellen, a person who has no conscience and finds it easy to steal and scam money from others, with no fear of retribution or a very long prison term. The problem with this film and ultimately screenplay is there are too many holes in the story, that starts with an online dating service where Mirren’s character meets McKellen’s character. This film has the “explain the story with flashbacks” method at the end to resolve all the action that happened previously, including new events that had never been shown before. Some of these events are impossible to believe and in some cases make absolutely no sense. There is an ultimate revenge aspect of this story at the very end that for the most part, holds no water.

I agree with the below average ratings of 64% for this film on Rotten Tomatoes and do not recommend this movie because there are just too many holes in the story.

The sport of Auto Racing has always been known as one of the most dangerous in the world. Over the years, the technology has greatly improved and deaths during races has reduced, but the danger is always there. In the 1960’s, the period where this movie is based, the cars they used in many cases did not even have seat belts and all had none of the new breakaway technology that absorbs the impact and protects the driver from certain death after a fire or collision. The dangerous cars of the 1960’s also burst into flames immediately after a crash, killing the driver in some cases, despite the protective suits they wore.

The new movie “Ford V Ferrari” starring Matt Damon who plays Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale who plays Ken Miles is about the competition that existed between Italian auto maker Ferrari and Ford. At the beginning of this film, Ford makes an attempt to buy the almost bankrupt Ferrari, in the hopes of appealing to baby boomers who at the time were reaching adulthood and buying their first cars. That deal did not work because part of the deal was that Ford could control what Auto races Ferrari was able to compete in. This is what created the angry competition with these two companies that lasted for years. One of the best parts of this movie was the politics between one executive at Ford who did not like Ken Miles and spent a great deal of effort trying to prevent him from representing Ford in any Auto race, or even winning a race. This was despite the fact that Miles was one of the best drivers in the world. Ultimately this film is about Ken Miles and his ability to push any car to its limit, never worrying about his own safety. Miles was also a mechanical genius, largely responsible along with Shelby for advancing Automobile technology.

I thought the many scenes that showed extreme danger of the Auto races including the Daytona 500 and 24 Hours of Le Mans, was extremely well done.  There are certain people who just are born to drive fast and because they have no fear, they are able to reach the extreme speeds that are necessary to make them the fastest in the world.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Ford V Ferrari are a very high 92%. My rating is more in the 85% range and I highly recommend this film.