The new movie “Venom” follows the same Hollywood paradigm for Marvel action movies. “We don’t need a story or a script because we have a built in Marvel audience. All we need is special effects and explosions and people will come.” Unfortunately, this idea works as Venom, which is a pretty bad movie is making very good box office, but for those of us who are looking for a quality screenplay or some kind of a story, this film is a nightmare to sit through.

I was most surprised to see Michelle Williams in this movie because her entire career has been all about quality over money, but perhaps she was angry over being paid so little in last years re-shoot of “All the Money in the World”, and decided that it was her time to get a big payday. The star of the movie Tom Hardy looks like he is drunk or in some kind of a coma during this entire 2 hours and at times he is hard to understand because he mumbles many of his lines.

This movie should be avoided, even for die hard Marvel comic fans. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are a very low 30% – my rating is around 15%. Unfortunately there will be more bad movies like this in our future that forego a script, story and quality in favor of special effects.

Robert Redford has said that at age 82, this will be his last acting role. If this is true, its unfortunate but for any profession there is a limit for most people in just how much they want to do, even with such an enviable career like Redford has had. Ironically, the high point in Redford’s career was winning best Director for “Ordinary People”, in 1980, arguably the best picture of its kind ever made. Redford has never won a best actor Oscar, nominated in 1973 for the Sting, which like so many other actors as good as Redford has been, makes no sense.

The new film “The Old Man and the Gun” is about Forrest Tucker, a career criminal who robbed many banks and more amazingly escaped from prison no less than 16 times. The interesting part of this story is the fact that Tucker robbed all of these banks without any violence and was actually polite when he walked into a bank and asked for their money, just showing the gun he had under his coat. Tucker also worked with two other accomplices, played well by actors Danny Glover and Tom Waits. Tucker was just a person who enjoyed robbing banks and could never have been rehabilitated; to him being a criminal was life to him and very often he had a smile on his face while robbing a bank or running from the police.

At the start of this movie they mention that this story is “almost true” and we do not learn what parts are true or Hollywood embellishment and this includes the girlfriend Tucker finds while escaping the police, played by Sissy Spacek, who I have not seen in a movie for a number of years. Casey Affleck plays the police detective assigned to find Tucker and his gang and this is the first role I have seen him in since his Academy Award performance in the great movie “Manchester by the Sea”, released in 2016.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie are a very strong 89% and I agree with that score. Hopefully Redford will change his mind and act again and even direct again. I highly recommend The Old Man and the Gun.

The latest remake of “A Star is Born” directed by actor Bradley Cooper is one of the rare film experiences where there is no evident acting. Every actor in this movie comes across as real, as if whatever they are saying was never written down. This is a tribute to the great screenwriter Eric Roth who wrote the screenplay. As far a movie remakes one would be hard pressed to find any other movie that has been remade 5 times like this one has. The reason for this is the great story and the music – but 5 times is a rather hard to understand total.

The music and especially the lyrics during the musical segments in this film are all outstanding. There is no doubt that Lady Gaga can sing, but she is also a great songwriter as well and is perfect for this role, almost as if it was created just for her. I was also impressed with Bradley Cooper not only for this acting but also for directing his first movie – the last time I remember this happening was in 1980 when Robert Redford directed the great movie Ordinary People, that won for best picture and best director with Timothy Hutton winning for best supporting actor. Most of the other actors cast for this movie were a surprise including Andrew Dice Clay, Sam Elliott and even Dave Chappelle who has a small role in this movie. All of them were outstanding in their roles. I expect there will be several Oscar nominations for this film, including best director, best picture and best actress for Lady Gaga.

This is one of the only movies I can remember seeing that shows both the highs and lows of success in show business and specifically the music industry. The constant travel, the two hours of high during a performance and the many days of lonely traveling, hotels and as shown in this story drugs and alcohol that far too many turn to to escape this very difficult life. One need only think of Whitney Houston and the recent documentary “Whitney”, also reviewed in this blog as one of the best examples of how difficult a life in the spotlight can be.

The ratings for A Star is Born are a very high 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and an 8.5 on IMDB and I agree with both of these ratings. A Star is Born gets my very strong recommendation.