The movie “Alpha” is very similar to the Disney movies in the past about our close relationship with dogs and in this case of this story a wolf. This story takes place 20,000 years ago and despite the prehistoric caveman times the human beings looked in far too good shape and wore clothing that looks like it was expertly made – almost like designer jackets, which of course makes no sense considering the time involved. Through a series amazing events that involve hunting buffalo a teenage boy is separated from his tribe and while trying to survive on his own, befriends a wolf who was also injured and separated from his pack. Some of the ideas here are far fetched and it seemed that some of the logistics did not make sense in some areas, but overall I thought this was a good example of a family movie, although some of the harrowing experiences are probably too intense for younger children.

Rotten Tomatoes gives this movie a rating of 86 and my rating is about a 75% – so I do recommend Alpha.

The new movie “Puzzle” is a low budget movie about the decisions we make in our 20’s that may cause us, because of money, obligations and family – to not realize our full potential or ever have the chance to figure out who we really are. For many of us, there is not enough money or time to find ourselves by going to a college that fewer can afford and some find themselves later in life unhappy about the choices they made in their youth. In the case of this story, Agnes is a wife in her early 40’s of a mechanic with 20 sons about to go to college, who finds herself trapped in a lonely boring life familiar to far too many married women. Through a random gift of a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle, Agnes finds that she is not only good at putting jigsaw puzzles together, but in is fact a rare genius at pattern recognition. As random as the shape of the puzzle pieces, Agnes buys another puzzle in New York City and through a flier at the store, becomes partners with another puzzle expert and their collaboration blooms into Jigsaw puzzle contests – who even knew there was such a thing?

Puzzle is a high quality low budget movie that has a great message and symbolism, and was engrossing throughout the entire 2 hours. One of the great speeches in the movie was by Agnes puzzle partner Robert, played very well by Irrfan Khan. He says, “Life is random and most of the time completely out of our control. With Puzzles, we are completely in control and when the puzzle is completed, we know we made all the right choices”. Anyone who sees this movie may have a strong desire to buy a 1000 piece puzzle and try to put it together, and this has always been a fun hobby for many people.

I strongly recommend Puzzle for its message, symbolism and quality of acting.

First and foremost, the new movie “Crazy Rich Asians” is all about money. Its about super rich Asians who live in Singapore who after many years of being super rich, have forgotten or never knew what it is like to have little or no money, or a bad job sitting in a cubicle or doing what you don’t want to do, because you do don’t have enough money to walk away. The story is about a young couple in love, about to get married but the woman is not from a wealthy family, she is the product of a single mother who struggled for many years to make enough to survive. Unfortunately in many, but not all cases, people who have a great deal of money let it all go to their head and look down on people who are not rich, as if they are not good enough to associate with and definitely not to marry their son – basically the plot of this movie. The mother of the young Asian man does not approve of his girlfriend and some of the scenes between his girlfriend and his mother I thought were extremely well done.

I thought this movie dragged on in a number of places, was somewhat funny in others and was too much like a soap opera for my liking. The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for Crazy Rich Asians is a very high 92% and I do recommend it for the message – but not so much for the overall story.