Author Archives: jjcwn

Movie Review: My Dead Friend Zoe

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From a search on the internet “Between 2005 and 2018, the VA estimated over 89,000 veteran suicides, including those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For anyone with PTSD, due to any traumatic experience, it is almost impossible to explain what it is like. The inability to stop the constant pictures in your mind, replaying a horrible incident or injustice, leading in too many cases to insanity or for too many war veterans, suicide. Considering the large number of war suicides of recent war veterans, it has been obvious for many years that this country has not been taking care of the mental health of its veterans.

The new movie “My Dead Friend Zoe” is about two Afghanistan war veterans, Merit, played by Sonequa Martin-Green, and Zoe, played by Natalie Morales who become very close friends. Most of this movie is about the time after the war, with Merit traveling around to visit her grandfather Dale, played by Ed Harris, and attending PTSD meetings run by a therapist Dr. Cole, played by Morgan Freeman.

Merit is always traveling with her best friend Zoe, even though she died sometime earlier as Zoe is inside Merit’s imagination during this entire story. Merit is unable to resolve the fact that Zoe has died. Throughout this story, with the use of many flashbacks, we find out what happened to Zoe and why.

The acting throughout this entire production is first-rate, as well as the story, which is about friendship, loss, war, and PTSD. The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie is a very high 95%, and I agree with this rating and recommend this film.

Movie Review: Last Breath

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The new movie “Last Breath” is about the people in this world, who risk their lives to make a living. This true story is about three men who dive deep into the Ocean to repair gasoline pipes and are lowered to bottom of the Ocean in a giant container from a large ship. At the beginning of this movie, we are told that this is one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. After watching this film, it was hard to believe that anyone could be brave enough or crazy enough to work a job like this given that the odds of death are so high.

Last Breath stars Woody Harrelson as Duncan Allock, one of the lead divers, Simu Liu as Dave Yuasa, and Finn Cole as Chris Lemons, the main focus of this story as the diver lost at the bottom of the Ocean. This true story was made into a movie because of the miracles that occurred while the crew of the diving ship first located and then attempted to save the life of Chris Lemons. The downside is that most of the searching for Lemons, and getting him back on board the ship was that this part of the story was at times rather slow and boring.

I was surprised during this story that given the extreme danger, the crew would attempt to travel to the bottom of the Ocean at night, during a storm. During this true story, it was shown that the storm was causing violent movements within the submersible container as the men were diving. It made no sense that a decision was not made to wait until daytime and when conditions were safer. I was also surprised that known actors Woody Harrelson and Simu Liu would agree to take these acting roles, considering the conditions involved and the extremely close quarters that are not for anyone even slightly claustrophobic.

The Rotten Tomatoes has an average of 77% with my rating at 72% and a mild recommendation to see this film mostly for the miracles involved in trying to save Chris Lemons.

Movie Review: The Monkey

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As far as coming up with a new idea for a horror-blood-and-gore movie, the new film “The Monkey” has many scenes never seen before. For starters, the evil creature creating all of the death, is a toy monkey that when wound up, plays a drum. The monkey has very evil eyes, and an evil smile, that when turned on shows a row of dangerous looking teeth. All definately new ideas.

What is not new are the horrific deaths of many people in this story invoving blown up, dismembered bodies, heads blown off, a woman falling into an electified pool and blown into hundreds of pieces. Many of these extreme deaths reminded me of the “Final Destination” movie franchise where several people at first cheat death and are later slaughtered in horrendous ways as death seeks its revenge. All of this of course is ridiculous, with some measure of humor and over the years this kind of death movie has found an audience. A documentary about why movies like this are popular might be better than the movies themselves.

The Monkey stars Theo James as Hal, who has a twin brother. At the beginning of this movie, Hal’s relationship with his abusive brother is difficult to watch, due to the non stop verbal attacks that at times seemed too much and unnecessary. There is a cameo appearance later in the movie from
Elijah Wood – there are no other well known actors in this production. I found some of this story, especially towards the end disjoined and sketchy, almost as if the screenwriter could not come up with an effective ending. This movie was directed by Oz Perkins, who also directed the recent “Long Legs” horror movie. Perkins also co-wrote the screenplay of this insane movie with writer Stephen King.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this film is a too high 76% with my rating 65% without a recommendation to see this movie.