It is a rare thing when a movie comes out at the exact same time or a little before a real life event that compares very closely to the subject matter of the film. One of the most famous times this has ever happened was in 1979 when the movie “The China Syndrome” came out just a week before the Nuclear Power Plant in Three Mile Island almost melted down. The new movie “Nerve” is not as closely related to the recent Pokemon Go craze as The China Syndrome was to an almost nuclear meltdown but fundamentally​ it is about an irresponsible​ smartphone game where people can dare people to do very dangerous acts which can easily result in someone being killed. What is so irresponsible of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission) is that a game like Pokemon could be released when it relies entirely on GPS tracking and Pokemon creatures​ that can appear in real life locations distracting people on bikes, on foot and even driving cars. There have already been a number of incidents that have resulted in accidents due to the popularity of this new Pokemon game.

The movie Nerve is about an even more irresponsible​ software program that might someday actually happen​. Viewers on the internet challenge other players on the internet into doing some kind of a dangerous dare and if the challenge​ is successful, money is paid to the person who completed the challenge. If they fail the challenge then they are out of the game. Ultimately all the players are ranked and the person who finishes first is paid​ some unknown large amount of money. As the​ movie goes on the challenges get more and more dangerous even involving two women trying to walk across two buildings using only a ladder. These challenges lead to a confused and rather badly written resolution to the entire story which I thought made more Hollywood sense than common sense and because of this reason and the pretty average film behind this entire idea I cannot recommend this movie. The actors Emma Roberts and Dave Franco do an OK acting job in this movie, but unfortunately the script is not good enough to rescue this film.

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I would assume that most big fans of Woody Allen long for the days when his movies were exceptionally funny as well as well told stories. Good examples of this would be Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hanna and her Sisters. These examples of great Allen movies seem to be very far in the past now, perhaps due to his age or his extremely difficult personal life which seems to always come up after a few years, most recently at the Canne’s Film Festival. I for one am amazed at Woody Allen’s ability now at age 81 to write and direct a movie at a rate that is at least once a year especially when you add the stress of what people have been saying about his personal life since 1992. For over 30 years Woody Allen has been the captain of his own ship and has been able to write direct and produce his own movies his own way with his own company, with the new production company for this movie Amazon Studios. This ability to do everything his way for so long is probably unprecedented​ in the history of movies and because of this several all time movie classics have been created.

This new movie Cafe Society, is really two completely different movies that are not connected at all. One is a love triangle involving the main character played by Jessie Eisenberg and the other is about the Mafia-like criminal acts​ of his brother who during the movie kills about 4 people and places them into the same cement sidewalk. ​I thought it was very unusual​ that Allen would have two disconnected main and sub-plots in one movie, which is something that I have rarely if ever seen in any film that I can remember and this idea really does not work very well in this story.

The other actors in the love triangle include Steve Carrel who plays an important Hollywood producer and Kristen Stewart who plays his secretary. At first, the relationship between Carrell and Stewart is going to result in his leaving his wife to marry her and then he changes his mind and after that breakup Stewart’s character gets involved with Eisenberg only to have Carell change his mind again, leaving​ Eisenberg the odd man out who then returns to New York city.

One of the best and telling parts of this movie is when Carell and Stewart, now married, return to the nightclub Eisenberg is running in New York City with an attitude of total callousness, not caring for a moment how Eisenberg might react when he sees them together. This seemed like real life to me as I have often been amazed at the callousness and indifference some people can have concerning the feelings of others. After the breakup with Stewart, Eisenberg’s character met and married another woman, played by Blake Lively and they quickly had a child together. It seemed a little far-fetched that Eisenberg’s character would be able to get involved with two very attractive women at this level, considering his very average looks, so this part of the movie seemed to be a bit far-fetched. As this story and love triangle progressed​ there would be more scenes that involved Eisenberg’s Mafia brother and more murders, even involving​ a rude next door neighbor that felt very out of the place and had nothing to do with the main plot of this movie. For most movies sub-plots always have some kind of a related connection to the main plot but not in this film which I found to be highly unusual.

Cafe Society is not a bad movie but not really a good one either. I would have rather seen this same film with much more humor involved, maybe even including Allen himself as one of the characters and in this movie and he was the main narrator​ at certain points of the story. There are not too​ many laughs during this movie and the story seemed to be nothing special so for these reasons I cannot recommend Cafe Society.

The writers of the comedy “Bad Moms” have done something that is very rare in my experience. They have made a life reality, namely the high stress, very often depressing and overwhelming true life of so many women and men in the real world and then tried and succeeded in making this funny. Even more impressive is that the writers of this movie Jon Lucas and Scott Moore are male and the writers of the 3 Hangover movies. One of best lines of this movie is where the main character, played very well by Mila Kunis says, “being a Mom is impossible” and you realize immediately whether or not you have kids or are a mother or father that this is true. It really is impossible, when you consider having to work for a living and all the stress and problems that come with every job, then the time constraints of PTA meetings, soccer practice, driving the kids to and from school, to the doctor, the dentist to a recital and then the potential of divorce along the way. This very funny movie addresses all of these things and does it extremely well. This film also makes some raunchy language and scenes funny which is something I have rarely seen in any comedies lately and most of the great lines in these scenes are delivered by Kathryn Hahn, who has never been funnier in any film I have seen her in.

The villain in this movie is played extremely well by Christina Applegate and she adds a tremendous amount​ of stress as the school bully to every mom in the middle school where she is the head of the PTA. Her presence is most of the time very funny, but her personality is based in reality as we can all think of bad people like this in our lives that make your day by day existence almost unbearable​. One example her bullying include a bake sale where she excludes just about every ingredient off the list of allowable foods. This is an over the top moment and it is an exaggeration,​ but it puts another spotlight on yet another unnecessary stress that is placed on overburdened moms every day by other people judging them in their private lives and on their jobs. Kunis also has another common problem in her part time job, a very annoying boss who expects everything from her even though she is a part-time​ worker who works only 3 days a week.

The point of this movie is that at a certain point a person can “take no more of this” and several moms played by Kunis, Hahn and Kristen Bell start to rebel and declare themselves “Bad Moms” to the ire of Applegate and her two friends played by Jada Pinkett Smith and Ann Mumolo, who seem to delight in terrorising and annoying every mother in the school. One solution is for Kunis’s character to run against Applegate for the head of the PTA which sets up the conclusion of this movie. As is typical​ of Hollywood films but unfortunately not real life, everything turns out fine in the end which for me did not take away anything from this very good comedy movie which I highly recommend.

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