Star Trek Beyond along with the 2 other movies with this cast has spectacular computer-generated special effects. The special effects in these movies are equal to if not more important than the story or the entire script. The latest Star Trek Beyond is no exception and the special effects are great, perhaps even better than in the other two movies. The end of this movie has a pretty idiotic idea for killing these flying space bee’s which involves of all things – playing rock music to confuse the swarm, which I thought was way over the top. I have no problems with great imagination and new ideas especially in science fiction movies but when an idea or ending to a movie defies all logic and is just done for some Hollywood reasons, then this can be annoying pretty quickly. Aside from this one small flaw at the end, I thought this movie was entertaining and very well done. One thing different about this movie is that the cast spends most of the time separated on a planet rather than in space, but I thought this took nothing away from the movie.

For this latest Star Trek, the entire cast is back including the very unfortunate young man, Anton Yelchin who died in a freak car accident some months ago in his own driveway. Most tragically he was only 27 years old and as an actor was so fortunate to be involved with this Star Trek movie franchise. He will be very sorely missed as an actor and as Chekov. The death of the original Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy is mentioned at the end of this movie and a picture of the original Star Trek cast is found in some of Spock’s belongings. The showing of the picture of the original Star Trek picture is a reference to the fact that the original Spock is a time traveler to the past and visits the young version of the cast as this Star Trek series is a prequel to the original Star Trek.

Star Trek Beyond is very well done and a must see for anyone who likes science fiction or action movies.

This movie was written expertly by Adam Sorkin, arguably one of greatest screenwriters of all time and in my opinion, he is the best ever when it comes to great dialogue. There is no better example of this than in the opening few minutes of the “Social Network”, which is the story loosely based on the life of Mark Zuckerberg and the creation of what is now a corporate conglomerate with one of the largest market capitalizations in the world, Facebook. When the Social Network starts, Zuckerberg, who is expertly played by Jessie Eisenberg is in a bar having beer with his date played by Rooney Mara. Their very intense conversation starts friendly and then quickly​ changes into a constantly mutating ​argument​ that escalates into the woman breaking up with Zuckerberg at the end of the scene. Zuckerberg’s desire to impress the woman with his genius and fast-talking backfires and he comes off like an arrogant jerk instead of impressing her.

What is most amazing about this entire movie is that this intense greatly acted opening scene has one of the best acting performances with two people I have ever seen and it is suggested that this one argument is the entire reason why Zuckerberg starts Facebook. In Zuckerberg’s desire to get back at the woman who just rejected him he tries to insult her using the internet by starting a “facemash” website that compares the looks of women in different local colleges and from this idea, a social website devoted only to Harvard students is formed. The opening scene between Eisenberg and Mara supposedly took 100 takes to get just right and this once scene alone (see video below) which lasts maybe 10 minutes for me was worth the price of admission. I find it quite amazing that something as huge and important as a company like Facebook could have been started because​ of a breakup between two college students, even though one of them is a genius at the level of Zuckerberg.

Other parts of the movie suggest that Zuckerberg could have stolen the idea for Facebook but my opinion of this possibility is that he borrowed some ideas about social networking but did not blatantly steal the entire idea. Despite this, this movie does not paint a very complimentary​ picture of Zuckerberg.

The Social Network which came out in 2010 is a great movie and one of Sorkin’s best ever scripts. This movie is a must see.

“The Infiltrator” is the true story about an FBI undercover agent, Richard Mazur, who for many years risks not only his life but the life of his wife and 2 children to break into the world of drug trafficking as a money launderer. The end result of Mazur arresting so many bankers and drug pushers was successful but the risks he took were enormous, especially considering the murder and torture people like this are able inflict so easily and frequently to so many people. What surprised me the most about this story is why would the FBI or any other Federal agency would allow any person who was married and had a family take risks like this in the first place. It is also hard to understand why would anyone want to take risks like this considering the huge downside of your own torture and murder when you must realize that if you stop one or many of these dangerous criminals, more will just take their place soon after they are incarcerated or killed. Considering the overwhelming stress and fear undercover agents like this go through for so many years I find it amazing that anyone could even do this kind of job for any length of time.

This film took place in the 80’s when cocaine was flowing to this country mostly from Columbia at very high rate. When you consider all the efforts after 30 years to alleviate this problem it should be obvious by now that maybe just legalizing cocaine is the only solution because trying to stop the enormous flow of this drug from South America to the Unites States just has never worked for any meaningful length of time.

As far as this film, it was very well acted and the story was very well told. Bryan Cranston was excellent in the starring role as was John Leguizamo who also played an FBI undercover agent. There is some extreme violence in this film but not overly so and the level of tension is pretty high throughout the movie. Some parts of the story were not explained well and were at times hard to follow but overall I thought this was a very well told story.

I do recommend the Infiltrator.