Author Archives: jjcwn

Movie Review: September 5

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The Munich terrorist attack that happened on September 5, 1972, was the very first televised terrorist attack, broadcast to the world. 900 million people were watching.

During this horrendous attack, 17 people were killed, including 11 Israeli athletes and coaches, one German police officer, and five Palestinian terrorists. The attack started with five armed Palestinian terrorists storming the dormitory of the Israeli Olympic team and killing two athletes. After two days, the terrorists and athletes flew to the Airport via helicopter, and after a lengthy gunfight the remaining 9 athletes, five terrorists, and a German police officer were killed.

This film plays like a reality show, with the entire series of events from the 72 Olympics to the terrorist attack from the perspective of all the ABC workers and executives inside the TV studio where the Munich Olympics were being televised. There are scenes of intense action and on-the-fly decisions based on rumors that in most cases were not confirmed. One of the best aspects of this story is that for all those who remember this horrible event from over 50 years ago, there are many incidents to discover about what really happened so long ago.

September 5, stars Peter Sarsgaard as the late Roone Arlidge, and Benjamin Walker as Peter Jennings, with archive footage of the late Jim McKay who anchored the entire terrorist attack. The standout in this film is John Magaro, who plays the TV director Geoffrey Mason, who was placed in charge the non-stop TV coverage that lasted for two full days. The decisions Mason had to make and the pressure he was under during one of the most intense television events of all time, was very well portrayed.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this film are an extremely high 93% and I agree with this rating and highly recommend this great movie about an important moment in history.

Movie Review: Captain America: Brave New World 

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It is always a bad sign when a superhero action Marvel movie is released within the weak months of January or February. The best example is last year’s “Madame Web”, released one year ago today – arguably the worst movie ever produced.

The problem with “Captain America: Brave New World” is that the screenwriting collaboration using three writers did not work – the same problem with Madame Web. You would think that the executives at Marvel Studios would have realized that having three screenwriters for this movie would again, not work, after the disaster with Madame Web last year.

This story plays like each of the screenwriters wrote their different part(s) without communicating with the other screenwriters, resulting in a completely disconnected story. While watching this mostly bad film, it is impossible to know why something is happening or the reasons why. There is no attempt to educate the audience. Action, facts, and dialogue are thrown at the audience, with no possible way to follow what is happening. Considering the budget of this movie is 180 million dollars, not having a great screenplay is a huge mistake.

The stars of this film are Harrison Ford, who plays President Ross, and Anthony Mackie, who plays Captain America – a version that can also fly. Once again this action movie adopts the philosophy of action scenes first, who cares about the story – which has not worked for more movies over the years than can be counted.

The attempt to save this movie comes at the end when Harrison Ford turns into a giant red Hulk and a huge fight scene with Captain America. The special effects are good in this scene, but by then the entire movie made almost no sense and anyone watching this cannot wait for the film to be finally over.

This time around the very low 52% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are accurate, only giving this movie this high a rating because of some of the acting with Harrison Ford and Anthony Mackie and the action scenes. This movie is far better than Madame Web which I rated a zero, but is still not worth recommending.

Movie Review: Heart Eyes

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The new Valentine’s Day horror movie “Heart Eyes” is one of the few run-of-the-mill horror movies that is successful in making fun of itself and actually having a sense of humor. Considering the dumb and insane premise of this movie “A mass murderer goes around killing couples during Valentine’s Day while wearing a mask that has eyes that are shaped like red hearts”. Considering an idea this ridiculous, having many scenes of comedy seems mandatory.

Heart Eyes has only one named star, Jordana Brewster, of the Fast and Furious movie franchise. Jordana plays Detective Jeanine Shaw and her name includes a reference to the movie “Hobbs and Shaw” (2019), because her police partner’s last name is Hobbs. The central part of this story is the relationship between two co-workers Ally played by Olivia Holt and Jay played by Mason Gooding, who have a love-hate combative relationship when together, and the rest of the time they are running for their lives trying not to be murdered by a crazy mask-heart-eyes wearing murderer, who much of the time looks too funny to invoke any real fear.

There is the expected story twist at the end, that showed some imagination, even though most of this is rather stupid, but funny enough to hold your attention.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this film is too high 85%, with my rating 75% and a moderate recommendation, only because the screenwriter showed some original ideas and imagination.