When Mr. Hollands Opus came out in 1995 I thought it was going to be a run of the mill average movie. It was also a very long time since Richard Dreyfuss had a big hit, the last time probably was the “Goodbye Girl” in 1977 where he won the Academy Award for best actor. Dreyfuss is another example of a very talented actor who was once at the top of the world and the lightning never struck again for him, proving what most of already know, that the acting profession is one of the most fickle and difficult ones to get in and stay in for the long term even after you achieve great success.

Mr. Hollands Opus is about a music teacher in an average high school whose real ambition is to be a great music composer. At the beginning of the movie Holland takes the teaching job temporarily, hoping that his real life and career as a music composer will begin someday as he never stopped trying to compose a great symphony through the entire movie. This movie does a great job of reminding us all of life’s reality of having to make a living and raising a family can very often takes away our dreams and largely because of this reality Mr. Holland stays at this high school for 30 years until budget cuts take away his beloved job that eventually proved to be his true calling in life.

After a period of time Holland slowly starts to accept his new job never fully forgetting about his real dream of being a great music composer. He gets married and has a son, who turns out to be deaf which is ironic side story and caused major conflict because Mr Holland’s entire life was about sound and music. As the years go by students come and go and so does the 60’s, the hippie culture and the Vietnam War. Later in the film, Mr. Holland runs into a great singer who he meets during a school music production played by Jean Louisa Kelly. This young woman has ambitions of her own to run off to be on Broadway and slowly a relationship and almost an affair between the two of them begin, which even threatens Holland’s marriage. The musical numbers performed and especially the singing of Kelly during the school musical are outstanding and some of the best moments of the entire movie. At the end of the film, due to budget cuts the entire music department of this high school is eliminated and a surprise ceremony is organized to honor Mr. Holland. As a member of a high school band myself I found this closing scene (see vide below) as one of the best acted and emotional scenes in any movie I have ever seen.

Other outstanding actors in this film included Olympia Dukakis and William H. Macy. Richard Dreyfuss received an Academy Award nomination for this movie and in my opinion, he should have won. Mr. Holland’s Opus is an outstanding and flawless movie and a 100% must see.

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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.