For the new horror movie “LongLegs” the one standout is the perfect environment for a movie like this. Dark depressing town, every house has dark walls, always either raining or about to rain.
The character Longlegs is played by a completely unrecognizable Nicolas Cage, who must have had hours of makeup every day to get him to look like this horrific mass-murdering character.
The depressing reality of the life of an FBI agent who has to investigate horrendous murder scenes, see autopsy pictures, and deal with mass murderers like the one represented in this film. After seeing this movie, it makes you wonder why anyone would want to be an FBI agent with a job like the ones depicted in this story.
The main character and FBI agent is Agent Lee Harker, played by Maika Monroe. Monroe does a good job at playing a shy, slightly autistic, genius crime investigator with her boss Agent Carter played by Blair Underwood in one of his first movie roles in a long time. The entire story is weird, involving devil worship and a series of hand-made life-size girl dolls that lead to a convoluted and insane ending that does not make enough sense to provide a satisfying conclusion.
The Rotten Tomatoes critics rating of 87% is too high, with a more correct 65% audience rating that I agree with. This movie is a pass, despite seeing Nicolas Cage in the most insane makeup I have ever seen.
On July 20, 1969, after 10 years of effort and the work of over 400 thousand workers from numerous external vendors who assembled and tested thousands of parts in one of the most dangerous and ambitious missions in human history, NASA (The National Aeronautics and Space Administration) landed two men on the moon.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first two men on the moon for Apollo 11. After Apollo 11 five more successful missions to the moon happened, ending with Apollo 17 on December 7, 1972. The one failure, Apollo 13 on April 11, 1970, did not make it to the moon due to an explosion, that turned out to be one of NASA’s finest moments when they saved the lives of three Astronauts and brought them home despite impossible odds, the subject of Ron Howard’s great film, “Apollo 13” (1995).
Since the last moon landing in 1972, five movies have been released suggesting that the moon landings were all faked. “Capricorn One” (1978), “Astronauts Gone Wild” (2004), “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Moon” (2001), “Dark Side of the Moon” (2002), “Room 237” (2012). The last movie, Room 237 was a documentary about Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” (1980) that had clues about Kubrick’s involvement in possibly faking the moon landings.
Considering the ongoing conspiracy theories documentaries and movies that still proclaim that the NASA moon landings were faked, it makes no sense that now after over 50 years NASA has not come up with a huge marketing campaign that includes two-hour documentaries, segments on 60 minutes, books, magazines that finally put to rest forever, these constant lies about the moon landings being faked.
Rather than an aggressive marketing campaign putting all of the conspiracy theories to rest, NASA policy through the years has been “Overall, NASA provides ample evidence and relies on the scientific community to support the reality of the moon landings, focusing its efforts on continuing space exploration and scientific discovery.” However, taking the high road for over 50 years has not killed the ongoing lies about the moon landings. The new movie “Fly Me to the Moon” is yet another film that includes a storyline about Apollo 11 being faked by a Hollywood producer and director.
Fly Me to the Moon stars Scarlett Johansson as Kelly Jones, an advertising executive hired by NASA to promote the space agency and raise money for the space program by linking the agency to as many products as possible. Channing Tatum plays Cole Davis a NASA mission administrator who is in constant conflict with Kelly Jones as she tries to market NASA to make money for the space program. The original idea of this film is at first very good, with some good drama and comedy as ongoing problems and arguments between the two main characters carry this story. During the last 1/3 of this movie, Moe Berkus, a government official working directly with the White House, played by Woody Harrelson comes up with an idea to have a fail-safe video feed that NASA will show the world, in case something goes wrong if/when the Astronauts land on the moon. The good part of this is that this movie does not proclaim that the moon landing was faked, only that the attempt to fake it did exist to save NASA from potential embarrassment. What follows is what comes off as mostly a comedic parody ending that saves this story from being just another conspiracy theory movie and in some ways tries to make fun of the 50+ year “the moon landings were faked” conspiracy theories.
As far as the movie, that acting was good, some of the comedy did work, some other parts did not. The Rotten Tomatoes rating of only 67% is too low, with my rating a solid 75% and a recommendation because this film is entertaining enough to recommend.
The 4th installment of the Beverly Hills Cop franchise – “Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F” is not about movie making as much as it is about risk aversion. Producers are always afraid of losing money, or at the very least recouping their investment. Movie-making has always been a very risky business.
The 3rd Beverly Hills Cop movie in the franchise “Beverly Hills Cop III” was a big failure when it was released in 1994. The producers of this 4th film were clearly afraid of another bomb, so decisions were made before this movie was finally greenlighted, after 30 years since the last film.
The first idea was to make the movie streaming with Netflix, to avoid the huge distribution costs. Unfortunately, the next idea was to provide way too many small reminders of the first two movies, throughout this 4th installment. This included having the same music from the original film – especially during some of the chase scenes. Eddie Murphy, as Axel Foley is once again driving a huge truck during a chase scene as he did in each of the first two movies. The same mansion that was used in the shoot-out conclusion of the first movie was once again in this film. The same huge large-scale truck area used at the end of the second movie was used again in this one. Foley’s decision to move to Beverly Hills based on a crime originating in Detroit happens again in this film. It seemed that any thoughts of originality for this 4th film were thrown out in favor of fear of losing money from producing another bad movie. The producers thought they had a better chance of success if they just repeated what worked in the first two movies.
As far as the acting, it was OK, but Eddie Murphy was not nearly as funny as he was in the first two films, another major problem with this 4th movie in the franchise. The comedy part of these films are the main reasons why the first film was such a big hit 40 years ago. Judge Reinhold returns as Billy Rosewood, John Ashton as Officer Taggart, Paul Reiser as Jeffrey Freidman, and Bronson Pinchot as Serge, who was also not nearly as funny as he was in the first film. The two new additions are Kevin Bacon as a corrupt police captain and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Detective Bobby Abbott. The entire story was very run of the mill, with the addition of Axel Foley’s estranged daughter played by Taylour Paige. Unfortunately there is nothing new in this plot that we have seen many times before in so many police dramas, with the expected shoot out at the end – in the same exact house as the first movie.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a correct 65% and unfortunately, just like Murphy’s last sequel, “Coming to America 2”, released on Netflix in 2021, this attempt to awaken another movie franchise has failed. I do not recommend this movie.
A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies. 