Category Archives: Drama

Movie Review: Jay Kelly

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The story of the new film “Jay Kelly” is about an aging, famous actor who experiences the highs and lows in his career as a successful movie star while trying to figure out if all of that fame and money was worth it, considering his divorce from his first wife, and his estrangement from his two daughters who hate him for abandoning them so many times while he traveled the world, acting in movies.

Jay Kelly (George Clooney) seems the perfect actor to play this part, due to his age and many years of fame in the acting profession. Kelly’s long-time agent, Ron Sukenick (Adam Sandler) is at odds much of the time with Kelly as they disagree about what the best movie roles that Kelly should play at this stage of his career. The other ongoing conflict is whether Ron and Jay are really friends or just business associates, because for many years, Jay has been paying Ron 15% of all of his earnings. This argument comes to a climactic conclusion at the end of the film. Adam Sandler is once again very good in one of his few serious acting roles, the last one being “Uncut Gems” (2019). Sandler should do more serious dramatic acting roles, rather than continue to make mostly unfunny comedy movies that for too much of the time, do not work.

There is some good dialogue and messages about life in this movie, especially in the many arguments between Kelly and his daughters, with Jay trying to convince his daughters and himself that he was not a bad father, he was just trying to do two things that could never coexist at the same time. Be a famous and wealthy actor and be there for his daughters when they were young.

There is an argument and fight between Kelly and a mostly failed acting friend (Billy Crudup) from years ago, that is told through the many flashbacks in this film, as Kelly went on an audition to read with his friend and then wound up getting the important part. Part of the acting profession, due to its constant rejection and precarious financial reality is the extreme jealousy of so many very talented actors who just never get their lucky break.

This movie has a large number of well-known actors, including Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough,
Stacy Keach, Isla Fisher and Greta Gerwig, the wife of the director and co-writer of this film, Noah Baumbach.

The conclusion of this movie is about a major tribute to Jay Kelly in Italy, and the train ride Jay took to get through the many towns and villages in Italy. The tribute showed some movie scenes in the career of George Clooney, and not new scenes for his fictional character in this story.

Mainly for the life messages and solid acting in this film, I do agree with the 79% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and do recommend it.

Movie Review: Wicked: For Good

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There are many things to admire about the two Wicked movies, the final one, “Wicked: For Good,” released on 11/21/2025. This movie has been in the planning stages for many years, and both films were shot together, starting in December 2022. The entire production was put on hold in July 2023, and then resumed and finally wrapped in late January 2024. The production costs for the two films was a huge $455.8 million and after receiving a tax reimbursement from the U.K. resulted in a net cost of $370.7 million.

What I admire the most is the large amount of man-hours that went into creating the elaborate sets, musical arrangements, costumes, screenwriting, and acting for two movies based on the long-running Broadway play. The brilliant move that the producers of Wicked pulled off was releasing Wicked in two films over a period of a year. The reasons were that the movie would be too long, and as we find out in the latest release, there are too many slow and boring parts in the second movie that would have ruined the high ratings and box office if these scenes were included in the first movie. Brilliantly, the first movie, which received a very high 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, set the stage to maximize the profits the second movie will make, as the anticipation for the second movie a year later increased the odds of much higher box office, despite the much lower 70% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.

The problem with this second film is that much of the story is too slow and erratic, with not enough interaction between the two main stars Glinda (Ariana Grande) and Elphaba (Cynthia Erivo). The ending does have a very well-done and highly emotional reunion between these two characters, with an emotional song at a level of quality more frequent in the first movie. The story about how Elphaba becomes a wicked witch, because of her quest to help animals who are not being treated well by the Wizard of Oz, is somewhat convoluted within both films.

Unfortunately, the low Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 71% are correct this time, mainly because of the high quality of the first movie and the drop-off in the second movie. The rabid fans of Wicked will mostly be disappointed at the pacing and quality of this last movie. The most obvious solution would first be to have more scenes with Glinda and Elphaba with them acting and singing together. To be true to the Broadway play, there were just too many slow-moving and unnecessary parts in this second story.

For any true fan of “Wicked” it would be impossible not to see this second movie, which does have enough good parts to recommend.

Movie Review: Sisu: Road to Revenge

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The new fictional World War II movie “Sisu: Road to Revenge” is not really a movie, but more of a series of violent action scenes with one man from Finland trying to get revenge against the entire German army. The reason for Aatami’s (Jorma Tommila) revenge trek, other than his country being invaded by Germany is not very clear, not that this matters in an unusual movie like this one.

The action scenes are almost all crazy, impossible, and insane, almost as off-the-wall as the inane action scenes in the latest Fast and Furious movies. The other obvious issue is that no human being can be injured as severely as Aatami and still be alive.

The only known actor in this foreign film is Stephen Lang, who plays the German leader trying to kill Aatami. There is an extremely violent fight scene at the end of this movie that is both impossible to describe and violates all laws of physics and basic logic. This last scene is the entire movie in a nutshell.

This movie is difficult to review, so I will agree with the very high 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but only for the intense war action scenes. I will give this movie only 50% for its very limited screenplay and almost no dialogue. I recommend this film only for those who enjoy gratuitous violent action scenes and don’t mind a lack of a story.