Category Archives: Uncategorized

Netflix Movie Review: Bruised

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Like many people who are fans of normal boxing, that has rules, 16 ounce gloves, a referee and long standing history and traditions – it will always be hard to understand why so many people seem to like MMA (Mixed Martial Arts). Athletes can kick each other in the head. When a person is knocked down, the other fighter and leap on top of them, and continuously punch them in the head. In other scenario’s one fighter can almost strangle the other fighter into either submission or unconsciousness. One can only wonder how many fighters have died in the ring or are permanently brain damaged. So did boxing all of the sudden become either too boring or not violent enough? Women seem as prevalent in this sport as men and again for most of us, nobody really wants to see two women in a ring almost killing each other.

Recently on a talk show, Halle Berry who directs the new Netflix movie “Bruised” admitted she has always Recently on a talk show, Halle Berry who directs the new Netflix movie “Bruised” admitted she has always been a fan of MMA – for reasons unknown, and this is the reason why she decided to both act and direct this pretty bad movie. Every scene is dark and depressing with the main character (a former women MMA champion, Jackie Justice played by Berry) mired in an abusive relationship with her former manager. Jackie is reunited with her young son from a previous relationship, who refuses to talk(perhaps because the young actor was embarrassed be in this film). The payoff is Jackie’s comeback after years of inactivity, with the rest of this movie just filler until the final championship fight. Who really cares about yet another Rocky-like-clone-payoff-in-the-end ripoff?

The Rotten Tomatoes average reviews for this bad MMA movie is a correctly low 57%. Miss this mess and see any other boxing movie.

Movie Review: House of Gucci

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While watching this too long 2 hour and 37 minute movie – I kept thinking about better titles other than “House of Gucci”. How about “House of Chain Smokers”, “House Full of Matches”, “How To Get Lung Cancer”. In all my years of going to the movies as a hobby, I have never seen more smoking in a film than this one. Not even close. Either a character was constantly smoking, or lighting up a cigarette, or grabbing for a cigarette – non stop in about 95% of every scene. My only explanation is that the producers realized that getting funding for this soap opera about the Gucci family was going to be difficult – mainly because the script was not any good. So, they lobbied every cigarette company in the world and begged them to send them money, promising non stop smoking in almost every scene in return. Smoking can kill you, in about 100 different ways, so why is the movie industry allowing this level of money over not promoting a huge human health hazard?

What is most hard to understand about this mostly bad movie is how they got Al Pacino, Lady Gaga, Jared Leto (unrecognizable in his role Paolo Gucci – with some pretty bad acting), Jeremy Irons and Adam Driver to agree to make this film, after they read the script? Then add the extremely respected Ridley Scott who directed this film. This story also commits the ultimate cardinal sin – its way too boring to keep anyone’s attention for any length of time. There are good signs that Lady Gaga can be a very good actress and some of her scenes with Adam Driver were good – but unfortunately the screenplay is just not good enough for anyone to care about the acting.

As far as I could tell, the only message within this story is that even if you are super rich and super lucky, you will still have problems. Just problems of a different proportion and different level of importance. One of the problems of being rich is that other people will be gunning for you – trying to your steal money in so many different ways. Being rich and famous can involve constantly looking over your shoulder to see who is coming around the corner.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for House of Gucci is a very low 61% for many reasons. I agree with this rating and do not recommend this film.

Movie Review: King Richard

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While watching the new movie “King Richard” I wondered what it must feel like to be either Venus or Serena Williams, with their many titles, huge wealth and fame and realize every moment that were it not for their father Richard Williams, played by Will Smith in this film, none of what they have would have been remotely possible.

Richard Williams was not a perfect husband and father(he actually had other children with several other women), but as parent raising hugely successful daughters, its impossible to imagine anyone doing a better job than he did. You cannot help but be impressed by this story of a poor man holding onto a bad security job at night and spending his entire life devoted to making sure his 5 daughters were extremely successful. Richard Williams was beaten up several times in this story by thugs and criminals in the neighborhood, most of the time trying to protect and defend either Serena or Venus when they played Tennis on run down Tennis courts in dangerous neighborhoods in Compton California.

Most of this story has to do with the early successful Tennis career of Venus Williams who is one year older than Serena. Richard’s obsession with protecting Venus from the vultures and coaches in the Tennis world is the center storyline throughout this film. At times it seemed that his obsession was helping his daughter at other times it seemed that he was hurting her career. There are many Tennis scenes in this film that showed the rise of Venus Tennis career and the two young girls in this movie Demi Singleton and Aunjanue Ellis both do an excellent job protraying Serena and Venus.

In 2015 the movie “Concussion” with Will Smith playing the doctor who discovered the rampant brain injuries of so many NFL players was released. What followed was a huge controversy when Smith was not even nominated for an Oscar after his outstanding performance. This time around, Will Smith just might win his first Oscar as his performance in this movie is the best of his career, even surpassing his role in “The Pursuit of Happyness” released in 2006.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for King Richard are an accurate and extremely high 92% and I view this movie as one of the best of 2021.