From Dictionary.com: The theory of Karma can be thought to be an extension to Newton’s third law of action and reaction where every action of any kind including words, thoughts feelings, the totality of our existence, will eventually have a reaction, same type of energy coming back to the one that caused it.

The one main theme to come from all great movies about the Mafia and people who indiscriminately commit crimes of stealing, arson, money laundering, assault and murder is that one day, they themselves will pay for their crimes, with either a very long prison term, or murdered themselves. This is the very definition of Karma. We all want to believe that what goes around, comes around, and for the men in the Mafia that seems to be the way of things for all who choose that way of life. A life of easy money from drugs and crime as a member of the Mafia comes with a lifetime of looking over your shoulder, because your day of reckoning is always coming.

The new movie from director Martin Scorsese, “The Irishman”, is mostly about Frank Sheeran, played by Robert De Niro, who was a close friend and bodyguard for Jimmy Hoffa, played by Al Pacino. This outstanding film, that runs over 3 hours, has a great deal of speculation about who ultimately killed Hoffa, but also suggested that the Mafia was responsible for the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy Assassination possibly the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was also suggested the the Mafia was responsible for getting John F. Kennedy elected in 1960 with voter fraud in the state of Illinois. Instead of receiving favors from the new President, including being able to build Casino’s in Cuba, Bobby Kennedy, the President’s brother became Attorney General, and aggressively prosecuted the Mafia criminals who got the President elected in the first place. This betrayal caused a great deal of hatred towards Kennedy with members of the Mafia and mostly Jimmy Hoffa, who tried to get even with Kennedy after he was elected. This movie is also about the corruption of the Unions led by Hoffa and the illegal no interest loans taken from the Union Pension funds to help Mafia causes.

The story of The Irishman is both violent and so engrossing, but most will not even notice that this movie runs over 3 hours. The ease that Frank Sheeran demonstrates with every one of the many murders he commits in this movie is hard to watch, but typical of people like this, who kill people like it is a trivial act. This movie will remind many of the 1990 Scorsese production of “GoodFellas” which is the equal of this film with both its extremely impressive story and violence. A director as great as Martin Scorsese, takes years to release a new film, this one written by screenwriter Steven Zaillian. It is always very impressive to realize the time it took to create the attention to detail and quality very evident in this great movie. The new face replacement technology in this film, making all of the major actors look much younger was another extremely impressive achievement.

For the second time in a year, this movie was released with a very small number of theaters, and ultimately will be released on Netflix on November 27, 2019. The last time this happened was with last years great movie Roma. Given the Irishman’s very high 159 million dollar budget, it is a risk for Netflix to finance this movie, hoping that millions will sign up for the service on 11/27 – where some will just buy the service for one month and others will stay with the service long term. This new Netflix paradigm for releasing films, may eventually replace the standard methods of releasing films in movie theaters.

The Irishman unites Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci for the first time along with many other very good actors including Ray Romano, Harvey Keitel, Anna Paquin, Steven Van Zandt and Sebastian Maniscalco. As with all Scorsese productions, this film is outstanding, and should win for best picture of the year, along with several more for acting and other categories. Robert De Niro should definitely receive an Oscar Nomination for best actor. I highly recommend The Irishman as the best picture of 2019.

The definition of empathy from Dictionary.com: The psychological identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another.

Regardless of anyone remembering the story of Harriet Tubman from high school history, everyone owes it to themselves to see the new movie “Harriet”. Finally realizing the full story of Harriet Tubman will give everyone even more appreciation to what this great woman did to save so many people from slavery.

What was so great about Harriet Tubman was her empathy for other people. Once she escaped slavery herself to the city of Philadelphia, a miracle in itself, Tubman returned many times to save other slaves without regard for her own safety. In the end she saved 70 other slaves and some years later, actually led a battle in the Civil War that rescued an additional 750 slaves – an amazing story that I never knew about.

As with every movie about the horrendous and cruel world of pre-Civil War slavery, watching many of the scenes in this film will make any normal person’s skin crawl, with the constant use of the N word, and the endless cruelty of the slave owners towards human beings that they believe are their property. The best line in this movie from Harriet Tubman is “No person should ever own another person”. This one sentence could be considered the entire reason for the Civil War.

The acting in this movie is outstanding, starting with Cynthia Erivo, who plays Harriet Tubman, who was known as Minty when she was a slave. The rest of the cast are mostly unknown actors, with the exception of Janelle Monáe who plays a free black woman who lives in Philadelphia and provides a great contrast between herself Harriet Tubman after she escaped from slavery.

Harriet has solid critical numbers, including 72% from Rotten Tomatoes and my rating is about 80% due to the very well told story about an important part of American History. I recommend Harriet.

For “Last Christmas”, starring Emilia Clarke, the question is; can it still be an uplifting story, if the main character is a struggling young woman named Kate, who is almost homeless? Who has to sleep in the couches of her few remaining friends to survive? Who has a bad job working as an elf in an all year Christmas store in London? Who has tried for years, like so many other young people with a dream, to break into show business with no prospects and no luck?  Unfortunately, despite the likability of Kate and her endearing smile regardless of her horrendous lot in life, I found this movie mostly a downer because there is nothing funny about any young person with a life like this. There will never be anything uplifting about being homeless, a reality faced by far too many millions of people in this world.

There is also a very unusual love story in this film, with a twist that I did see coming but was still very well done.  Kate’s love interest Tom is played very well by actor Henry Golding. The other issue is that there are too many back stories mostly unrelated to the main story that at times seem disconnected and erratic involving Kate’s sister and her mother, played by actress Emma Thompson, who also wrote the screenplay.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for Last Christmas are a low 49% and my rating is about 70% only for the acting of Emilia Clarke and music of singer George Micheal, with a very marginal recommendation.