Someone should do a study to determine what was the worst book that made the most money and then spawned 2 more books and 3 movies. I would be very surprised if the 50 Shades of Grey series is not the all time winner for inept writing and movie making that made the most money in the history of the world. What now is even stranger is that the new movie “Book Club” might spark even more interest on this very bad book and movie franchise – making even more money for both the books and the movies. Even during the movie Book Club the 4 main characters in the film, played by Jane Fonda, Mark Steenburgen, Candice Bergen and Diane Keaton comment not only on how bad the book is, but that they were embarrassed even to hold it.

Considering that the first book in the series “50 Shades of Grey” was released in May 2011 and incredibly sold 125 million copies by June 2015 – its rather strange that a movie like this has come out now after so many years. One can only guess at the outrage and disbelief of so many talented authors in the world, who just could not believe that a book this bad could sell so many copies and make so much money. Go figure.

As far as the new movie Book Club, it is very similar to the format of so many multi-story Gary Marshall movies in the past, where one movie has several stories and all of them have a beginning, middle and end. The problem is, just about all of the stories are mundane and boring and none of the 4 stories contained any new idea. While watching this movie that starred 4 very viable but older female stars my guess is that all of them took their parts only to stay active in the very difficult field of acting, despite the very weak screenplay. We all know how difficult it is to get a movie role after a certain age, but in terms of quality this movie is at the low end of the scale – so I would have rejected this part just to save my reputation.

The movie Book Club should be skipped along with the 3 50 Shades Books and 3 very bad movies.

The reviews for “Dead Pool 2”, the sequel to Dead Pool that was released in February 2016 are mostly in the 80% range on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB. Many of the ideas that worked in the first Dead Pool are present in this new version, although I thought it was not nearly as funny as the first one. Dead Pool 2 once again stars Ryan Reynolds as Dead Pool, the cancer ridden and facially deformed super hero who cannot be killed, even if he is ripped in half. I thought the story in this film was much more erratic and off the wall than the first one and for this reason, I lost interest in what was going on several times.

Despite the very solid reviews, I give this movie only a marginal recommendation only for big fans of the Dead Pool character, and Ryan Reynolds sarcastic and at times funny lines.

When your born in the middle of nowhere in South Dakota, where there is nothing but plains, cold, horses and cattle your life options are very limited. You’re probably going to be poor and working on a farm, or training horses or riding dangerous animals in a Rodeo bucking bronco contests hoping you don’t get kicked in the head and become brain damaged for life. This is the story of “The Rider” about a young man who is kicked in the head by a horse in a Rodeo and his life after the accident. Obviously these are all not very good life options, but when your are born and live in the middle of nowhere and live in a trailer with no money, what are your alternatives? As I have said in this blog before with other films I have reviewed, “you’re going along for the ride”. We are all the products of our parents, our DNA and where we are born.

Very unusual for this movie is that the characters are fictional but the actors in “The Rider” are the actual people who lived through the real events in this story. One of the actors is Lilly Jandreau who is the mentally disabled sister of Brady Jandreau who was brain damaged in the Rodeo accident. The main character Brady Blackburn, played by Brady Jandreau does not have severe brain damage and despite his severe injury throughout most of this film, seems to be able to function normally. Another actor in this film was not as lucky and his brain damage was severe and some of the most depressing scenes in this movie involve his struggles in the hospital while Brady visited him.

The ratings for this movie are very high 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, but my rating for this movie is more in the 70% range, mainly because the film dragged too long in several areas and I thought there was enough of a story to tell. The huge vistas of South Dakota were impressively filmed, providing one good reason to see this movie. I thought this was a very simple story, very well told, but due to the other problems, I give The Rider only a marginal recommendation.