Movie Review: The Good Boss

Posted on September 3, 2022 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Javier Bardem, The Good Boss • Leave a comment

What is the definition of a Good Boss? Someone who walks a very fine line between showing empathy and humanity for the people who work for him and is also someone who realizes that the overall good and financial health of the company is the most important thing?

The main idea behind of the new movie “The Good Boss”, starring Javier Bardem, is that trying to be every employee’s best friend, or their father will backfire for many reasons – starting with trying to absorb all of your problems, the inevitable issues with the company and the employee’s problem. This very soon becomes overwhelming and eventually bleeds into the health and well being of the company. Then, if the company fails, everybody loses their jobs after the company goes bankrupt. Being the boss over many people in most cases can be a lose-lose proposition of making the decisions and ultimate responsibility all the more challenging. This is why being a great boss will always be a very fine line between being in charge first and being a human being with empathy towards others you employ second.

This foreign film with subtitles is probably the only movie I have ever seen that completely focuses on the boss of a company – in this case a company that builds very accurate mechanical and electronic industrial scales. Blanco, played by Bardem throughout this very well told story, is constantly being attacked by one problem with an employee (one who is about to get divorced) and another fired employee who is protesting the company with a megaphone and posters outside the entrance to the factory. Making matters worse is Blanco himself making mistakes including having an affair with an intern and another one borne out of total desperation.

This film does a great job showing Blanco’s increasing frantic attempts to resolve all of these problems before a major inspection of the factory happens and his company receives a prestigious award. Several of his decisions are forced on him for the good of the company and others to save himself. The acting and the screenplay are both great throughout these engrossing 2 hours.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for The Good Boss are a very high 92% and I agree with this rating and highly recommend this film.

Amazon Prime Movie Review: Samaritan

Posted on August 28, 2022 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Jannifer Flavin Divorce, Samaritan, Sylvester Stallone • Leave a comment

One can only wonder about the timing of the release of the new Synvester Stallone movie “The Samaritan” and the announcement of his divorce after 25 years from Jennifer Flavin. As this movie was ready for release for probably months, it would obviously be known in advance that there is nothing new about this super-hero-like film, and the odds were high that it would be mostly panned by the critics. Unfortunately movies like this one are reviewed before they are released, and in just about all cases, this greatly reduces the number of people who will see the movie. Having a major associated news story like a celebrity divorce just might save the box office and it seems that might be the case with this film.

For this story, Stallone plays some kind of a twin brother superhero duo called Samaritan and Nemesis. There was an epic showdown between the two brothers some 25 years earlier in this fictional city called Granite, and they were both presumed dead. This story is about a young boy of about 12 years old who discovers that Samaritan is still alive. There are numerous gang members who both employ and terrorize this boy, leading to the depressing and poor environment-crime-ridden scenes that always result in violence and Samaritan coming out of nowhere to save the boy from the gang members. The violence involves lots of people flying in the air from the extreme strength of Samaritan who has the ability to survive being shot by many bullets and even being hit by a car. Other than this there is nothing innovative or unforgettable here and this turns into a low-grade super hero movie rather quickly.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings of 38% are accurate this time around, and this movie should be rated a miss.

Netflix Movie Review: Me Time

Posted on August 28, 2022 by jjcwn • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged Kevin Hart, Mark Wahlberg, Me Time • Leave a comment

Some months ago, in a conference room for some Netflix production meeting, someone said, lets just pair up Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg in some story, some idea. It doesnt matter what that idea is. This does not need a script – we will make money just based on name recognition from two very bankable stars. And so it goes. Q rating over quality. Bankable name recognition over any semblance of a good idea.

The new Netflix movie “Me Time” starring Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg is so bad, that fast forward is your best friend. This film is 100% unwatchable, one of the worst movies I have ever seen. So bad that once again, there is an intense vomiting scene where Kevin Hart eats something bad and vomits all over an outdoor restaurant. For some reason, over the years, too many of the wrong people in charge think that vomiting is funny. Vomiting is disgusting and never funny. Vomiting in a big way in any scene within a bad movie will never rescue that film. As I have said in the past on this web site,vomiting within a bad movie is always a tell tale sign that the film will be horrific. Me Time is yet another example of this phenomenon. This also happened in Kevin Hart’s last bad Netflix movie, “The Man from Toronto” – that included yet another grotesque vomiting scene.

Kevin Hart is arguably one of the greatest stand up comedians of all time, but he has still not made a good “comedy” movie – other than his concert movies, which were all outstanding. The problem here is long term degredation over time might ruin Hart’s comedy movie career. However his serious roles in some recent movies have been overall good, so maybe the obvious solution is, do not make another bad comedy movie and stick with the serious ones.

The bad story of Me Time is about two old friends, played by Kevin Hart and Mark Wahlberg reuniting for a series of idiotic attempted physical comedy events that even include Hart almost being killed by a Mountain Lion – now how funny is that? Regina Hall plays Kevin Hart’s wife, and its a wonder why she took this small role within a horrendous unfunny comedy movie.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this horrendous garbage are a very low 6% and I agree with this rating and rate this movie a “run for your life” big miss.