NavyOrion

I am a fan of '50s sci-fi, and It Came From Outer Space" is one of the better examples of the genre. It's no blockbuster, but it touches on all the tropes you expect and love in an "invaders from out there" flick from the golden age of monster movies. It's been a few years since I saw the film, so I was looking forward to rewatching it on Amazon Prime in color, in a newly "restored and enhanced" version by a company called "The Last Picture Show."

I figured with modern artificial intelligence driving the restoration, this would look good, and certainly would have to be better than Ted Turner's regrettable and deservedly much-maligned "colorization" efforts of the 1990s.

Wow, what a let-down. The "RINNUVA" process used by The Last Picture Show (I'll just called them TLPS) is just god-awful. This is even worse than "colorization." I don't know if they did anything to the audio (it sounded just fine) but the picture was ridiculously bad. The colors are way too saturated, and shift and flash constantly, especially when there's a lot of motion. Color from one object bleeds over into the surrounding area (a face with and area of sky adjacent to it) or fail to pick up the correct color at all. For example, in an early scene, the faces of several characters are all bright orange with occasional shifts to blue or red when they move, while their hands, motioning in front of their dark jackets, remain gray.

Motion is a problem for them too. Helicopter rotors are moving too fast for the AI to figure out, and instead of resolving as a dark blur in front of the sky background as they should be, are broken up into jumbled blocks that randomly flash through that area of the picture, which is otherwise sky-blue and not darkened at all.

Rather than "enhancing" the viewing experience, TLPS makes a dsitracting mess that only distracts from the charm of the original movie. If this is the state of artificial intelligence, we don't have to worry about the machines taking over just yet.

Go find another way to see "It Came From Outer Space," which is widely available on DVD or Bluray, in glorious black-and-white (those old-school cinematographers knew how to balance light and dark even without color, so it looks pretty good. And TLPS, keep your hands off these B/W sci-fi classics until you figure out what the hell you're doing. You're not there yet.

On the basis of the poster and trailer for this movie, I decided to give it a try when it showed up in my Amazon Prime feed. But after 20 minutes of slogging character development and movie of the week melodrama, I came over to IMdB to check its rating: no surprise, about a three-star score (which is more than I would have given it at that point.) Several of the reviewers admitted they had not even been able to finish it (again, not a surprise.)

But I was surprised to see that there were actually a couple of positive reviews, both of which said the best part of the movie was the final 30 minutes.

So I jumped to the 60 minute mark. And they were right: the last half hour or so is pretty decent. Virtually everything you see in the trailer comes past the one hour mark. All you miss is the family melodrama (do you really care about the man and his wife finding out there expe ting? No, I didn't think so) and a tiny bit of back story.

And I'm going to give you that. OK, there's a General Lucian somewhere (Russia, maybe? It doesn't matter) who's threatening to attack the United States. Tensions are rising. And if things aren't bad enough, now some huge ship has appeared in the sky.

That's it, that's all you need. Now fast- forward to the 60 minute mark, and let the games begin. (You won't know anyone's names (as if you care) or why we care about the drama in their lives (we don't) but none of that is needed. From this point on is where you'll get all the action, some reasonably decent effects, and even a nice little plot twist. And you'll be done and on to the next show in about 30 minutes. Of course it'll be more like 36 if you watch the credits, but if you skipped the first hour, are you really going to do that? Of course you aren't.

You're welcome.

I think the worst thing about "The Monster That Challenged the World" has to be its title. Granted, "A Monster That Causes Some Alarm to Locals in the Immediate Area of the Salton Sea of Southern California" would have been too long for most marquees, but as it stands, most folks would assume this title is trying to is make up for some serious deficiencies. They'd be wrong.

A cut above many schlocky '50s sci-fi flicks, this one plays it quite straight, and punches all the usual buttons: the hero, the attractive love interest in a tight sweater, the egghead scientist who figures out what's actually going on, the kid (not too annoying for once), and of course, the monster.

This time out, it's actually a whole family of monsters, giant prehistoric flesh-eating mollusks awakened from their long sleep by the formation of the Salton Sea (it was a dry low valley like Death Valley until a 1905 flood) and released from ther subterranean prison in 1957 by an opening-scene earthquake. There's actually some scientific basis for this: after the valley flooded, scientists were surprised to find the new sea suddenly populated by brine shrimp that had laid in suspended animation for millions of years. (Of course there's also some throw-away mention of radiation, but what '50s sci-fi DOESN'T involve radiation?)

Still, what could have been same-old same-old is elevated by a bit more careful production: the story isn't bad, the settings and scenes are simple but believable, the background musical score is good, and the acting is better than usual (it's a pleasure to see Hans Conreid as Dr. Rogers, the indispensible scientist.) I can't go without mentioning Milton Parsons: although in a small role, he stole his scenes as oddball Lewis Clark Dobbs, the curator of the local museum who helps out by finding a vital old map, but who is mainly preoccupied with trying (again) to pass Proposition 14A.

But you can't have a monster movie without a monster, and the mollusk monsters here are much better than your average B-movie creature. Yes, it's still just a guy in a rubber suit, but the little details --translucent eyes, excellent detailing on the skin, working mouth parts-- make this one almost believable. OK, not really, but at least it's not so UNbelievable that you are distracted from enjoying the film.

Sure, there are a few of the usual "why the heck did he do that?" moments (why attack a monster with a fire extinguisher instead of the fire AXE that was hanging right over it?) but this is one of the better B-movie monster flicks. Don't let the overwrought title scare you off.

Don't let the 5.9 rating fool you. There's one guy who has given this mess a 10 rating, while I and the other half-dozen people who remember this atrocity have been GENEROUS by giving it mostly two stars.

Yes, there was an Apollo 13 mission, and yes it had a problem. They also got most of the astronauts' names right (although many of the Mission Control personnel are, thankfully, not real persons.) But that's pretty mush where any accuracy ends.

For Pete's sake, the movie is a mistake before it even begins: the TITLE is incorrect! According to NASA transcripts of the flight, mission commander Jim Lovell said "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem" followed by Jack Swigert saying "We've had a problem here." (In fairness, Ron Howard didn't quite get it right in "Apollo 13" either.)

Go watch "Apollo 13" instead, which was based on Jim Lovell 's actual memoir, and had Apollo mission controller Jerry Bostisk and moonwalker Dave Scott as technical advisors. Leave this mess on the shelf.

If you're a "space-head" like me, this is a terrific opportunity for you to see a story that Hollywood has always ignored: mankind's first spacewalk, performed by Alexei Leonov during the flight of Voskhod 2.

Made in Russia, the pacing will at times seem to plod a bit, especially compared to the frenetic pace of most American-made films. And one should not expect 100% historical accuracy: this is a dramatazation, not a documentary, so the filmmakers have "juiced" the drama of some events a bit, although the major outlines are all correct. Even so, it is probably as accurate as "Apollo 13", and more accurate than the entertaining but historically sketchy "The Right Stuff."

That's not to say that this is in any way amateurish. The special effects, where used, are excellent, quite comparable to the best Hollywood has to offer. It's difficult for me to judge the acting since I was reading the English subtitles (I don't speak Russian) but from what I could tell, it was at least serviceable. I met Leonov a couple of times in his later years, and from that limited perspective, I'd have to say Evgeniy Mironov well captures his great humor and adventurous spirit.

Please note: a later edition (under the name "Spacewalker", with an "R" at the end) has been released on DVD and Blu Ray that DOES have an option for English dubbing. I have not seen this one, but the dialog in the trailer seems pretty wooden; it's definitely not any A-list American actors reading those lines. I suspect that this might become a bit distracting after a while, and have a negative effect on viewers' perceptions of the movie.

That would be a shame. This is a very good movie, as entertaining and dramatic as "Apollo 13", with better performances than Gosling's terrible Armstrong in "First Man," and much more scientific accuracy than the laughable "Gravity." It's definitely worth a look.

I honestly didn't come into this one with very big expectations. Unfortunately, it didn't even reach that low bar.

The premise seemed OK, although the marketing implied that this was a human (they even refer to him as an astronaut) meaning there would be a time-travel element, but no, he's just an alien from 65 million years ago, albeit one who is as absolutely human as lazy writing would make him.

Adam Driver plays Mills (this is an alien name?) who is the pilot taking an exploration team to... aw, who rally cares? They're all in suspended animation for the two-year journey, although they must have been taking the scenic route, since a rescue ship is able to reach the planet in just a few days.

Only Mills and an eight-year-old girl (why does an exploration team have an 8-year-old along?) manage to survive the crash on prehistoric Earth after the ship is hit by an asteroid (note to writer: they're not "meteors" until the hit the atmosphere) and spend the rest of the film walking through a not-very-Cretaceous looking forest dodging dinosaurs. Although this situation should lead to at least a modicum of suspense, every encounter is so telegraphed by the direction that you see it coming a mile away.

Of course, 65 million years ago is a very rounded-off time frame, but gee whiz, wouldn't you know it? An extinction-level asteroid JUST happens to be only hours away from hitting the Yucatan and wiping out the dinosaurs, and any aliens who have crashed there in the past day or two. (Great timing! Why couldn't we have crashed last week?)

I'll give credit to the CGI genies, who did a reasonably good job with the diosaurs and the meteor effects, though both were a bit underutilized and often done in dark areas (or even off camera with only holographic puppets filling in) so they wouldn't HAVE to be perfect. In the same vein, congrats also to whoever decided that the alien little girl wouldn't be able to speak English like the alien Mills: as with the dark CGI, a kid can't deliver her lines poorly if she doesn't really have any.

This one really should have gone straight to DVD (not even bluray.) I wondered why it wasn't being shown in the IMAX at my local theater. Now I know. If you ever want to see this on a screen bigger than your TV, I'd suggest you hurry.

"Wakanda Forever" is saved from being the worst MCU movie by one thing: the fact that "Thor: Love and Thunder" was even worse. But at least Thor 4 didn't take almost three hours to suck so badly.

Letitia Wright, as Princess Shuri, was just fine playing a sidekick role and providing some comic relief in "Black Panther," supporting Chadwick Boseman. But forced by his death to take over the lead, she just can't cut it, having neither the acting ability nor the screen presence to carry a movie, let alone the physicality to portray a believable super-hero. Angela Basset, normally an excellent actress of depth and gravitas, is relegated to petulant screaming and temper tantrums until she is mercifully allowed to be killed off. And while Dominique Thorne did well in her role as the black female Tony Stark, after being the driving character for the first act, she was simply forgotten for much of the rest of the movie, until debuting as Ironheart, in a suit that looked like a design rejected for the Power Rangers movie.

Granted, the death of the starring actor left the producers in a bad situation, but writing out the character was the wrong answer. I can't help but think that simply recasting T'Challa would have been a better solution. It would have been difficult to replace Boseman, but if nothing else, maybe they could have attracted better writers.

The cgi was adequate, but wasted on implausible scenes and badly-choreographed fight scenes, which came and went with no more lasting effect than a dance scene in a Baliwood musical. The dialog was bland, the plot was thin and unrealistic, and the villian was not only poorly-motivated and ultimately unthreatening, but frankly silly-looking (pigeon wings on his ankles, seriously?)

I'm glad I didn't see this dumpster fire in the theater, but waited until it was streaming on Disney, so that I didn't waste $15; the bad news is that I wasted almost three hours of my life. Unfortunately, "Wakanda Forever" is just another example of how the Disney movie-by-committee format is bringing down yet another once-great franchise.

IF you can get past the incredibly ridiculous premise, and IF you decide that there must be some unrevealed reason for the stupid actions , and IF you overlook the crappy acting (from the strangest-looking leading man this side of Steve Buscemi), and IF you don't scream in frustration and tun off the movie while watching the SLOWEST-walking two guys that ever tried to avert a nuclear explosion stumble their way across a low-budget dystopia, never mind the incomprehensible, illogical, and downright petty actions of just about every character, then the final 15 minutes of this movie will almost redeem it.

ALMOST. Trust me, the destination just isn't worth the trip.

This is typical conspiracy-theory bullshot that punches all the expected buttons: Illuminati shenanigans, Nazi references, Roswell, flying saucers, bug-eyed aliens, and more. I'm surpised Ickes didn't manage to get chem-trails and "birds aren't real" in there, but maybe he's saving those for later releases. Only the "human civilization living off-world" is even remotely original (especially since the film also claims we never went to the moon!) though no more plausible than the rest. Of course, as recommendations go, "more original delusion" is pretty piss-poor.

Of course there were Nazis were involved in our space program: you had to join the Nazi party to be in rocket research in Germany, and at the end of the war, most of Werner von Braun's team opted to defect to the west rather than be captured by advancing Soviet troops. It was these engineers who formed the backbone of the rocket developments that led to the Saturn V rocket that placed men on the moon. But to suggest anything more nefarious is delusional; Ickes hopes that simply throwing out the word "Nazi" will give his "documentary" some badly-needed credibility. Spoiler: it doesn't.

The remainder of this waste of time is even more completely useless, unless one opts to make a drinking game out of the over-liberal use of the word "secret" (warning: doing so risks the consumption of a fatal amount of alcohol.)

If you're even remotely interested in buying this film, do yourself a favor: spend the money instead to buy more tinfoil for your hats, and spend the time you'll save NOT watching to review your medication list. If you believe any of this crap, you may need to adjust your dosages.

This is an excellent collection of seldom-seen footage, not only well-selected but also beautifully remastered, with great voice-overs and interviews from the astronauts and mission controll personnel. It was particularly good in its extensive use of command module pilot Michael Collins and CAPCOM Charlie Duke (who went on to walk on the moon himself with Apollo 16.) Discovery Channel is to be conrgartulated for making such a fine addition to the Apollo 11 film catalog.

However, the documentary has a serious downside: Erik Thompson. This guy has been doing voiceover work for the typical Discovery Channel schlock about ancient alien telepaths and the Loch Ness bigfoots for so long that he can no longer simply narrate, but insists on breathlessly inserting unneeded drama into an actual historic event that doesn't need to be "boosted" to be interesting; everything he says sounds like the stereotype movie preview voiceover that begins "In a world where..." His script is even worse. A typical example: some "shocking films reveal" astronauts and research subjects being subjected to vibration tests; this is interesting, not "shocking." Moreover, I counted AT LEAST THIRTY instances of the producers patting themselves on the back for their "discovery" of these clips which, although they look really nice in their restored glory, will be fairly familiar to anyone very familiar with the Apollo missions. In addition to the Apollo mission footage, there are shots of the vehicle assembly, astronaut training, news broadcast animations, and more. It's nice to see them cleaned up, and I can't recall any time they've all been assembled in one place like this, but these are hardly "hidden in the archives", "previously unseen footage", "newly uncovered film archives", rare film from the vaults", "deep in the NASA archives", "newly uncovered film", "treasure trove of forgotten films", et cetera et cetera ad nauseum. This kind of "look what we did!" promotion is perfect for the commercials, but is unnecessary and annoying in the documentary itself. Memo to Discovery Channel: YA DONE GOOD, this is a beautifully edited film, but it's not like you discovered the lost continent of Atlantis. We're already watching, so now roll the film and SHUT THE HELL UP about it!

Without these 30+ self-applied pats on the back, I would give this nine stars as one of the best non-technical documentaries I've ever seen about Apollo 11 (why is there no "11" in the title, by the way?) But the constant self-promotion verges on making it unwatchable with the sound on, so I'd actually rate it about a six. Why have I boosted that back up to 8 then? To counter the ignorant pinhead who gave it a zero because "man, everbuddy nose them there moon landin's wuz hoaxed."

For a budget of $800, this was damn good. Otherwise...

Story: 7 Effects: 5 (considering the budget) Acting: 3 Dialogue: 2 Knowledge of physics: 3

Casper: -1.

An interesting premise: vampirism as a medical condition.

Despite all the early 2000s nonsense of "Twilight" and its clones, it's unusual for a vampire to be the protagonist in a film, but you really do end up sympathizing with the stricken woman and her son. Seeing her reluctance as she is forced to embrace her "condition" in order to fight a group of terrorists (who REALLY picked the wrong plane to hijack) keeps this from being just another run-of-the-mill monster movie.

A nice touch was the series of flashbacks in which we see the incident when the woman was first turned into a vampire, her discovery and adaptation to her new life, and her ultimately futile and unsatisfying vengeance.

The last half hour or so very much declines in quality, unfortunately, and devolves into not so much a vampire movie as one about zombies of the "28 Days Later" or "World War Z" variety, as all of the passengers are quickly "turned." Although getting the plane on the ground (in daylight, fortunately) was necessary to give her son and his protector a way out of the situation, a quicker resolution would have been made for a tighter story arc: the last few minutes are a bit tedious, as we wait for the terror-response team to finally encounter the planeload of monsters just prior to a fairly ridiculous end.

The film could have been better executed (and probably will be, when or if it is remade by an American studio with better-known actors) but "Blood Red Sky" is still above the average for never-heard-of-it Netflix movies, and well worth a look.

There's a lot to like about this retelling of the classic King Arthur tale: a great cast, good acting, very good script, excellent costumes and set design, and pretty good (if ordinary) effects. In the hands of a less-narcissistic director, it could have been great, an eight or nine-star movie.

But in the hands of Guy Ritchie, the film plays like an extended music video, something made by an amateur intent on trying out all the film editing tools on his Windows Video software.

The point of making a movie is to tell a story. Except in limited --LIMITED-- circumstances, a story should proceed essentially chronologically. Flashbacks are fine, foreshadowing is fine, but pointlessly hashing together three or four or five scenes just because you're what, bored? That's NOT fine, and is a needless and inconsiderate imposition on your audience: you know, the people who were kind enough to invest their time and money on YUR movie, when there are a lot of others they might watch instead.

An example (not really a spoiler, because there's no way to spoil something so out of sequence): at one point, two characters discuss how to force Arthur to commit himself to the power of the sword Excalibur. But rather than following this with the trip to the place where his test will take place, then the various aspects of the test, then the successful completion of said test, we're treated to a mishmash of: an attack by giant rats, the trip, and attack by giant snakes, the trip, the talk, completion, the talk, an attack by giant bats, a flashback to childhood, a dream sequence, the completion of the test, the trip, the talk, more attacks, more dream sequence, etc., etc., etc., all of these cutting in and out for mere seconds, in no particular order, repeating , back and forth, the dialog overcutting different scenes, with the only unifying factor being an annoying incessant taiko drum soundtrack.

This isn't "style," it's MASTURBATION.

I'm sure all the raw footage still exists somewhere, and I'd love to see this movie re-edited by someone more courteous to his viewers. Sadly, that ain't Guy Richie, and so what might have been a great or at least very good film will be forever stuck in mediocrity.

Six stars, and that's only because I feel sorry for the actors and technicians who did their work well, but were probably as disappointed as I am to see what came out the other end of Guy's sausage grinder.

MAYBE this movie suddenly became great in the last half hour. Maybe the effects suddenly became better than what a typical 12-year-old could produce with a laptop, and the writing suddenly rose from the bottom of the barrel and became profound and intelligent. It could even be that Melissa McCarthy's performance improved to the semi-professional level she showed in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?" or even to the lesser level of "Bridesmaids," and Octavia Spencer finally lost the well-deserved look of embarrassment she carried for the first hour or so.

I'll never know. Heaven knows I tried to keep a brave face and hope for some improvement (and I bet I watched more of this movie than most people have, including the cast of it) but after an hour I just couldn't subject myself to any more. The only reason I watched as long as I did -- the ONLY REASON-- is that it was my turn to pick the movie, and I couldn't stand to see the smug look my wife would have when I threw in the towel. As it turns out, she was so grateful she never said a word, beyond "Oh thank God" when I said we had to find something else.

Looks like I owe her another viewing of "Mama Mia." I can take it. I can take anything. I watched an hour of Thunder Force."

The other reviews I've read here have already gone into fine detail about just WHY this movie sucks out loud: bad writing, bad direction, bad acting, bad CGI, etc. Believe them, they're all true.

Is DC completely broke, that they cannot seem to hire a decent writer? C'mon, Marvel is throttling back for a bit; STEAL somebody, for God's sake! I mean, having the villain defeated by "I rescind my wish" is as bad as Batman freaking out and giving up on his quest to kill Superman simply because their mothers had the same name.

But still, the rest has already been covered, in spades. So I'll just pose a couple of questions I haven't seen anyone address.

First, was there any reason -- I mean ANY reason-- for this film to be set in 1984? I did doze off once or twice while watching it, so maybe I missed something (and if so, I sure as hell am not going to go back through this tour of the cinematic sewers trying to find it) but I can think of no discernible reason why it could not have been set in literally ANY other year since the Chris Pine character's "death" in 1917 (fanboys, if that was a year or two off, bite me.) Setting it in 2020 might have been problematic had they decided to try to incorporate COVID, Biden stealing the election, etc., but why 1984 rather than 2014, or 1964, or whatever?

Secondly, Diana and the other Amazons are supposed to be at least somewhat morally advanced over us mortal slubs; they even emphasized this during the opening scene. So why does she have zero problem with her WWI boy toy demonically possessing the body of some completely innocent engineer? They even go so far as to raid his wardrobe, shack up in his apartment, and leave stains on his sheets, but until giving up her wish proves to be the only way to defeat the villain (no, seriously) she seems perfectly willing to leave the poor guy in limbo forever while she ties Captain Kirk to the bedposts with her golden lasso.

It's a shame that Tome Cruises' egotistical demands that made "The Mummy" such a chore to watch buried the Universal Studios "Dark Universe" project that would have updated all of their stable of 1930's movie monsters. Because if "Invisible Man" is an example of what they could have done, it would have been great.

After suffering through the execrable "Fantasy Island" less than a week earlier, I am astounded to see that this movie was also a Blumhouse production. Talk about your uneven results! Where that film was stupid, boring, poorly-crafted, and tedious, "Invisible Man" was a taut and well-made movie, part sci-fi / horror, part psychological thriller. Seeing the protagonist ever more deeply ensnared by her invisible stalker's mind games, you'll find yourself wondering just how she'll prove her sanity in much the same way you wondered if Richard Kimble would prove his innocence in "The Fugitive."

Add in a clever twist at the end, and this is a movie that is well worth your time and money.

My title pretty much says it all. The same simpletons who loved what JJ Abrams did with his lobotomized "reboot" of the Star Trek universe are similarly enthralled with the Abrams-led final Star Wars trilogy. Strip-mining the work of better and more original filmmakers who came before, this movie (like its two predecessors) is a high-action low-intellect shadow of what once was.

None of the gee-whiz magic that informed the original SW trilogy is left in its cinematic universe, mercilessly wrung out in a higher effort to get uncritical butts in the seats and maximize the toy sales.

I can only conclude that Lucas's original masterpiece has sadly fallen into the hands of those who never understood it in the first place, targeted to consumers either too ignorant or apathetic to know the difference, and cashed in on by an original visionary who no longer gives a damn.

If you like these final three movies, I have nothing but pity and contempt for you.

The thing about AMC's new "A-List" program is that you get to see a lot of movies that you wouldn't otherwise risk $10 on, and sometimes are pleasantly surprised. "Underwater" was not one of those.

The folks saying this was "Alien under the sea" really need to go back and watch "Alien." I'm sure the director had hoped his film would come off that way, but this dreck didn't even competently rip off the superior movie. Jumping into the action practically before the credits ended, there was never ANY character development, meaning you really have no reason to give a damn when a character dies.

Dark lighting and "shaky cam" were probably rationalized as ways to enhance the mood (and maybe even worked for the aforementioned more gullible and undemanding viewers) but were most likely simply budget-cutting measures, to prevent too close an examination of the cheesy monsters.

One simple measure that should have been taken would have been to make the diving suits different colors. At some points it's difficult to determine who is being dragged off to end his or her participation in the movie. Fortunately, by that point you no longer care.

It's been said MANY many times before, but apparently it bears repeating. Hollywood, pay attention: KRISTIN STEWART CANNOT ACT. Look at her face in the movie poster at the top of this page: that is exactly how she expresses any emotion, whether love, hate, joy, fear, envy, lust, etc. It is beyond me why directors keep casting this piece of wood in starring roles, when they might just as well cast a nobody and put her in a Kristin Stewart Halloween mask. I was hoping to at least see her killed off, to prevent any chance of her appearing in a sequel, but I don't think there's any danger of that anyway. Spoiler alert: she does get killed at the end, but it was not satisfying, except to mark the end of a wasted couple of hours. And right to the point she blew herself up, she steadily maintained the expression of someone in the recovery room after a session of electroshock.

Ah well, at least I didn't have to pay for it.

It's a Japanese-language animated climate change teen romance. Do you really need to know more?

First: the technological achievement of the CGI younger version of Will Smith is impressive. This movie is forgettable in terms of cinematic appeal, but will be remembered for being the first truly effective use of a computer-generated actor. Certainly, the limits of casting old, retired, or even deceased actors kin new roles will now be more legal than technical.

(That said, the final scene must have been a complete afterthought: the CGI Smith in that scene was no better (possibly even worse) than the young Arnold Shwarzenegger terminator that appeared briefly in "Terminator: Salvation" ten years ago.)

Otherwise, this is a competent but completely spay movie, with a plot you've seen 50 times: jaded and retired government agent wants out of the business, but knows too much and must be eliminated. The only hook is that they're sending his clone to do it.

I imagine it was the novelty of playing against his younger self that attracted Smith to this project, because he is definitely capable of more, and this film has little else to offer. Maybe, like the character he plays here, he's beginning to to feel his age, and, like his fans, just wishes he could see the young Will Smith back in action one more time.

There's a reason you use the weighted average on IMDb's ratings. There are a helluva lot of people out there who, if they like a movie, give it ten stars, but if they don't care for it, give it one. They have no gray area, no ability to recognize that most movies are somewhere in between. Thus, the weighted average, which tosses out the tens and ones, and gives you the rating of people who THINK.

I don't give out ten-star ratings. I don't do the obligatory standing ovations that seem to follow every damn live performance, and I don't yell "bravo" unless it's actually called for. But I'm giving "Joker" ten stars.

It's rare that I see people sitting in their seats just staring at the credits after the lights to come up, not because they're waiting for some stinger scene, but because they're just too stunned to move. "Joker" did that to the audience with which I saw it. The most common comment I heard in the lobby afterward? "Holy shit."

This movie is a high dive into the deep end of the crazy pool. Fifteen minutes in, I was convinced that it will be at least a nominee for Best Picture, and for my money, the clear winner. If Joaquin Phoenix does not come away with the Best Actor Oscar, it's only because the Academy winners decide that it doesn't count as acting if you're actually crazy, because NOBODY is that good of an actor. Even the score was Oscar-worthy, moody and threatening.

Yes, this is the Joker of the Batman universe. It touches on some of the familiar Batman tropes: young Bruce Wayne, Gotham City, Arkham Asylum. But make no mistake, this is not a comic book movie. This is a fascinating and and powerful and disturbing look at the decline into madness of a troubled person, pushed by events over the edge of the mental chasm. SEE IT.

THIS was a ten-star movie. Bravo!

For the most part, this was an enjoyable and unusual documentary about the Apollo program. Rather than the usual video with voiceover narration, this was made up entirely of clips of educational films, news broadcasts, TV shows, and other varied sources. In doing so, the filmmakers have made a film that really captures the feel of those few years.

However, one can only wonder if they thought they were going to have a third hour in which to tell the story. After studying in excellent detail the development of the rocket and the growth of the program, culminating in the first manned lunar landing by Apollo 11, the remainder of the program is extremely rushed, almost disrespectfully so. The Apollo 12 mission is covered in less than THREE minutes, most of which is devoted to the fact that one of the video cameras was accidentally damaged. The Apollo 13 mission gets slightly better treatment, with 18 minutes of video covering their story, but after a final commercial break, there are only eight minutes left to tell the stories of Apollo 14, 15, 16, and 17. As short as that is, they use a total of only SIX minutes for those four missions, and then waste the final two minutes of a documentary supposedly about Apollo on beauty shots of the space shuttle and International Space Station. (I guess Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz were left on the cutting room floor.)

Maybe this was intended as a two-hour theater release, and the flippant treatment of everything after Apollo 11 reflects edits made to the run time so that 26 minutes of commercials could be shoe-horned in for broadcast. THAT would have been an 8-star or even 9-star documentary, and I would hope a director's cut will someday be released on DVD (Blu-ray would be a waste, considering most of the video is from late-60s / early-70s TV anyway.)

But as it is, I'll give eight stars to the first 63 minutes, and the final 31minutes the three stars it barely deserves. Overall, this is no more than a six.

Just as the ancient Ashumi prophecies foretold, only Godzilla and a giant labradoodle named Caesar can save Okinawa when Mechagodzilla is unleashed by cigar-smoking underground extraterrestrial gorillas.

Do you really need any more than that? This is just good goofy fun. Make some popcorn, switch off your brain, and enjoy the movie.

Forget last year's overrated (and overacted) "First Man." THIS is the Apollo 11 movie you want to see. Working with a treasure trove of seldom seen and previously-unreleased NASA footage, Todd Douglas Miller has made the definitive film record of man's first steps on another heavenly body.

Quite simply, this is the finest documentary about the Apollo 11 moon landing that has ever been made. In fact, aside from the quite natural fact that it does not mention any of the other Apollo flights, Miller's film is probably the best documentary ever made about the early U.S. space program.

Trust me, I've seen them all, and own most of them in my own collection. And yet I was surprised by just how much of this footage, painstakingly restored and edited, was unfamiliar, and even those sections I have seen a few times looked great. For example, for Armstrong's first historic steps onto the moon, rather than using the grainy black-and-white TV picture we've seen so many times, Miller used the color footage shot from the lunar module's window (complete with an occasional reflection of Aldrin.)

There is no narration, other than announcements from NASA's public affairs officer and contemporaneous TV news reports (much of it from Walter Cronkite's historic broadcasts); most of what you hear is the actual communication between the astronauts and Mission Control, though there is some limited voice-over of prelaunch interviews with the Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins, as we see them being suited up for launch. Captions are limited and inobtrusive, but informative (although those not studied in the mission's history will have to look elsewhere for explanations of the famous 1202 and 1201 computer alarms that nearly scrubbed the landing.) There are also some rudimentary (and for casual viewers, useful) animations explaining some of the mission procedures; although I suspect these were created for the film, they have a distinct late-60s "feel" to them, and fit in well with the rest of the picture.

There was not a lot of music, but what score there was did not call attention to itself (a notable exception is a cleaned-up version of John Stewart's "Mother Country," which is seen playing on a tape recorder the astronauts took with them.) It was a pleasure to see film taken by the astronauts themselves during their long trip, as well as the rarely-seen TV broadcasts that the astronauts made both on their way to the moon, and during their triumphant flight home. Even the film during the closing credits was interesting, showing the three astronauts traveling around the country, first in their Airstream trailer in which they were quarantined, then in raucous ticker-tape parades.

This is the documentary that Apollo 11 has needed and deserved, and I salute Mr. Miller for making it. And yet here's a tantalizing foretaste of what might be to come: Miller made this movie after being granted access to a cache of 165 reels of NASA Apollo-era 65mm Todd-AO filmstock... but only 61 reel concerned Apollo 11. Might there be accompanying documentaries of Apollo 8, 10, 12, and 13 in the future? One can hope, and feel assured he will treat this history with the respect and care it is due.

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Incidentally, in December 2018 "Vanity Fair" published a very good article explaining the source of Miller's "new" 1969 film of the mission: "The Found Footage That Provides a Whole New Look at the Apollo 11 Moon Landing." It makes for interesting reading.

This was an OK production of the now-familiar story of the first manned landing on the moon. There are better versions, but this one was pretty good, I'd say about seven stars out of ten.

HOWEVER, I'm giving it a ten-star rating simply to counter the 3-star rating given by a dumbass who didn't know what the hell he was talking about. David Byrne got all bent out of shape about what he perceived as lazy and uninformed set design: "The final straw was when about half way thought the film, green 7-segment LED digital displays were in view. They were not even invented in 1969 and thus were not used in Apollo 11. I had to switch it off at that point - I had enough. "

Sorry to burst your indignant bubble Davie, but the Apollo DSKY (Display Keyboard) computer interface used aboard the Apollo Command Module did indeed have a green LED numerical readout, as even a cursory look on Google would reveal. No, LEDs were not in wide use in 1969, but you can chalk that up as yet another piece of cutting-edge technology developed or first used by the U.S. space program.