“To The Stars” is the Latin translation for Ad Astra, James Gray’s (The Lost City of Z, The Yards) powerfully ambitious space travel movie that features astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt – By the Sea, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) going from Earth to the moon to Mars to Neptune in an attempt to stop pulse bursts that have been devastating the Earth that has taken thousands of lives are a poised to take thousands more. The perceived bursts are thought to be coming from The Lima Project, a missing exploration ship piloted by Roy’s father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones – The Fugitive, The Company Men), presumed destroyed decades earlier. Taking the story out of it for a second, Ad Astra is a visually stunning masterpiece that deserves a viewing on the largest screen possible. It doesn’t quite feel like you are floating in outer space (like the equally brilliant Gravity does), but it’s not that far off.
Just because two people embark on an extended vacation to one of the most beautiful places in the world doesn’t mean that happiness is guaranteed to come with them. Such is the tale of Vanessa (Angelina Jolie – Girl, Interrupted, Changeling) and Roland (Brad Pitt – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Moneyball), a married couple of 14 years who set out for a remote French seaside town for some quiet time together in a local hotel that offers a stunning view of the landscape it sits next to, which happens to be the Mediterranean Sea. He’s a writer looking for inspiration. She’s a retired ex-dancer. But, unfortunately, all is not well and has not been well for quite some time in the Angelina-directed (Unbroken) By the Sea.
Oliver Stone’s (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July) Any Given Sunday was a movie I saw in the theaters in 1999. While I saw bits and pieces on cable television over the years, my second watch of this film wasn’t until 2019. So first, it doesn’t feel like this film is 20 years old. Second, except for a few technology pieces (mainly cell phones), it felt like this movie could have been released this year and still give the same message with a nearly identical look and feel. The movie holds the test of time; sometimes, that’s one of the best things you can say about a film. Unfortunately, that is the best thing about this movie.
Lasse Hallstrom’s (The Cider House Rules, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape) brings a fresh taste to a small, mythical French village in 1959 in his new film Chocolat. This fictitious fable delivers a gentle, kind, and uniquely original message. Its peculiar characters, everyone-knows-everyone small-town vibe, new neighbor intrigue, and sympathetic humor mix together more sweetly than the many chocolate recipes created by the film’s protagonist, Vianne (Juliette Binoche – The English Patient, Dan in Real Life).
Somewhere inside Oren Moverman’s (Time Out of Mind, Rampart), The Messenger is a pretty good movie. It has the right tone. It has the right cast. It has the right setting. It has the right director. It just has the wrong plot. Well, I shouldn’t say it has the wrong plot, but I should say that the plot is a bit flawed. And it’s not even faulty so much as it is incongruent. It follows a timeline that we are uncertain of. Does this movie take place over a few weeks, a few months, a little bit more, or somewhere in between. It’s an integral part of the story to know the movie’s time frame because it helps us justify or not justify some of the actions of its characters. The longer the period that this movie takes place, the more likely it is for me to believe the story. The shorter it is, the less likely I am. The reason for this is the characters change too much. And I am not saying people can’t change over a short period, but it seems a stretch for all characters to change how they did in that brief period. But the time frame is never stated. It is implied to be three months, but it isn’t conclusive. For me, it doesn’t help the movie. It leaves me with the burning question of when to go from start to finish.
“To The Stars” is the Latin translation for Ad Astra, James Gray’s (The Lost City of Z, The Yards) powerfully ambitious space travel movie that features astronaut Roy McBride (Brad Pitt – By the Sea, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) going from Earth to the moon to Mars to Neptune in an attempt to stop pulse bursts that have been devastating the Earth that has taken thousands of lives are a poised to take thousands more. The perceived bursts are thought to be coming from The Lima Project, a missing exploration ship piloted by Roy’s father, Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones – The Fugitive, The Company Men), presumed destroyed decades earlier. Taking the story out of it for a second, Ad Astra is a visually stunning masterpiece that deserves a viewing on the largest screen possible. It doesn’t quite feel like you are floating in outer space (like the equally brilliant Gravity does), but it’s not that far off.
Just because two people embark on an extended vacation to one of the most beautiful places in the world doesn’t mean that happiness is guaranteed to come with them. Such is the tale of Vanessa (Angelina Jolie – Girl, Interrupted, Changeling) and Roland (Brad Pitt – 
Oliver Stone’s (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July) Any Given Sunday was a movie I saw in the theaters in 1999. While I saw bits and pieces on cable television over the years, my second watch of this film wasn’t until 2019. So first, it doesn’t feel like this film is 20 years old. Second, except for a few technology pieces (mainly cell phones), it felt like this movie could have been released this year and still give the same message with a nearly identical look and feel. The movie holds the test of time; sometimes, that’s one of the best things you can say about a film. Unfortunately, that is the best thing about this movie.
Lasse Hallstrom’s (
Somewhere inside Oren Moverman’s (Time Out of Mind,