I’m not going to lie. The only reason I watched Michael Gracey’s
The Greatest Showman was that it was the topic of one of the sermons at my church. Each year, we have a summer movie series (In 2018, the movies were
Forrest Gump, Good Will Hunting, The Princess Bride, and The Shawshank Redemption. I had seen all four, of course, and watched all of them again before that week’s service to refamiliarize myself with each of these fantastic films. Then, on Labor Day weekend, we have our Family Weekend, where the church’s children sit with their caregivers rather than go to the classes they usually attend. We show a truncated movie version, and this year, it was
The Greatest Showman. So, I added it to my Netflix queue. It arrived two days before my church service, and I watched it the night before. I’m usually not a fan of musicals, but I enjoyed
The Greatest Showman and would consider watching it again one day.
Continue reading The Greatest Showman (2017) →
Had I truly known the plot of the 1973 original, I don’t think there is any way I would have gone my entire adult life without seeing Franklin J. Schaffner’s cult classic Papillon. With that information stated, I am glad I never saw the original before watching Michael Noer’s (Nordvest (Northwest) remake of the same title. I went into the film fresh, with no expectations. Nor did I know anything about the story other than it was a prison movie. But after watching just 30 seconds of the trailer and understanding that prison backdrops are often the set of some of my favorite movies, I knew I would see the film and that I would see it in the theatres.
Over seven years into my movie review website and BlacKkKlansman, this is the first Spike Lee-directed movie I’m reviewing. I realized this when I checked his category and saw that he wasn’t on my list. It certainly isn’t because I don’t enjoy a good Spike Lee movie. It’s more than one of my first 370+ reviews; more than 300 have been since 2010. And while Lee has certainly directed many films since 2010, I haven’t heard of nearly any of them. I did see (and enjoy) 2013’s Oldboy and am pretty surprised I did not write a review on it. It is a movie that I will go back and watch again and review. However, Lee is better known for the movies he directed over a 15-20-year period, starting with 1989’s Do the Right Thing and ending with 2006’s Inside Man. Shockingly, he does not have a Best Director Academy Award nomination to his credit and only has one actual nomination (as a screenwriter for Do The Right Thing). While Lee isn’t a Steven Spielberg, he has directed many memorable movies that people can immediately roll out of their mouths.
Mission Impossible: Fallout could be a template for creating action movies. This is everything you want in a pure action movie, offering the same suspense, mystery, and comedic tones you expect from this top-of-the-line franchise. Tom Cruise (Born on the Fourth of July, A Few Good Men) reprises his most recognizable character (Top Gun came out over 30 years ago. Maverick is great, Ethan Hunt is the identifiable Cruise character, at least for anyone younger than 35). I’ve spent a good part of the last two decades knocking Tom Cruise for his choice of roles, wishing he would return to the types of roles that earned him three Academy Award nominations between 1990-2000. And honestly, at the time, I thought he was phoning it in for box office dollars. I understand an action flick here and there.
“The rush of battle is a potent and almost lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” – Chris Hedges, author of War Is A Force that Gives Us Meaning.