March 2018 – Homeschool Mom Movie Mavin – Type "AUDIO" into the search box for AUDIO version. And remember…EDUCATION DOESN'T HAVE TO ALWAYS COME FROM A BOOK

READY PLAYER ONE – A GEEKATHON – WHEREIN ONE DYSTOPIAN SOCIETY IS REPLACED WITH ANOTHER

SHORT TAKE:

Forget HAVING Easter eggs in it – Ready Player One really IS one big Easter egg of visual and auditory memorabilia set against a virtual reality treasure hunt but leaves one wondering who the real bad guy is.

LONG TAKE:

The premise to Ready Player One follows Wade (Tye Sheridan – the new Scott Sommers/Cyclops), a participant in a global virtual reality treasure hunt with the prize of ownership of the virtual world Oasis and virtually (pun intended) unlimited wealth and power. Not only is he competing against all the other Gunters (Easter Egg Hunters), but finds himself up against an "evil" competitor company IOI, run by Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn who was both the doomed sinister scientist in Rogue One and delightful as King George VI in Darkest Hour), which produces the virtual reality equipment used in the Oasis and will stop at nothing in either the virtual world or the real one to win the prize.

If you thought the Collector in Guardians of the Galaxy had an abundance of references to other movies, wait – because the Collector's Showroom compared to Ready Player One is like comparing a birthday candle to a blowtorch.

I supposed it did all start with the 1979 Atari game Adventure. A departing employee placed his name in a video game, like the signature on a painting, which only appeared when a certain spot was hit. Atari management decided it was a good marketing ploy and started planning similar little "treasures" which eventually came to be known as "Easter eggs".

As time went on the same ploy began to be used in movies. Like product placement, subtle and not so subtle references to other movies started turning up in odd places. Pixar is famous for having the Pizza Truck from Toy Story in all of their movies – as an advertisement or a toy or some other clever way to implant the image. The same for the ball in the first animated Pixar lamp short, and the voice of John Ratzenberger in EVERY Pixar movie – Hamm in Toy Story, the Flea circus manager in A Bug’s Life, a construction worker in Up, a crab in Finding Dory. "Easter Eggs" all. And they can be both obvious and obscure in other movies. Stan Lee appears in all the Marvel movies with a cameo and one liner. Harry Dean Stanton from the doomed Nostromo in the original Alien movie portrays a security guard in The Avengers and asks a transformed Banner who just landed/crushed a building as the Hulk, if he is an "alien".

Easter eggs can manifest in a variety of ways – a musical theme or song, a toy, a picture or photo, the appearance of an entire character as a cameo. And I do not think it is a coincidence that the vast majority of movie Easter eggs occur in sci fi and animated movies because THAT is where the geeks are! And the geek world of video games is where they were birthed.

So, as a fellow geek, it is without fear of revealing any significant spoilers that I can safely say Ready Player One is pretty much one BIG Easter egg, or more accurately a Conga-line of familiar images, a plethora of homages, a virtual EXPLOSION of Easter eggs – and just in time for Easter.

If you took a snapshot pretty much anywhere in the virtual reality, Oasis, created by Ready Player One you could probably count 15 Easter eggs in any given random shot. I went with my sister, my mother-in-law, my son-in-law and my oldest daughter and each of us caught images or characters or houses or landscapes or music themes that others of us did not. And I feel certain that even if we pooled our collective observations there were dozens in every shot that none of us saw.

The homages in Ready Player One is an overload of nostalgia, almost an assault on the senses of little treasures: from Freddy Kreuger to the house out of the Wizard of Oz to the Charm of Making from John Boorman’s Excalibur to the Star Fleet insignia from Star Trek.

Not all the Easter eggs are quite so obvious. Some are thematic or even in the structure of the premise. The movie can be seen as a homage to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory starting with the trailer's remix of "Pure Imagination". RPO's Halliday (Mark Rylance – Bridge of Spies, Wolf Hall, Dunkirk), the co-inventor of the virtual reality world, Oasis, has a mental candy factory which he plans, posthumously, to leave to the player who completes three challenges and assorted surprise trials which, like Charlie's decision about to whom to give the Unending Gobstopper at the end of Willy Wonka, tests the integrity as well as the video gaming prowess of the players.

There is also a magical whimsicalness and endearing awkwardness to Rylance’s Halliday, much like there is to Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka. Halliday is a kind of combination Bill Gates, Willy Wonka, and Rainman – all products of the 70s and 80s. There's also an evil competing Corporation who is out to get the secrets of Oasis at all cost, much like Slugworth is portrayed as being after the secrets to the Wonka Factory.

Then again, the main characters and their friends play out much like Dorothy and her friends in The Wizard of Oz who have real life counterparts in Kansas. The Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion and the Scarecrow in Oz are farm hands on a ranch owned by Dorothy's aunt and uncle. In Ready Player One, similarly, Art3mis (not a typo) a fairy like character and Wade’s primary ally (Olivia Cooke), along with a Ninja, and a cyborg all have human counterparts in the real world.

BEYOND HERE BE MASSIVE SPOILERS – I MEAN REALLY – DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU

But seriously – how much spoiler can there be when you know this is a Steven Spielberg movie? Nice kid and his friends go up against an evil corporate Empire. Do you really think Spielberg is going to go Brazil on us? So the kids will win……………….sort of.

BUT

What if I told you about a movie featuring an opium addicted kid who is given the opportunity to win ownership of the Opium syndicate through a series of physical and mental challenges. When he wins, predictably, in the end, he frees the slaves made to work in the field but continues making the opium, thereby perpetuating the creation of voluntary slaves who willingly take his product. You would probably think this was some kind of Chinese film noir. And I'm not sure you would think the lead was much of a hero either – certainly not a role Jackie Chan would want.

Now replace opium with a virtual reality game and you have Ready Player One.

Keep in mind this kind of premise has been dealt with many times before: Logan’s Run – sheltered society where movement to the "next level" at 30 was a cover for the ‘60's Hippie Utopia of killing everyone over 30 (reference Who lyric: "Hope I die before I get old"). Or Total Recall where the ending is debated to this day as to whether Quaid really is on Mars as an operative or has had a psychotic breakdown in a virtual reality machine. Then there was a Night Gallery episode where a woman spent all her free time in a virtual reality with a family she couldn’t have in real life because she spent all her time in a virtual reality machine!!! – which eventually blew up, killing her and leaving her consciousness in the machine with her pretend family (happy ending?????). Then there was Wall-E in which mankind has left Earth a mess to languish in a space cruise ship doing nothing but playing videogames and getting fat. Or Star Trek: The Next Generation’s "The Game" in which the entire crew is hooked/enslaved to a VR game which rewards the pleasure centers of the brain. And Strange Days where people live others people's lives through virtual reality and it goes horribly wrong.

And I can’t help but remember the Simpson’s wisely self-cautionary tale titled Itchy & Scratchy & Marge wherein the only responsible adult in the Simpson family gets violence on the popular children’s program Itchy & Scratchy removed. This results in the now bored kids turning the TV off and going outside. Owlishly they blink in the sunlight, then one by one the children in the neighborhood start playing ball, swinging on the playground equipment and interacting like normal children, all to the tune of Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony accompanied by a brilliant visual homage to Disney’s Fantasia’s imagined illustration of the same Symphony.

However, in all of these examples, the mental and emotional blight inherent in a society dominated by a cyber-arm’s length distancing from the real world is forefront. The bad guys are the ones who perpetuate the virtual reality. In Ready Player One it is not the total and continual emersion in a non-real framework that is at faulty, but only the ones who run it.

This philosophy, which dodges the foundational problem and focuses only on the people at the helm of the destructive juggernaut, eerily reminds me of the modern liberal Socialist mentality. Modern liberals contend that Socialism and its Big Brother (pun intended) Communism are not evil but that the problems which arise of: famine, totalitarianism, crushing state run conformity, depression, suicide, collapse of healthy societal and family structures, promiscuity as an escape, abortion as a result, and persecution of religion, all come about, not because the machine is fundamentally evil, but that the wrong person ran it. Modern liberals think that the brutal dictatorship of Stalin’s Russia would have been a Utopia had Nancy Pelosi been allowed to crush people, I mean run the country (into the ground).

Don't get me wrong I love video games. I’ve played p[lenty of them myself. So I can first-hand appreciate the dangers of the allure.

In Ready Player One there is apparently no other business. And much like in Wall-E ,there doesn’t seem to be anyone under eleven – what you might think a minimum age to negotiate the more complex virtual reality programs. Apparently unless you are old enough to play a video game in Ready Player One you aren’t important enough to exist in this "reality". There are certainly no babies in Ready Player One as they would take up way too much of your time from playing Oasis. There are no churches. There aren't any pets or wildlife…. or even vermin for that matter. No one cooks and pizza is delivered but there is no indication of anyone raising wheat or cows or cooking. The only thing that seems to exist is glass, metal and people playing this virtual reality game. There is no industry shown of ANY kind that does not revolve around the virtual world of Oasis. There are no grocery stores. There are no farms. Soylent Green anyone?

This kind of environment makes more sense in a dystopian reality which you are trying to condemn. And while there is some lip service paid to the idea that video games and virtual reality should not completely supplant reality, it's a bit like telling opium addicts they should go out for a burger a couple of times a week.

I had two opposing problems with the main bad guy, Sorrento. Biff in Back to the Future threatens dangerously but we never actually witness him kill anyone. (Yes, there is some history with the rich Biff and Mad Dog Tannen but one gets changed with history and the other kills people we do not know – not much of an ethical distinction in real life but important when defining a character in a movie). Sorrento and his henchwoman, the main bad guys in Ready Player One, do kill other people – not just their avatars – in the movie. However they are never treated like dangerous villains but more like Biff's comically evil character. But on the other hand – Sorrento at one point zeroes out all the players, throwing everyone on the planet back into the real world – like in Itchy & Scratchy & Marge. As the former Gunters and other VR players walk dazedly around looking at the sun and each other for the first time in who knows how long, the main characters note how "oddly" they are behaving – not glued to their virtual reality world. Wade, the titular good guy, eventually resurrects the Oasis through a bit of cyber legerdemain and the cycle will soon begin again. So I’m left to wonder – who is the REAL bad guy here?

I’m not saying this is a bad movie – it’s really a lot of fun to watch. One could go in with a clipboard and probably get a kick out of just jotting down the visual and auditory references. Some bright bunny ought to market a checklist or Easter Egg BINGO – where you mark off all the ones you see.

But for an upbeat kid-intended movie there is a very dark side to Ready Player One. I couldn’t help but walk out of the theater a little depressed and even disturbed by the fate of the world that had been created. I would have been far more impressed if, at the end, the street rat turned Slumdog Millionaire, who had seen first hand the flaws in sucuumbing to virtual reality addiction, had used his now considerable wealthy and power to start rebuilding the city – perhaps reimbursing the former slaves for their labors, melting down the mountains of rusted and abandoned cars to build actual factories that made real THINGS people could use, was shown with blueprints to build homes to replace the "Stacks" of mobile home parks which blighted the city, founded working farms, funded scholarships.

Instead we are treated to Wade snogging his girlfriend, (not even his wife) cuddled in a chair in a Penthouse apartment who notes with some self-satisfaction that he had turned off the Oasis on Tuesdays and Thursday. This would be a bit like a successful and less violent Scarface assuring us that he established meth rehab clinics for the worst of his addicted customers and doesn’t that make him a hero after all?

IN CONCLUSION:

I have some real mixed feelings about this one. If you go in with the intent to enjoy a cruise-line quantity banquet of nostalgia then this is the movie for you, but be aware you might be left with a very dystopian taste in your mouth after the feast.

WARNING NOTE:

I was a bit disappointed in the language used for what is primarily targeted to a young audience. There is casual use of some mild profanities but more disturbing are some specific uses of blasphemies for which there is really no justification and totally inappropriate for children to be saying. In addition there is some "just covered up" nudity but is a zombie creature and certainly not salacious. In addition there is some mild sexual innuendo. There is also extreme (expected) virtual violence but also some real world lethal force.

This all adds up to an appropriateness age of mid teens and up which is really older than what is being targeted in advertisements.

MIDNIGHT SUN – WHOLESOME STORY OF COMMITMENT BETWEEN TWO – LITERALLY – STAR-CROSSED LOVERS

SHORT TAKE:

Midnight Sun is a great first date movie about genuine love through commitment between two lovely young people despite challenges and tragedies.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Appropriate for anyone but younger kids would get bored.

LONG TAKE:

SPOILERS

Midnight Sun is a movie about two star-crossed lovers. A cliched term to be sure but in this case quite literally true. The star in question being our own Sol at the center of our solar system. The story is about a young lady, Katie (Bella Thorne – talented actress and singer) with XP, xeroderma pigmentosum, a rare but real genetic disorder wherein the sufferers are unable to repair DNA damage caused by UV radiation. XP makes even brief sun exposure life threatening from cancer and neurologic cascades. Any variation of XP occurs in only 1 of 250,000 people. The extreme kind necessary to the plot that Katie has is 1 in 1,000,000 and only 40% live beyond 20.

The acting is good. Ms. Thorne as Katie is quite adorable and has an excellent singing voice. Katie lives with her widowed father, Jack. Jack is portrayed by Rob Riggle, the real life American hero who I last saw in 12 Strong. Riggle's performance of Jack is a kind, gentle but appropriately protective homeschooling dad. (As Katie walks out the door for the evening to play guitar at the train station in her small home town he playfully reminds her to text him when she gets there and that if she is not home in time he will be going down there and making Youtube history with a Why One Should Not Break Curfew video.)

Her best, and pretty much only regular, friend is the typically teen-emotional and humorously dramatic Morgan (Quinn Shepherd) who hangs out with Katie and works in a local ice cream parlor.

Katie has had a crush on a young man, Charlie, (Patrick Schwarzenegger – you guessed it, the progeny of Dad Arnold and Maria Shriver) that she has watched walk, skate and bike by her house every day for the last 10 years.

The movie deals with the fall out that occurs because of XP to Katie, her Dad and all those who care about her. This sounds like it could be depressing. In fact it's not. It's quite funny and delightfully charming. The young people involved seem very familiar to me. They remind me of our homeschooled kids and their friends. They're open, intelligent, honest, genuinely caring, subject to the normal foibles relating to hormones and impatience with the world to which any normal teenager is subject. These kids are portrayed as creative and wonderful young people with tremendous promise.

Because of Katie's condition and some natural shyness she is homeschooled, and aside from Morgan, lives a quiet sequestered life with her dad, writing music behind heavily tinted windows. The night of her graduation she goes out to play guitar at her favorite train station. Charlie hears her, they meet and the rest of the story is about their relationship.

The love story is certainly a wonderfully acted, well written but traditional tale which has been played out many times: Jenny and Oliver in Love Story, Camille and Armand in Camille, Fantine and Jean Valjean in Les Mis. Many publically viewed real life instances abound: Christopher Reeves' wife stood with and for her husband after he was paralyzed following a devastating fall from a horse, Gene Wilder cared for Gilda Radner through her ovarian cancer as did Pierce Brosnan through his wife's terminal illness. Diane Cavandish kept her husband alive and thriving for 36 years longer than predicted after he contracted polio. CS Lewis married Joy Gresham knowing she had terminal bone cancer. And I am sure that everyone reading this blog knows of or has personally experienced a private example of this kind of self-giving love. My own mother cared for my father at home through his terminal illness.

Midnight Sun is a cinematic personification of Corinthians Ch 13: "…Love…does not seek its own interests…It bears all things … endures all things." I only wish Midnight Sun had more overtly acknowledged a basis in theology and an acceptance of God's Will. The closest we get is when Jack takes a picture of Charlie and Katie and requests humorously that they leave a little space for the Holy Spirit.

This is a story of real love. There is a moment in the musical 1776 when Abigail Adams reminds her husband, as he is experiencing a rare moment of low confidence, that one of the things she most loved and admired about him was his commitment. Charlie, in Midnight Sun, had lost his swimming scholarship because of an injury and wanted to give up. Katie reminds him to persevere and to re-commit to what he has worked so hard for, for so many years. Charlie, in turn, commits to Katie despite all the obvious obstacles, loves purely for the limited time they have and opens doors for her singing talents she did not think possible.

There is no easy resolution to a story of a young girl with a terminal illness. But there is a lot positive to be taken away from an example of commitment to a relationship despite the fears of the unknown – much like a marriage. Nothing untoward happens, the boy is trustworthy and the father watchfully gives his blessing to their relationship. There is no gratuitous acts of casual sex as in other movies like The Fault in Our Stars where illness is used as an excuse to gratify yourself with someone else. And although these young people in Midnight Sun have but a brief time together, these characters, as written, demonstrate the kind of sacramental commitment one would pray for in any young couple.

Every one of the main characters is created as a powerful witness to the altruism in true love. Katie never complains or bemoans her fate. She is, instead grateful for what she has and her main concern is always for the people around her – she worries about her father's future lonliness, Charlie's scholarship and her best friend's budding romance. Jack only wants to see his daughter happy for as much and as long as he can make that happen and to that end never lets her know how devastated he really is but is the rock to which she can cling. Charlie only thinks of ways he can be strong for Katie and bring her comfort. These are good kind people.

CS Lewis wrote often of the problem of pain – why do bad things happen and the answer is always – to bring about a greater good. Midnight Sun implies this – that even in the darkness you can bring your own light with you. Katie is the Midnight Sun that radiates joy and inspires love in everyone around her through her gratitude for every day she has and in her genuine love of others.

There are no guarantees in life or in love. No one knows the hour or the day that God will call us home. And when we choose to love we step out on a limb in faith. All one can do is to commit to stand by those we love for as long as we are permitted. The script writer of all these lovely characters understands that and presents us with a beautiful example of what committed love should be. Not for gratification. Not for what you can get from the other person, but an altruistic self-giving love that lifts up and encourages the other person to strive for worthy dreams and to accept what God gives you after you have done your best. As Jack explains to Charlie – what you end up with is an understanding that everyday is a gift. I wish Jack had added the two words "from God," but there is nothing in the movie that would deny that truth either.

There can be no more stark contrast than between the altruistic "other"-focused genuine LOVE in Midnight Sun and the extreme self-gratification masquerading under the guise of the word "love" in movies like Love, Simon. Movies like Midnight Sun inspire us to aspire – encourage people to be more and stronger and more courageous than they might otherwise think possible for those they truly love: to sacrifice, forgive, accept and be grateful.

For a positive and real/reel example of what young romantic LOVE should be – go see Midnight Sun and avoid the garbage that fakes it.

SHERLOCK GNOMES – FUN TAKE OFF ON THE CLASSIC HOLMES MYSTERY

SHORT TAKE:

Sequel to Gnomeo and Juliet, the garden gnomes version of Toy Story, this time combined with a Sherlock Holmes mystery and a cautionary tale about keeping your loved ones a priority in your life.

WHO CAN SEE THIS:

Everybody.

LONG TAKE:

A long time ago in the previous millennium – literally as I was a kid in the early 1960's – there was a segment within the cartoon Rocky and Bullwinkle series called Mr. Peabody and Sherman. The segment was a very tongue in cheek look at history. Mr Peabody was a genius dog who wore glasses and walked upright and who had a "boy" named Sherman. They would travel back in time, ala Dr Who, in Mr Peabody’s "WABAC Machine," meeting historic (Florence Nightingale) and mythologic (King Arthur) figures, go famous places (Great Wall of China) and experience historic events (Charge of the Light Brigade) to find instances where history has gone wrong and fix them.

They take Gallileo out into space to prove to him he is not the center of the universe. They help Mark Twain find his "lucky" typewriter and so on. These shorts were great fun and a charming whimsical way to introduce children to history – both humanizing the figures in history books and taking gentle humorous pokes at grand historic figures in a way which actually taught children what they were famous for: Franklin’s lightning rod, taking a first train ride with George Stephenson, teaching Alexander Cartwright (the inventor of baseball) the importance of good sportsmanship.

I only mention all these details to note that there is nothing wrong with taking a respectfully affectionate jibe at history or classic literature if it helps children remember and later understand it better.

Such is the case here with the Gnome movies. The first one took a stab at Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, called, predictably Gnomeo and Juliet. A friend of mine, a teacher, thought it so effective that he used it for extra credit watching for his students, tasking them to find the similarities and differences between the original classic and the animated homage.

This time around they are after the inimitable Sherlock Holmes (Johnny Depp – Captain Jack in Pirates of the Carribbean, Gellert Grindelwald in Fantastic Beasts, and Ed Wood) and Doctor Watson (Chiwetel Ejiofor from 2012, Dr. Strange and The Martian) in (wait for it…you guessed it) Sherlock Gnomes.

The premise is that an entire culture of British Garden Gnomes live and function just outside of the sight of humans, utilizing similar rules to those that apply in Toy Story rules. When people are around they freeze. When out of the sight of humans they come alive and move freely but adhere to many of the same characteristics their inanimate versions have: just as Slinky the dog can stretch because his middle is a spring, garden gnomes can not drown but they can BREAK!

We begin the story with Holmes’ defeat of an evil gnome, Moriarty, who has kidnapped a dozen gnomes. Holmes turns Moriarty’s weapon against him who then appears to be crushed under his own device. We also note Sherlock has begun to take his friend Watson for granted.

(FYI This latter is a theme which has been explored in comedy films – Without a Clue, and mystery theater – Sherlock Holmes’ Last Case, but never before with garden gnomes!)

This is the point at which we pick up from the previous movie and follow Gnomeo (James McAvoy – the new Professor X, the newest super villain invented by M. Night Shyamalan and Mr. Tumnus from the Narnia series) and Juliet (Emily Blunt from Live, Die, Repeat) and their friends and family as they move, with their owners, to a new house in London. The young couple will be taking over the leadership of the garden as their respective mother and father retire, but Juliet then immediately begins to neglect her new husband for her budding leadership responsibilities. The movie also features the voice talents of such veteran actors as Dame Maggie Smith (Mrs. McGonagel from Harry Potter), Michael Caine/Sir Maurice Mickelwhite (Alfie, The Man Who Would be King, Alfred to Christian Bale’s Batman) and James Hong (Po's goose father in the Kung Fu Panda series).

Their worlds intersect when the garden gnomes all over the city begin disappearing, including the families of the bickering newlyweds.

For all of the silliness of the animated gnomes with oversized ears, or huge hats, the movie makes some relevant and timely points about how jobs and one’s quest for fame can distract you from what SHOULD be most important to us – our friends, our family and, by extension, our children. This is where the two stories truly start to intersect as we see Sherlock’s casual disregard of his friend reflected in Juliet as she allows her new job to take precedent over her husband.

Not only does the movie introduce a whole new generation to the classic Sherlock Holmes character in a way which is very child friendly but, like truly classic children tales, reminds the moms and dads who bring the little ones of some important lessons as well.

There is no real violence, no bad language. The movie is played entirely against a background of cover and remix Elton John songs. Aside from a little bit of sly innuendo which will amuse the adults and go over the little kids’ heads, some fart jokes, a running gag about a gnome on a potty and an ugly male gnome in a body thong played for laughs, there is nothing even the youngest couldn’t see or hear. The most telling compliment was the fact that my two year old grandson walked into the theater grouchy but sat mesmerized through the entire movie.

So – well done. This time the game's a – ceramic – foot.

PACIFIC RIM: UPRISING – FUN LIKE WHIPPED CREAM OR FIREWORKS

SHORT TAKE:

The sequel to Pacific Rim – not intellectually challenging but lots of fun.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Anybody old enough to watch a Godzilla movie and not get nightmares.

LONG TAKE:

Some meals are meant to be savored – a great steak, shrimp bisque followed by a chocolate mousse. Some meals are simple and filling but more memorable for the people you had them with than the food itself. Some meals, like breakfast right out of the Easter Bunny basket, are meant to be completely just for fun. And then there are those days when, using a G rated version of Joel Goodson’s catch phrase from Risky Business: "Sometimes you just have to say what the heck," and you serve yourself a big helping of whipped cream and toppings.

Movies are like that too. And fittingly there is even a scene where the lead character in Pacific Rim: Uprising serves himself a huge Bowl of Reddi-whip and sprinkles while talking to his friend.

SPOILERS BUT I WILL TRY TO KEEP THEM TO A MINIMUM

The premise to Pacific Rim: Uprising is the sequel to Pacific Rim. Pacific Rim is the story of the titanic battle between Godzilla-sized monsters who come out of a crack in the ocean’s floor from another dimension to wreck havoc on the Earth (mostly Tokyo) and the Jaegers – Godzilla-sized robots which humans built to combat them. Never mind the illogic or the physics, it’s an excuse to watch grown men like writer/director Steven DeKnight spend millions of dollars recreating "lifesized" versions of the sand box action figure matchups from when they were kids.

Pacific Rim: Uprising picks up 10 years after the Kaiju have been defeated — or have they? The first Pacific Rim was quite straight forward – bad monsters come out of ocean – must beat them up until they go away. This one has a plot which is a bit more complicated and has a few more twists and turns than you might expect. Not so tricky though that you can’t still make sense of it even if you need a designated driver to get you home, but it did have a few unexpected surprises.

John Boyega (most notably Finn from the recent Star Wars installments) plays Jake Pentacost, son of the late Spencer Pentecost (Idris Elba) from the first movie. Jake is introduced as not quite the hero his father was, but who must grow into those shoes quickly. Nate (Scott Eastwood who has been paying his dues with small parts in Fate of the Furious, Suicide Squad and Texas Chain Saw Massacre 3D) plays his former best friend and comrade in arms. Cailee Spaeny, a newcomer, plays Amara, a street kid and Jaegers/technical prodigy who is drafted into the Jaeger cadets. Burn Gorman (formerly of the Dr. Who spin off Torchwood) and Charlie Day (mostly from goofy comedies and voice work in cartoons and video games) return as the Frick and Frack scientists Gottlieb and Geiszler whose creativity helped defeat the Kaiju last turn.

Much like the Thor franchise, the Pacific Rim series wisely incorporates bits of humor into their action packed sequences which help underscore the film makers' acceptance of the fact that what they are making is Godzilla meets Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots and have fun with it.

And for those of us old enough to remember when Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots first came out, watch for Clint Eastwood’s son Scott – playing the above mentioned Nate. Not remembering he was in the cast, I thought the actor looked SO familiar, and then when I realized who he was it was like when you finally "see" the picture buried in the pixels – you cannot UNsee it. His Dad’s voice, mannerisms, profile and body language will jump out at you from the screen. Not that that is a bad thing but it is an amusing anachronism seeing a close variation of the inveterate Western and Dirty Harry hero I grew up with in a goofy sci fi- action adventure.

This is not the Venus de Milo but a fireworks display at the start of a Carnival and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Pacific Rim is mostly good clean fun — well the critters all make quite a mess but there’s NO hankie pankie, (who has TIME when you’re dodging 50 story Kaiju) and a little profanity. Younger audiences might get scared – I’m talking nightmare scared – by the giant monsters screaming and tearing up buildings. But any kid old enough to understand it is all make believe should have a great time.

It's also nice to watch a global disaster type movie and not be burdened under the weight of the human-created-climate-change-global-warming believer cultists' propaganda digs that so often end up littering otherwise enjoyable flicks.

SPOILER

ONE PROVISO to that is there IS a scene where a little girl’s family is swept away as they are trying to reunite with her right in front of her eyes. So be aware if that might upset even an older child.

If you liked Pacific Rim, you’ll love Pacific Rim: Uprising as long as you’re happy with Cool Whip and don’t expect a rib eye steak.

THE TEENAGER PROJECT: MYTHBUSTING ADOLESCENCE – A BOLD THEATER EXPERIMENT

To paraphrase Dumbledore from the first Harry Potter movie, it takes courage to reveal your innermost secrets to your friends, but it takes even more courage to reveal them to strangers for the benefit of others. And this is what the young people in the play The Teenager Project: Mythbusting Adolescence do. A distillation from personal and third-party real life experiences of young people from 12 to 21 years of age, The Teenager Project bares its soul to its audience in painful and sincere expose. The authors are the performers with contributions from the director, Charles McNeely, who, for the purposes of this play wryly self-describes as a "58 year old former adolescent".

Mr. McNeely points out these are experiences to which we can all relate, either from first hand or from stories we've heard.

The premise of the play is to bring into the open the personal crises, angst, anxieties, doubts, fears, and conflicts which happen to the average child as they transition from adolescence to adulthood.

They creatively approach the topic from a variety of scenarios, as: a courtroom drama, a research lab, a therapist office, and a variety of interactions with parents in disciplinary situations. One of the most amusing scenarios was one of the "how to and not to" discipline, as perceived from the teens' POV. Based upon the reactions of the young actors who we met after the play, I believe the young people were surprised by the approving laughter from and relatability the parents in the audience had to, the tough-talking mother to her wayward son. I suspect the stern mom was supposed to be the "how NOT to" from the kids' point of view. However, the adults in the audience recognized the wisdom and constructivity of the stricter more disciplinary approach. So, as the teens sought to inform us, through the wisely intentional interactiveness of the play, the teens found themselves learning as well.

This disjunct between what the actors expected and what they got in the adult audience reaction was a charming example to me of the genuineness of the young writers' efforts to convey the dis-communication between the parental authority figure and the child. This becomes especially keen when one considers that, aside from the judiciously limited input from the adult director, the play was primarily written by children who have no parental experience. In short, the adults in the audience have been both sides of that fence. The young people have not but have honestly opened their hearts and minds to let us know what they are thinking and feeling.

This play is for everyone. Aside from a few inappropriate uses of the name of God as an interjection, although not as a profanity, there is no bad language. There is no inappropriate sexuality and no violence. I would note though that as the topic would be of little interest to the very young, they might get restless and bored, though there is nothing in the play that the young should not see.

My only concern with the content is that there was too little emphasis on theological solutions and not much by way of the adult perspective. It seems as though the instinctive response of the young people was to resort to secular therapy. None went to seek guidance, specifically, from a priest or pastor or rabbi.

As to the lack of adult perspective though, as these experiences were gleaned directly from youth age 12 to 21, I cannot fault the lack of adult input.

The play did clearly display the inherent and natural inclination of youth of that age to perceive the world as revolving around them without the understanding that a broader, more altruistic worldview, and an adherence to a more God centered life might go far in a way to resolving many of their issues.

The director, Charles McNeely, innovatively chose what he terms a "devised" style of writing, which is not a script, but written in almost vignette form from real life experiences and based upon topics which the writers / actors thought important. With that insight, it occurs to me that The Teenager Project could be First Act in a broader scoped "Human" Project Trilogy. In this First Act they have creatively and thoroughly presented us with the problem. Perhaps a Second Act could present the adults' point of view to the same scenarios. And the Third Act could be a collaborative effort to achieve some resolution, solutions, understanding, communication and perhaps at least a detante between the two "warring" generational factions.

Having seen this bold and fresh approach, I very much look forward to seeing what the talented and insightful Mr. McNeely has in store for us in the future with his gifted troupe of young actor/writers.

The ensemble cast of actors each play many different parts including: (presumably) themselves, teachers, parents, therapists, and other adults, as well as representating their peers. The cast includes: Evan Seago, Peyton Stanford, Jennifer Tolbert, Himshree Neupane, Hannah Jolivette, Romm Silwal, Supratik Regmi, Marilyn Wright, and Jack Snyder.

The play is showing at the Sherman Fine Arts Theatre on the McNeese Campus through this Sunday, March 24th. 7:30 evening performances and at 2 pm Sunday matinee. Tickets can be purchased online here

TRIFECTA OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY – CALL ME BY YOUR NAME, LOVE, SIMON AND ****BLOCKERS

SHORT TAKE:

The movies: Call Me by Your Name, Love, Simon and C***blockers (recently released as just Blockers with a picture of a rooster attached) are, in a phrase, child pornography.

WHO SHOULD SEE THEM:

NO ONE!

LONG TAKE:

Now here’s a truly offensive Trifecta for you:

DUE TO THE UNFORTUNATE NATURE OF THIS REVIEW AND PHOTOS NECESSARY TO MAKE MY POINTS, PLEASE DO NOT ALLOW MINORS TO READ THIS!!

Pornography: From the online Dictionary: "Printed or visual material containing the explicit description or display of sexual organs or activity, intended to stimulate erotic rather than aesthetic or emotional feelings."

I have been freshly disturbed by the succession of child-sexploitative movies recently released.

In full disclosure, I have not seen and do not intend to see any of these movies. Blockers, as it so happens, is not even in theaters yet so my information was limited but easily accessed and assessed merely by the unfortunate happenstance of seeing the trailers.

As to Call Me by Your Name and Love, Simon – I am of the philosophy that you do not have to shoot yourself in the foot with a nailgun to know doing so would have unpleasant consequences. I can, however, figure out the destructiveness of a storyline based upon its synopsis, which you can read for free either at wikipedia or the movie spoiler. You can also get details on the explicit content of a movie from a subscription to screenit – everything about a movie is available, from jump scares to smoking to exact numbers of which profanities are used to explicit descriptions of sexual and imitative behaviors.

I would certainly not pretend to be able to comment on cinematography, effectiveness of the music score or the acting. Then again, if I only read a book or the screenplay I would not be able to assess that either. However, I CAN tell you, after due diligence research, without question, about the extremely vile, sexually exploitive, pedophilia-promoting agenda of these stories.

First there was the Oscar darling Call me By Your Name which featured an older man seducing, sexually using, then abandoning a 17 year old boy. This movie featured graphic displays of male-child sexual behavior and one grotesque event involving a peach which I will leave to your imagination. Not only does the 17 year old boy persuade his even younger girlfriend to have sex with him multiple times but he switches between her and the grown man, putting both members of the young couple at risk for whatever other contacts the grown man has had, not to mention risking pregnancy for the girl. The parents go blithely along with the abuse of their son by this much older grown man. The girl finds out about his homosexual extra lover and, understandably, breaks up with him. The grown man takes advantage of this boy’s raging hormonal state to use him as a sex toy for the summer, then abandons this now damaged youth to his confusion and solitude. This movie, predictably, got all kinds of positive attention from Hollywood and liberal intelligensia for cinematography and acting. It has also been pointed out to me that sex with a child this age is legal in Italy.

Well, if sex with sheep was legal it would still be bestiality. And sex with a child is pedophilia whether it is legal or not. And in our country if you put photos of this behavior on your cell phone you could end up in jail.

Onto the stage appears Love, Simon – a story about a young man who is also confused, as most boys are, about the raging inferno of hormonal emotions churning through him. With no adult guidance he decides he is homosexual and spends the entire movie secretively embarking on a quest to find out the identity of and "hook up" with the "other" "gay" boy – Bram – who has anonymously come out via electronic social media in their high school. There are a few exchanged emails to justify Simon's infatuation with someone who could be anyone, including an adult predator. Simon rebuffs any romantic consideration of a girl who is already a friend, with whom he shares similar interests and who likes him. Instead, Simon pursues an anonymous gay "other," whom he knows little about, objectifying him to use him to gratify a sexual fantasy. In short, Simon refuses to pursue a promising and meaningful relationship with a friend to pursue someone solely on the basis of a shared sexual fetish.

His parents are shown to be clueless and non-judgementally accepting of a decision which has far more long-reaching and permanent consequences than college choice or purchase of a car, which you know DARNED well they would have had PLENTY to say about.

Tipping the hand of the script writer and directors’ intentions, without question, is the choice of high school play. In the source material book Simon vs The Homo Sapien Agenda, the high school play to be performed is the innocuous musical Oliver! based on the Charles Dickens story of the orphan boy. For the movie, Love, Simon, Oliver! is thrown out and Cabaret is chosen. CABARET! One of the singularly most sexually graphic and disturbing musicals in the mainstream.

THE FOLLOWING SECTION CONTAINS GOOGLE PHOTOS FROM THE MOVIE AND THEATRICAL VERSIONS OF CABARET. THEY ARE OFFENSIVE. BUT THE FOLLOWING IS WHAT THE CHILDREN IN LOVE, SIMON ARE TO BE IMITATING ON STAGE. CHILDREN!!!:

Cabaret is set in Germany just before World War II breaks out. It takes place primarily in a seedy bar and dance hall from which the movie takes its name. The lead is Sally Bowles who sings about her life of promiscuity ("Mein Herr") and lives it. She sleeps randomly with men and during the course of the play "hooks up" with Brian, a bisexual who also, during his relationship with Sally, has sex with another man and impregnates Sally. (Brian’s a busy boy.) To his credit, Brian wants their child but Sally doesn’t so has an abortion. This ends their relationship (no surprise) and she finishes up the musical singing about life being a cabaret. During the play there is a number where a man is sandwiched by two women ("Two Ladies"), a song and dance about a man in love with a Gorilla ("If you could see her through my eyes") where the punchline is "She wouldn’t look Jewish at all" – a double punch of bestiality and anti-Semitism. And in the musical there is a LOT of sexually suggestive Fosse-dancing of scantily clad women and men. These are not the only unsavory parts of the movie but they are certainly highlights.

Regardless that the original intent of the movie was to demonstrate the degenerate disintegration of German society in tandem with the rise of Nazism, there IS no way to clean this musical up to be appropriate for children to watch much less perform. And THIS, Cabaret, is what the scriptwriter and director chose for a group of HIGH SCHOOLERS to perform, in public, to memorize, to repeat over and over as they rehearse, and then to act out in front of their family and community…..That alone is the lionizing of child – sexual exploitation.

It appears from photos on Google from the movie Love, Simon that the children in the movie did, in fact, act out these sexually explicit scenes. This alone tips the hand of intent of the pedophiliac sexual objectification prevalent in Love, Simon.

During the course of Love, Simon, along with the lovely Cabaret, there is a plethora of profanity and bodily references, some rather creatively but not constructively, used, including an adult using the word "virgin" as an insult. There is also excessive drinking, homosexual kissing, casual references to masturbating, and casual sex amongst teens.

There is also a montage in which Simon fantasizes that straight kids have to "come out" to their parents. This montage is not challenged. There is no one and nothing in the movie to point out the obvious – that a child coming "out" as straight to the negative reaction of their parents would be the equivalent of a child "revealing" to his parents that they have: normal eyesight, made the honor roll, or do not have juvenile diabetes and having their parents react negatively. Like the reverse of that stupid Geico commercial about people who enjoy sitting on gum or walking into a glass door.

Regardless whether you believe homosexuality is a genetic or learned behavior, only the most deeply entrenched in blindly held propaganda would deny that homosexuality is a biologic disadvantage – never mind the medical, emotional, social, and spiritual repercussions. But logic has nothing to do with anything involved in this movie – only objectification of the children in various sexual connotations.

And now soon to arrive on the scene is C***blockers. Can’t even put the full name of the movie in this blog in good conscience. The premise, according to the trailers, is a group of parents, after translating emojis left on their daughter’s laptop, correctly figure out that their children plan to have sex on prom night. Simple solution: mom and dad go with them to the prom or they don’t go. Problem solved.

Do they do this? No, of course not. Then there would be no opportunity to: show parents as incompetent boobs, have one of the fathers engage with one of the high school boys in a colonoscopy style beer chugging contest, listen to underage girls talk explicitly and with blasphemous language about how they plan to lose their virginity, (with GREAT regret I heard the young ladies express their plans during the trailer in an open public theater in far more graphic language than that I just used), and watch scenes with CHILDREN drinking and carousing in a Caligula-like orgy.

These movies are all designed like a pedophile's dream and every one of the people in these movies should be arrested for sexual exploitation of juveniles. While the kids in the first two movies, Call Me and Simon were, and this is small consolation, JUST 21 when the movies were made, portraying a child who performs sex acts even if you are not in fact a child is still a demonstration of pedophilia. And it seems to me that the film makers knew darned well that what they were doing WAS pedophilia or they would have not chosen the age of the actors so carefully. Had they genuinely thought what they were doing was wholesome they could have hired underaged performers.

The third movie, Blockers, interestingly does not post the age of the teen actors on us.imdb.com. I suspect THEY think they can get away with underaged sexuality because it is a "comedy".

So there we have it – examples of explicit pedophilia, sexual objectification of children and the advocacy of sexual promiscuity amongst children!!

Arriving just in time for Easter.

It is a frustrating and disgusting phenomenon that this kind of debauchery – even against children – can masquerade as entertainment with impunity. Despite the romantic implications of the names of the first two films – Call Me by Your Name and Love, Simon, and the pretend to comedy of the third – Blockers, to paraphrase Mae West, a jaded performer who likely would have been horrified at the proceedings of these movies – Love and humor had nuthin' to do with it, dearie.

Don’t go.

If you do, don’t say you weren’t warned.

GRINGO – CRUDE, UNNECESSARILY VIOLENT AND FORGETTABLE COMEDY – GO WATCH WHAT’S UP DOC? INSTEAD

SHORT TAKE:

Forgettable, crude and violent dark comedy about pill-form marijuana, drug lords, murder, kidnapping, adultery and boardroom betrayal.

WHO SHOULD SEE THIS:

Don't bother. Go watch What’s Up Doc? Instead.

LONG TAKE:

In the 1972 slap stick comedy What’s Up Doc? there is a suitcase full of fossils which gets mistaken for a similar bag full of diamonds, which looks like another bag full of top secret government papers, which is the same shape and brand of luggage that is full of underwear. The suitcase full of fossils is really not worth much to anyone except its owner. However, because it is mistaken by different people at different times for other bags which are more valuable it gets: switched, stolen, moved, thrown, kicked, hidden; endures having to go along for the ride during a kidnapping; suffers through a high speed car chase; is sequestered in: a messenger boy’s bike basket, a Chinese dragon, a Volkswagon; is dunked in the ocean; and dragged into court as an exhibit.

What’s Up Doc? is a VERY funny throwback to the old 1930's and ‘40's screwball comedies of Frank Capra, Billy Wilder and Howard Hawks. Now imagine if you WERE that suitcase, your perception of just how humorous this all was, would be quite different.

SOME SPOILERS

The premise of Gringo is that Harold, a nebbish shlimazel (a fearful timid, unlucky loser) played by David Oyelowo (Lincoln, Interstellar and The Cloverfield Paradox) is sent to Mexico to help negotiate a deal involving pill form medical marijuana in Mexico for the pharmaceutical company he works for. Little does he know that: his company is about to merge and he is expendable, his boss, Richard (Joel Edgerton – Star Wars as the young Uncle Owen, Red Sparrow, Bright) has sent him to deal with a Mexican drug lord because he is expendable, and his wife is leaving him FOR his boss so that in his marriage he is…expendable.

Things go pear-shaped very quickly when Harold finds these things out and he decides to fake his own kidnapping with the help of some low rent motel managers who think he is more valuable to his company than he is, ultimately triggering pursuit by a Mexican drug lord who mistakes him for the "boss," which results in the hiring of a reformed mercenary with a conscience who is given conflicting orders which, in turn, challenge his new found repentance. Harold, in case you missed the point, is the bag of fossils – a fitting analogy since he has stagnated in one place for a long time, only to be buried and ignored by the people to whom he is loyal. "Why is it I am always getting s*&^%ed for doing my job!" Harold wails.

This movie, directed by Nash Edgerton (Joel's brother) is often very and unnecessarily violent, (including someone getting their toe chopped off by a Beatles-loving drug lord), vulgarly sexual, and filled, not just with profanities but exceptionally crude blasphemies.

Even if you cut it to play on TV in the 1970's during the family hour, and even though it is a fast paced complex story and occasionally amusing, there is no real point to the convolutions and travails we watch this poor man endure.

I liked Oyelowo as Harold. He has good comic timing and is kind of sweetly adorable. Though Harold does contribute to the chaos, his actions are understandable given the nefarious characters who have placed him in a completely untenable situation. I’ve seen Oyelowo in drama and comedy and he has now demonstrated he can carry a leading role. I would love to see him tackle a more worthy project.

Charlize Theron (undoubtedly an accomplished actress who can do comedy, drama, sci fi, action and schmaltz in such varied movies as: Prometheus, Monster, Sweet November, and Atomic Blonde) as Elaine is her usual sexy, crude and simulateously charming self (though she was much better on the streets in Atomic Blonde than as a boardroom killer here.)

Joel Edgerton is Richard, Harold’s duplicitous, cuckolding boss, an office hustler you can’t wait to see get his comeuppance.

But I think my favorite character was Mitch, played by Sharlto Copley (the lead in the off beat sci fi District 9, King Stephan in Maleficent, and Murdock in 2010's A-Team feature). Mitch is Richard’s brother. Mitch is a reformed mercenary, now a mission worker in Haiti, who Richard bribes to first rescue, then to murder, Harold, dangling the prospect of cash for the orphans now in Mitch’s care. There is a surprisingly touching and thoughtful interchange between Mitch and Harold about God. Harold is devout and prays for deliverance while Mitch does not believe in much of anything. It is unfortunate that one of the funniest moments in the movie is at this point and has been played in the trailer. Mitch is the only aspect of this movie which deserves any contemplation. A hitman turned philantropist, who is suddenly confronted with the moral conundrum of whether to sacrifice one innocent man to alleviate the suffering of a hundred children. The difficulty is compounded by Mitch’s express declaration that he is an atheist. Realistically Mitch has no reference point except his own conscience, the surprising turns of events which can only be described as Divine intervention, and the admonition from a man Mitch does not believe Divine that "Greater love hath no man…." There is a nice resolution to this little subplot but does not make up for the vacuousness of the rest of this movie.

Had Nash Edgerton incorporated more underlying philosophical consideration into the filming, Gringo might have elevated itself towards Pulp Fiction territory. As it is, it is merely a forgettable romp.

Gringo is "appropriate" for only a slender demographic of the adult population – mature grown ups who, nonetheless, can find a few laughs in exceptionally crude humor and violence.

I say go find What’s Up Doc? It is a far funnier movie and one you can show the entire family.

I CAN ONLY IMAGINE – BASED ON THE PERSONAL AND POWERFULLY INSPIRATIONAL SONG

SHORT TAKE:

I Can Only Imagine is the beautifully told biography, not just of the challenging life of Bart Millard, who was both the product of an abusive father, and the composer of the inspirational song, but a biography of the song, itself. The song "I Can Only Imagine" is unique in the annals of Christian music, crossing Christian music boundaries to become a number one hit in mainstream markets nationally. This song, on which the movie is based, achieved a unique triple platinum status and is the most popular Christian music song in history.

WHO SHOULD SEE THIS MOVIE:

Young teens on up. Caution should be used in bringing children due to the portrayal of Bart Millard’s father, who was an angry, physically abusive man. Though most of the abusive behavior is only talked about there are some disturbing episodes of violence.

LONG TAKE:

Earl Swain was one of my husband’s best friends. He was also one of the kindest, gentlest, most faith filled man I ever met, whose favorite way to start a sentence was: "I'm so thankful that…". Earl gave up his life, repeatedly, during the course of his adulthood in many ways to many people.

Bryan met Earl while working in the emergency room. Originally from New York, then a southern transplant, Earl was a gifted nurse and would work in our home town, Lake Charles, Louisiana long enough to earn sufficient money to set out to nurse and preach the Gospel in countries hostile to Christianity. He would work as a medical missionary in places like Saudi Arabia, where even declaring your Christianity could get you thrown in jail or executed, until he needed to go back to Louisiana to make enough money to return to his missionary work. Earl continued with these acts of corporal and spiritual mercy until he met a lovely widow with three boys. He married the lady and adopted the sons. Then, on April 22, 2003, while out fishing in the Gulf with two of the kids, their cousin and Earl’s father, the boat was swamped by a rogue wave. The cousin was washed away and drowned. His father died of a heart attack as they tried to stay afloat together. Left with only a waterlogged life jacket and a styrofoam ice chest to cling to Earl prayed with the boys, kissed them goodbye and swam away to be sure that he would not be tempted, in his extremity, to latch onto one of the children. Miraculously, the boys were saved by an oil rig crew boat changing shift in the middle of the night as one of the boys held his brother above water and barely clung to consciousness himself.

Earl spent his life offering it to others and his final act of love saved the life of two of his children.

The song "I Can Only Imagine" was released in 2001, but I first heard it as it crossed station genres into the mainstream in 2003. I remember at the time it reminded me of Earl and they played it at his funeral. I can not hear it without thinking of him.

So when I tell you the song is personally important to me, you now can understand why.

The song has a story of its own. Bart Millard, the composer, was inspired to write the song in the wake of his father's death. He sings of imagining what it would be like in Heaven when he first meets Jesus: "…will I stand in your presence or to my knees will I fall, will I sing HALLELUJAH! Or will I be able to speak at all, I can only imagine…." But it quickly becomes obvious that Bart is envisioning his repentant and recently deceased father’s first encounter with Christ.

The music video of Mercy Me singing "I Can Only Imagine" bears this out as well as person after person is shown during the song with pictures of their longed for lost loved ones.

The movie recounts Bart’s tragic and crushing childhood through to his early adult years under the brutal hand of his physically, emotionally and verbally abusive father after his mother’s abandonment. The first miracle is that Bart's soul came away only bruised and not broken. Bart is the kind of person that never met a stranger and his enthusiasm and optimism infectiously help ingratiate him into a struggling band, then convince a jaded but wryly amused music agent to become their manager.

J. Michael Finley, a pastor’s son in his first film acting role, does a marvelous job of portraying this struggling young man and inspirationally powerhouses his way through the singing. His renditions of everything he sings will raise the hair on the back of your neck. Finley's bubbly personality, physique, humble but outgoing interactions with other people and confident singing prescence reminds me of a combination of Sean Astin and Hugh Jackman.

The supporting cast is full of familiar faces, including Dennis Quaid who is remarkable as the alternately horrifying and touching father. Cloris Leachman has a small role as Bart’s adorable grandmother Memaw. Priscilla Shirer, who we last saw in the Kendrick brothers’ War Room takes on the life changing instrumental (pun intended) role of Mrs. Fincher, the music and theatrical teacher who recognizes Bart’s potential and literally pushes Bart on to stage work. The other members of Mercy Me – Jim, Mike, Nathan & Robby – are played, respectively, by Randy McDowell, Jason Burkey, Mark Furze, & Cole Marcus. And rounding out the troupe is Trace Adkins, the baritone country western singer from Springhill, Louisiana, who plays Brickell, Mercy Me’s initially reluctant agent and ersatz father figure.

So bring your hankies and open your hearts and ears to this wonderful, spiritually cleansing, musical biography about brokenness and God's ability to redeem those who have given up on even themselves. As Earl might have said: I'm so thankful that they have made such a lovely movie out of such a beautiful song. I pray that it continues to inspire for many generations to come.

NOTE: There is no sex or nudity and no bad language and certainly no blasphemy.

TOMB RAIDER – HARMLESS BRAINLESS FUN

Daniel Wu

SHORT TAKE:

Discount Indiana Jones style adventure thriller with a female lead that takes advantage of the popularity of the video game of the same name.

WHO SHOULD GO:

Mid to older teens and up but video game fans should be warned that while the spirit of the game is there, this is a mostly different plot.

LONG TAKE:

In the African fable of The Cow-Tail Switch a father, the leader of the tribe, is lost on a lion hunting trip. The youngest has not yet even been born when the father goes missing. Time goes by and eventually the youngest brother is born, toddles about, grows older and learns to speak. His very first words are, "Where is our father?" The six older brothers then realize their father has been gone a very long time and decide to go on a quest to find out what has happened. Many days travel away they eventually come upon the father’s bones. Each son has a magic gift of life. One puts the bones together. Another replaces the sinews and muscle. Another gives his father organs. Another flesh. Another fills his father’s body with blood. The sixth brother breathes life into him. They all return rejoicing and the father announces he will make the next ruler of the tribe the one who contributed the most to his return. Each of the six older sons makes an argument for the part they played in returning their father to life. But the father chooses the youngest, reasoning that he was the one who thought to ask about him – and as long as someone remembered him he was never really dead.

Such is the case of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider.

SOME SPOILERS

The premise of Tomb Raider is that a young woman, Lara Croft (Alicia Vikander – Ex Machina) decides to embark upon a quest to find out what happened to her long lost adventurer father. During this quest she must overcome everything from Chinese muggers to shipwrecks and an evil nemesis Mathias Vogel (Walton Goggins, the perennial bad guy) who works for the mysterious Trinity, an organization seeking to control the world, who shoots the weak and offers up the predictable, "You should not have come," line. Based on the video game of the same name, fans of the game need to be aware that the Tomb Raider movie has virtually (pun intended) nothing in common with the video story except that the lead character is a female on an adventure on a mysterious island to find something. No mention of a missing father or a world catastrrophe she is tasked to stop is ever mentioned in the video game.

Missing for seven years, everyone else has given Richard Croft, (Dominic West with a diverse filmography from 300, the musical Chicago and 1999's A Midsummer's Night Dream) her father, up for dead. But so intent is Lara upon the idea that her father is still alive that she will not even lay claim to the inheritance which will get her off the streets and allow her to return to the life of luxury in which she grew up.

It is only when she is prevailed upon to meet with the family attorney that she is introduced to a wooden puzzle box which, according to the will, she is to solve upon her father’s death.

Solve it, of course, she does (or it would have been a very short movie) and off she is sent on an adventure that would have challenged Indiana Jones.

Until Gal Gadot put lie to my assertion that a really good super hero movie could not be made with a female lead, I did not think that a woman was as good a choice as a man for an action adventure……and aside from Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman I still think this is true.

Part of the problem is that the extremely physical stunts required of the character in Tomb Raider would have been a challenge for a circus gymnast with the power of Dwayne Johnson, much less a female bike courier who likes to kickbox for fun, which is what Lara is without her family dough. A video game character gets several lives, but the movie is more grounded in a real life scenario, and to have a female endure the abuse and survive the jumps, falls, hits, fighting and wounds she does and still have the energy to run with weapons into a battle, cartwheel through ancient booby traps and still have the strength to stand is beyond the limits of even my considerable powers of suspension of disbelief.

Another problem with this movie in particular is the plot. The very McGuffin is flimsy. The father spends much of his time away from his supposedly beloved daughter scouring the world in search of something that – well, truthfully he could have found in the nearest church.

It is never made clear exactly why Lara did not continue to live on the family estate even while her father was missing. Did she, at some point, decide – gosh, I think I’ll move away because if I CONTINUE to live here it will be like an admission of his death….? They never even explain why she left the home of her childhood to begin with. They show her there as a child and an older teen just before Richard leaves on his fateful last trip. When did she abandon the family manor so that returning would be an acceptance of his death? You have to LEAVE somewhere before you can RETURN. And if she left – why? And when? There is no logic, pretext, reason or excuse so much as alluded to. Doesn't make any logical sense.

Another McGuffin point is that the family executor, played by Kristin Scott Thomas, tells Lara if she does not sign papers acknowledging her father’s death that everything will be sold at auction. Um….why? It’s not as though they were going bankrupt. This seems like a very arbitrary threat which comes out of nowhere with no background explanation.

Lara is a newbie to the adventure scene. Indiana Jones' father took him to exotic locales since early childhood. Indiana grew up as an artifact hunter with a lot of experience fending for himself. Batman and Iron Man used LOTS of gizmos to get between their relatively fragile human bodies and the hostile punches, bullets, missiles and other assorted threatening challenges being thrown at them. Superman simply had … powers. Lara is a relative hothouse flower who…rides bikes fast and…kickboxes. Whoopie. This in no way demonstrates that she can survive: an ambush by three thugs, a shipwreck, a fall from a cliff, a landing through trees, picking up her own dead weight one handed – and these are only things you see in the trailer.

Lu Ren (Daniel Wu) is a significant and likeable supporting character who figures strongly in the plot yet is never given the clear resolution he deserves but is just kind of left… hanging.

The main baddie Mathias Vogel tells Lara he has killed her father but does not explain why he would murder the one man who, by his own admission, is the only way to find and open the tomb of Himika – the goal that will get him off the island. Then, let us say, in a surprise that takes no one unawares, that he is laughably bad at follow up.

Without giving away too much more than is already IN the trailer I find it difficult to determine who the real bad guy is – Mathias Vogel who only wants to "win" so he will be allowed to go home to his family, or Richard Croft, the titular good guy/Dad who, truth be told, abandoned his daughter to set off a search for an item that he should have predicted would get a lot of people killed, and all for some pretty lame reasons.

And I don't think it is much of a spoiler to reveal that this movie is primarily a great big set up for a sequel. But then so was Ron Eli's 1975 Doc Savage, and given you probably have never even HEARD of that movie you can see how well that turned out.

Not that Tomb Raider is a bad movie. It is certainly a mostly satisfying wild ride of a tale. But Lara Croft is no Wonder Woman. Nor is she Indiana Jones, Captain America, Hulk, Spiderman, Iron Man, Superman, Batman or even Zorro. OK Lara Croft is better than Doc Savage …. or Howard the Duck.

There is a surprise and very small role featuring one of my all time favorite actors, Derek Jacobi. Although the character provides almost nothing to the movie, Sir Derek would lend class and grace to a McDonald’s advertisement, so it was a joy to see him.

Movies like Tomb Raider are like the pleasure you get riding roller coasters or eating cotton candy – not harmful in moderation and a hoot if you don't think about it very hard.

In short Tomb Raider is a good old fashioned potboiler of a thrill ride with plenty of hair raising incidents, near misses, goofy but ignorable plot holes, preposterously unlikely survivals and…running. LOTS of running. So get your popcorn and malted milk balls, turn your brain WAY down to simmer and enjoy.

NOTE: There is NO nudity and NO sex as there is no time and virtually zero opportunity for the characters amidst all the chasing and shooting and RUNNING. There are a few profanities including one blasphemy which is spoken by the bad guy. The violence is on par with your average Indiana Jones movie.

But being a firm believer that people should check things out for themselves, especially when it comes to one's kids, who will VERY likely want to see this movie, I recommend you subscribe and check out: Tomb Raider on www.screenit.com http://www.screenitplus.com/members/tomb_raider_Full_Content_Review.cfm#p

THE FLORIDA PROJECT – AN ATTEMPT TO ROMANTICIZE A GROTESQUELY NEGLIGENT TEEN MOTHER

My sister, Wynne, reviewed The Florida Project so I didn't, as it turned out, have to endure it. She kindly has written a guest review for us. Here it is:

The Florida Project

SHORT TAKE:

The movie, The Florida Project, follows a six year old girl, Moonee, who lives with her criminally negligent teenaged mother during a summer vacation. Moonee lives at the Magic Castle motel in a run down area near Disneyworld where the beleaguered motel manager tries to keep watch over everyone. This is a very disturbing movie.

LONG TAKE:

Halley (Bria Vinaite – newcomer who director, Sean Baker, found in real life on an Instagram selling marijuana related merchandise), Moonee's mother, is a horrible person and six year old Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) is one step behind her. Halley is a single mom who is lazy, does not have a legal job, has a terrible potty mouth, takes advantage of her only friends – Ashley (Mela Murder) and Bobby (Willem Dafoe), steals, and does not supervise her daughter's activities. Halley is a disgusting piece of humanity.

Moonee is the leader of a small group of friends. During the course of the movie these young children: spit on cars and people, burn down an abandoned building, curse and make obscene gestures, are rude and tell lies to get money for ice cream. Moonee loses two friends over the course of the movie when their friends' parents realize what she is leading them to do.

Moonee loses her friend, Dicky, after the spitting incident and Scooty, Ashley's son, after Ashley realizes her son and the other members of the "gang" started a fire at an abandoned condominium. Moonee keeps one friend, Jancey.

Reviewers characterized Halley as a mother struggling to support her daughter and describes Halley as poor and unfortunate. Far from the embattled single mom heroically trying to carve out a life for her daughter that they imply, Halley is an irresponsible, criminally negligent teenager.

Halley does not have a job doing legal activities but still manages to afford cigarettes and weed. Instead of choosing a respectable job, like her friend Ashley who works as a waitress, Halley turns to prostitution. Not only does Halley prostitute herself, but makes little effort to protect Moonee from her activities. Halley sends Moonee to take a bath while Halley "entertains" clients in the next room. Now, you could argue, Halley did not want to leave Moonee alone while she "works", but Moonee runs the streets without supervision all day while Halley lays in bed watching TV, listening to music and reading magazines.

Halley does terrible things to people if they disagree with her. Halley gets her friend, Ashley, to steal food for her from the restaurant where Ashley works. But when Ashley does not want to steal food for Halley any more or give Halley rent money and confronts Halley about being a prostitute, Halley beats the snot out of Ashley.

Haley gets angry with Bobby, the motel manager, and she …

{Ed note: OK – GOTTA GIVE MY FIRST DISGUST WARNING HERE – but to provide the full expose of how demented this poor excuse for a mother is, it is fair to include this – but if you do not want to read it just be aware it's disgusting and skip down to where I mark that it is "SAFE NOW":

…reaches into her panties and removes a used sanitary napkin and slaps it on the glass door. Charming, and we are supposed to feel sorry for her terrible life.}

SAFE NOW

The movie throws in a few (what are supposed to be) warm and fuzzy mother-daughter moments: playing out in the rain, giving her daughter a ride in a STOLEN grocery cart, stealing and selling stolen items together, hitch hiking, making obscene gestures at people together, taking bikini selfies……

Dafoe's Bobby, the manager of the motel, is a kind, likable character. He tries to keep the peace between the residents and the tourists. Bobby keeps the place clean and repairs what's broken when needed. (Though what is truly broken in Halley he finds there is nothing he can do.) He even watches out for the kids living there. For example, he finds a strange middle age man hanging around the motel playground watching the little girls. Bobby confronts the intruder, gets his name from the intruder's driver's license, threatens to call the police and tells him never to return.

Eventually and predictably, the Florida Department of Children and Families show up with the police to remove Moonee and put her in foster care. The case workers are shown to be somewhat incompetent. Moonee escapes and runs to her friend, Jancey. The closing scene shows them running together to Disneyworld. You never know whether it was Ashley or Bobby who called DCF or if it was just in the natural course of events that Moonee's precarious situation came to their attention.

When the credits roll you are left thinking: "WHAT?! Did I miss something??" The ending is very abrupt and does not tell us what happens to Halley or Moonee. It is left up to the audience's imagination. After investing time and sitting through this emotionally gut wrenching movie, it is disappointing to not have a conclusion. An interview with the director reveals this was deliberate. Rather than coming up with a proper conclusion, the director/writer, Baker, decided to leave it up to the audience. Quoted from an interview Baker had with Ashley Lee for the Hollywood Reporter: "It's left up to interpretation but it's not supposed to be literal, it's supposed to be a moment in which we're putting the audience in the headspace of a child." However, Baker ignores the fact that this is a very disturbed child. The result is a very unsatisfying "resolution" to this already difficult to watch movie.

Obviously the director has an eye for finding new and underused talent. Halley, played by Bria Vinaite, had never done anything in movies before but was very convincing as the self-destructive mother. Brooklynn Prince, as Moonee, is brand new also, but does well portraying the virtually abandoned child. The ever brilliant but not often enough seen Willem Dafoe gives a strong quiet performance as the eye in this storm. The three main characters give very convincing character portrayals of the troubled and those left to clean up behind them. Mr. Baker brought out the best in all three for this undeserving story. Perhaps Mr. Baker will put his talents to better use next time.