Garrett Hedlund, Richard Jenkins, Jessica Brown Findlay, Anne Archer, Jennifer Hudson, Jessica Barden, Terrence Howard, Amy Adams, Daniel Sunjata, Sterling Jerins
Jonathan (Garrett Hedulnd) is a Los Angeles based musician who travels home to New York because his estranged father, (Richard Jenkins) has decided to take himself off life support where he’s dying of cancer. The family including Mom (Anne Archer) and his sister, really can’t accept that he is really going to die. He was given six months to live over 10 years ago and beat the odds. The range of emotions the family has to face from each of the family members is wildly different. To add to the problem Jonathan and his father have not seen each other in many years, and his denial was helped by the friendship of a young lady in the same hospital who is dying of bone cancer, and the friendship they build as they bond to each other is touching. This certainly cries for the creation of a new category “Tear-jerker” as that is truly what this remarkable movie is.
This is truly a tear-jerker, and one that is very hard to watch, but extremely worthwhile. It is difficult to watch because with the R rating, they can take us through the whole range of feelings this poor family has to go through. There are many question raised and each one is fully answered as we delve through this film. There are so many characters and dynamics and even though it is not overly slow paced, the development of each character was really well explained. We learned where they came from, and why they feel what they feel, and all the actors are able to pull the heart strings as their feeling vary from scene to scene as they must face what will happen in two days. The clock ticks very slowly as we go through the many farewells and last goodbyes as the characters really put forth a fantastic performance. This kind of feels like a play in some way, as it does have a lot of dialog and only a few settings, but the motion picture really adds to the story in a huge way. It’s very well done, and unless you are facing or have recently faced the untimely death of a love one, which would make this hit too close to home, I highly recommend this for adults and older teens. This is an extremely well done story and an great life lesson that we all need to see. Though it feels sometimes like we’re too close to the family and should give them some space, it is very highly moving and you should see it.
Warner Bros., RatPac-Dune Entertainment, Berlanti Productions,
Levi Miller, Hugh Jackman, Garrett Hedlund, Rooney Mara, Amanda Seyfried, Cara Delevingne
Peter (Levi Miller) is whisked away to Neverland where he teams up with hero Captain Hook (Garrett Hedlund) to fight the evil pirate Blackbeard (Hugh Jackman). This is the prequel to Peter Pan showing how Peter became the boy who never grew up, tells the early story of when Peter and Hook were still friends.
This is a film that is very beautiful. The look of this film is stunning. The sets and locations are splendid. The story, on the other hand, is somewhat flawed. There are great battles and awesome battle scenes. The action is really great. But Hook, the great Nemesis of Peter Pan is so un-Hook-like that it’s really hard to accept that he’s the same guy. They allude to the fact that later on Pan and Hook will be enemies, yet we never get any inkling of how that could happen. Basically, this could have been a blockbuster film, but I feel it missed on so many, many levels. It was certainly worth watching, but it really disappointed me in many ways. When I saw the movie “Hook” many years ago, I was completely blown away. Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman were so wonderful in that film. But the story was extremely well done and perfectly crafted. This one, on the other hand was a nice try, but just missed the mark.
3 Arts Entertainment, Jolie Pas, Legendary Pictures,
Garrett Hedlund, Domhnall Gleeson, Jai Courtney, Jack O’Connell, Alex Russell, John D’Leo
Based on the true story of Louis Zamperini (Jack O’Connell) who was a promising young track start headed for the Olympics when WWII broke out. Louis was a bombardier who crashed due to a malfunction and ended up stranded in the ocean for 47 days. When he was rescued it was by the Japanese, and he spent the rest of the war as a prisoner of war forced to work for the Japanese while being starved and severely tortured.
This is directed by Angelina Jolie. I’m not sure why that really ticked a lot of people off, but much of the criticism I feel is anti Angelina flack. There are some problems with this film. The lead actors were not big blockbuster names, but I certainly felt they did a pretty good job playing the roles. There isn’t a lot of criticism of the acting, although it was completely snubbed by the Oscars in almost every category. But I found the movie to be touching and inspiring. Yeah, other people have been lost at see and imprisoned by the enemy, but that’s not the problem. This is based on the true story, so it is what happened, sorry if it’s similar to other people’s experiences. It was interesting that as a young boy, Louis was persecuted for being Italian in the neighborhood and he learned to be tough in a hurry. This prepared him for the resolve he would need to stand up and survive this experience. Perhaps those who read the book found the movie lacking. That’s a common response from a good book. But as a film, I think it was very well done. The action sequences in the war were really well done. The cinematography was really good from the fight scenes to the raft scenes to the years in the POW camp. I thought this was nicely done and well worth watching, and I recommend this film as a really good picture of life in America and the horrors of WWII. This is a good movie, very well done.
Gwyneth Paltrow, Garrett Hedlund, Leighton Meester, Tim McGraw, Alana Grace, Ed Bruce, Jeffrey Buckner Ford, Jeremy Childs, Marshall Chapman
Kelly Cantor (Gwyneth Paltrow) is a big country star whose career is on a huge slide. Her life seems to be going down the toilet along with everything else. Taken out of rehab too soon, her husband Ed (Tim McGraw) who is also her manager is driving her to make a comeback before it’s too late. Kelly falls for young country singer Beau (Garrett Hedlund) who comes along on the tour as Kelly’s “sponsor” for her recovery. To add to the mix, the opening act is Chiles (Leighton Meester) a former beauty queen now starting out on a country career.
This story is the country version of “A Star is Born“. This is a volitile mixture and a very dangerous situation with all that’s going on. Kelly is struggling, and the songwriters are in love with Chiles and can see she’s a big star in the making. Suddenly the new songs that were meant for Kelly are being given to Chiles as her career skyrockets and Kelly’s keeps sinking.
So the question is whether those near her can keep her on track, and if her fans will tolerate the screwups and mistakes she has made. This is a dramatic film, and I said, very close to the story of “A Star is Born” in many ways, but it does have a country feel that is right on. This is surprising as the only star in the film that has any experience as a country singer is the fantastic Mr. Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, and he does not sing a not nor perform in any way in the film. All the rest of the stars had no experience at all in country music and had to learn the way. They all immersed themselves in country music and came out very good performers. They setup the feel of the story just fine. Tim McGraw gets to play a rough and gruff guy who comes off as a jerk sometimes, but Kelly needs someone who can keep her on track somehow. She may have only one last chance to pull it off, and whether or not she does, at least in the end we know everyone has done their best through all the trials and tribulations. It has a pretty quick twist in the end, but all in all it’s a pretty good country music film.
Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Oliva Wilde, Bruce Boxleitner, James Frain, Beau Garrett, Michael Sheen, Anis Cheurfa, Serinda Swan, Yaya DaCosta, Elizabeth Mathis, Kis Yurij
Sam Flynn’s Dad, Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) disappeared years ago when Sam (Garrett Hedlund) was only a kid. Now he’s 27 and rightfully should be the head of his father’s empire. But he’s kind of lost his way and though he’s a computer genius, he’s wasting his time away pulling an annual prank on the company. But a contact from Alan Bradley (Bruce Boxleitner) and he’s pulled back into his father’s disappearance. Finding a secret room in the old Flynn’s Arcade, he is transported into the grid and finds himself looking for allies and trying to locate his father, and fighting off the mistaken programs that were created that are running wild.
TRON was one of my favorite films back in the early days of computing. Since I’ve been in IT since the mid 80’s I was always fascinated with the concept and vision of the original film. Then to see Tron: Legacy is going back in time and seeing the world again as it has evolved. It’s more modern and advanced about as much as the real world technology has advanced.  Everything works a lot the same, but it’s much faster and more dangerous these days. The visuals and action are stunning, and folks who are fans of the original will probably love to see how it’s aged in these 20 some odd years. The effects that were done to make Jeff Bridges look 25 years younger got a lot of press too. It is resonably so, since it is really kind of creepy. He looks like the characters in CGI films like Polar Express or Jim Carrey in A Christmas Carol last year. They look sort of real, but sort of fake at the same time and it’s disconcerting. But it is a computer created character that has not aged since that time, so it makes sense inside the game that Clu is a little different looking (ok, A LOT different looking) than Flynn. They also made him look young in the real word flashback as well, but it’s short and done in a way that is not near as creepy as Clu is. So I think it’s fine the way they did it, amazing really. As I said, the action is fantastic, and the graphics are worthy of all the time and money Disney put into it. There are those who hated the original Tron, and so it’s doubtful that those folks will be impressed with this one either, but for those of us who loved the orignal, it’s wonderful, and I suspect it will pick up lots of new younger fans that cannot remember the original. I was very impressed and enjoyed every minute. And at just slightly over 2 hours, it’s EPIC without being a bladder buster! I am a fan of both Flynns.
