Norbit

In “Dreamgirls,” Eddie Murphy proved his acting skills, surprising critics who thought his film career was heading downhill. To release “Norbit,” released in 2007, a little two months later is quite a risk. Early trailers would think this “Big Momma” doppelganger will ruin his dramatic clipper back on the ruins. Not so.

“Norbit” is a delightfully hilarious film that will make you laugh until you cheer. Murphy plays Norbit, a smart but socially challenged outsider whose life starts sadly as he’s thrown by his biological parents on the side of the road outside a combination Chinese restaurant/orphanage – where he is raised by Mr. Wong, also played by Murphy. When Kate, played by Thandie Newton, his first crush at the orphanage is adopted and leaves, Norbit is forced into a relationship with the obese, bad attitude Rasputia, also played by Murphy.

This forced relationship leads to an unhappy marriage as Rasputia gets more obese, and Norbit becomes more reclusive. However, when Kate comes back with her fiancé, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., Norbit plans to escape – and comedy ensues.

Everyone knows Murphy’s talent for impressions (fans will remember his sketches from Saturday Night Live and his famous comedy performance, “Raw” from the 80s), but in “Norbit” he perfects the costume and prosthetics transformative performance he helped invent in “The Nutty Professor.”

He completely enters into the personas of Wong and Rasputia, moving them safely beyond the area between character and caricature, and then using them to satirize cultural issues like racism and obesity. Thus far as the prosthetics go, they’re amazing.

The result is a comedy that is as completely unruly as it is ridiculous. Director Brian Robbins keeps the pace up, clearly giving Murphy full creativity, and screenplay writers Jay Scherick and David Ronn keep the laughs – despite that Murphy’s innate comedian is responsible for Rasputia’s repetitive “How YOU Doin’” catchphrase, sure to be quoted from teenagers everywhere after seeing this. I wouldn’t be surprised if Murphy took that catchphrase from Wendy Williams.

Gooding is sadly wasted, and Newton, as endearing as she is, doesn’t truly convince us when her character goes back and forth with Norbit on emotional motivation, but Murphy is helped by Terry Crews, Lester “Rasta” Speight, Clifton Powell, Marlon Wayans, the late Charlie Murphy (his real-life brother) as the voice of a dog, and Eddie Griffin and Katt Williams as “Pope Sweet Jesus” and “Lord Have Mercy,” respectively.

When the script falls (and it does, continuously), Murphy carries bravely on in character – and in more cases, than can be counted, he forces the editor’s hand with a gesture, facial expression, or final improvisation from Rasputia. The result is a performance that may exist in complete contrast with his Oscar-winning role as James “Thunder” Early – but it’s in every way entertaining.

I remember seeing trailers for this movie and I thought it would be funny. I saw it about a decade ago when I was either on break between classes or I was done for the day. I was sitting in the student lounge on a laptop that I borrowed from the front desk watching this movie, I was laughing the entire time. I think a lot of the critics thought this film wasn’t a good comedy, but I don’t agree with them. I would say check this movie out if you’re a fan of any of the cast members on here, especially Murphy playing different characters. You will laugh a lot at this film, as I know I did.

Alright, everyone, we have now reached the end of “Cuba Gooding Jr. Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed it and has seen the films that I recommended. See everyone next month for more excitement.

Rat Race

Millionaire Donald Sinclair leaves $2 million in a locker at Silver City train station, 700 miles outside Las Vegas, and challenges a group of Vegas tourists to race to get it. The first to reach the chest gets the money.

Jo Berry said in his review, “Back in the 1980s - before he made sob-fest 'Ghost' and the teeth-gnashingly awful King Arthur saga, 'First Knight' - the words 'directed by Jerry Zucker' on the screen heralded a stupidly funny movie, be it 'Ruthless People', 'Airplane' or even the terribly silly 'Top Secret'.” With “Rat Race,” released in 2001, his first film in six years, Zucker returns to his originality, giving a silly, old-fashioned adventure-comedy that may not be too much to think about but will make a person laugh uproariously.

The story is simple (and similar to 1963’s “It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”). A group of different tourists in Las Vegas each win a special coin that lets them take part in a race organized by strange millionaire Donald Sinclair, played by John Cleese. He has put $2 million in a locker 700 miles away, and whoever gets there first can keep the money, while Sinclair’s rich friends place bets on who that might be.

Look at the group Sinclair has put together. There’s stumbling Italian Mr. Pollini, family man Randy (Jon Lovitz), who drags his unsuspecting family with him, dumb and dumber brothers Blaine (Vince Vieluf) and Duane (Seth Green), uptight law students Nick (Breckin Meyer), disgraced referee Owen (Cuba Gooding Jr.), and a recently reunited mother and daughter (Whoopi Goldberg and Lanei Chapman).

Berry noted, “The screwball gags come fast and furious, involving everything from a flying cow to Hitler's car, an eccentric roadside squirrel seller and a bus full of Lucille Ball impersonators.” Even though they all don’t get scored, enough of them do to help you forget the small aggravations elsewhere in the movie. For example, why does John Cleese have huge, white, false teeth? Why is Rowan Atkinson just playing Mr. Bean but with a strange foreign accent? And what’s with the incorrectly sentimental ending? Berry is right when he said, “Quibbles aside, this is nicely played by the ensemble cast (we'll forgive Cleese his dentures as his performance is deliciously nutty) and packed with lunacy that will keep you sniggering long after you've left the cinema.”

Former Saturday Night Live writer Andy Breckman keeps adding on to the jokes for this silly chase movie. It’s incredibly silly, but also gut-wrenchingly funny.

I heard about this movie from Doug Walker when he did his “Top 10 Favorite Comedies” list a long time ago. After seeing the movie, I can say that I give it a high recommendation. You will get a good laugh at watching this and I think everyone will love it. If you’re a fan of any of the cast members in this movie, then I highly suggest all of you see this movie.

Next week, I will end “Cuba Gooding Jr Month” with a movie that I found funny, although the critics may not agree.

What Dreams May Come

Vincent Ward’s “What Dreams May Come,” released in 1998, is so breathtaking, so beautiful, and so bold in its imagination, that it’s a surprise at the end to find it doesn’t finally deliver. It takes the audience to the emotional edge but it doesn’t push them over. It ends in a curiously unconvincing way – a conventional ending in a movie that for most of its length has been daring and visionary.

Roger Ebert said in his review, “So, yes, I have my disappointments with it. But I would not want them to discourage you from seeing it, because this is a film that even in its imperfect form shows how movies can imagine the unknown, can lead our imaginations into wonderful places.” It has heartbreakingly powerful performances by Robin Williams and Annabella Sciorra. The movie is so good because it shows us how it could have been better: It appears to go for a great leap, we can see it coming, and then it settles. If Hollywood is determined to short-change us with a necessary happy ending, then it shouldn’t torture us with a movie that deserves better.

Ebert admitted, “I hesitate to reveal too many secrets, but the film's set-up has been so thoroughly publicized that by now you probably already know certain key facts. Save the review until later if you don't.”

People knew from the ads and the trailers that Chris and Annie, played by Williams and Sciorra, have a Cute Meet when their boats crash on a Swiss lake. They marry, have two children (Jessica Brooks Grant and Josh Paddock), and are happy, but both of the children are killed in an accident. Annie has a breakdown, and Chris nurses her through, art works as therapy, they are somehow putting their lives back together, and then Chris is killed.

The film follows him into the afterlife and creates it with visuals that seem borrowed from his memories and imagination. Ebert said, “In one sequence that is among the most visually exciting I have ever seen, he occupies a landscape that is a painting, and as he plucks a flower it turns to oil paint in his hand. Other parts of this world seem cheerfully assembled from the storage rooms of images we keep in our minds: Renaissance art, the pre-Raphaelites, greeting cards, angel kitsch (cherubs float past on plump clouds). Later, when Chris ventures into Satan’s home, the images are darker and more fearsome--Bosch crossed with Dali.”

There is a guide in the next world named Albert, played by Cuba Gooding Jr. Is he all that he appears to be? Ebert said, “Now we have ventured beyond the information in the ads, and I will be more circumspect. The story, inspired by a novel by Richard Matheson, is founded on the assumption that heaven exists in a state of flux, that its inhabitants assume identities that please themselves, or us; that having been bound within one identity during life, we are set free.” Heaven, in one sense, means becoming who you want to be.

And Satan’s home? “It is for those who don’t know they’re dead,” says Albert. Or they know they’re dead but don’t know what the deal is. Or they won’t go along with the deal. Many of those in Satan’s home are guilty of the greatest sin against God, which is despair: They believe they are beyond hope.

After the death of her children and husband, Annie has gone into depression, commits suicide, and goes to Satan’s home. Chris wants to find her: “I’m her soul mate.” Albert says that’s not possible, “Nothing will make her recognize you.” However, he acts as a guide, and Chris goes into Satan’s home, which, like heaven, has been realized with a visual intensity and originality that is astonishing. In this film, the path to Satan’s home is paved, not with good intentions, but with the faces of the doomed, bitter, and complaining (the face and voice of Chris’s father are played by the German director Werner Herzog).

What happens then, what happens throughout the film, is like nothing you have seen before. Ebert noted, “Vincent Ward is a New Zealand director whose works have not always reached a large audience, but have always dared for big ideas and bold visuals to express them. He made "The Navigator" (1988), about medieval Englishmen who tunnel to escape the plague--and emerge in the present. And then, in 1993, he made the great "Map of the Human Heart," about the odyssey of an Eskimo boy from Alaska in the 1930s to London in the war, and from a great love affair to high adventure.”

Ebert continued, “"What Dreams May Come" ends, like "The Navigator," with the characters seeking their destiny in a cathedral--but this one, like many of the film's images, is like none you have seen before. It is upside-down, the great vaulted ceilings providing a floor and a landscape. Since I have mentioned Herzog, I might as well quote his belief that our century is "starving for great images."” This film provides them and also provides quiet moments of pleasant human nature, as when a character played by Rosalind Chao explains why she appears to be an Asian flight attendant, and when another, played by Max von Sydow, explains the rules of the game as he understands them.

Robin Williams somehow has a quality that makes him seem at home in imaginary realms. Remember him in “Popeye,” “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” “Toys,” “Jumanji,” and as the Genie in “Aladdin.” Ebert said, “There is a muscular reality about him, despite his mercurial wit, that anchors him and makes the fantastic images around him seem almost plausible.” He is good, too, at emotion: He brings us along with him. In Annabella Sciorra, he has a co-star whose own character is very unhappy and yet touching. Her sin of despair was committed, we believe because she loved so much and was so happy, she could not exist in the absence of those feelings.

Ebert said, “And yet, as I've suggested, the movie somehow gathers all these threads and its triumphant art direction and special effects, and then doesn't get across the finish line with them. I walked out of the theater sensing that I should have felt more, that an opportunity had been lost.” “What Dreams May Come” takes us too far and risks too much to turn conventional at the end. It could have been better. It could perhaps have been the best film that year. Whatever its shortcomings, it is a film to treasure.

This is one of those tear-jerker movies, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people cried while watching it. You should see this movie because it is very emotional and you will love it. I remember seeing a part of this movie with my sister years ago, but when I went back and saw the whole film, I had no idea it was “this” emotional. Check it out and have a good cry.

Next week I will be looking at another comedy in “Cuba Gooding Jr. Month.” Sorry for the late response. I took a nap, not realizing it, and woke up having to rush through stuff.

Jerry Maguire

I was going back and forth on what I should review for this month. After much consideration, I have decided to review movies I have seen that have Cuba Gooding Jr. in them. Let’s not waste any time. Let’s jump in with the 1997 classic, “Jerry Maguire.”

­Seeing his world – mainly as a sports agent – shattering around him, Jerry Maguire, played by Tom Cruise, writes a mission statement during a nervous breakdown asking for a gentler way to business. This causes him to get fired, but he manages to save one client – football player Rod Tilbrook (Cuba Gooding Jr), and assistant Dorothy Boyd (Renee Zellweger). Jerry is about to learn a lot about life.

Adam Smith said in his review, “If you don't walk out of Jerry Maguire with a goofy grin the size of Alaska plastered across your face, check your pulse - you're probably dead.” Director Cameron Crowe has written and directed a smart, funny, shamelessly upbeat romantic comedy and the icing is that this was the finest performance of Tom Cruise’s career.

Jerry is a sports agent on the edge of a breakdown. He’s rich, successful, and has a love life that falls under “rampant.” However, he’s not happy. He looks around and sees a business sinking into sarcasm. A world where a kid can’t ask a sports player to do so much as autograph a baseball card without endorsement deals and counter-deals racing to the front. In one long lonely night of the soul, he writes a “mission statement” demanding a more genuine approach, delivers it to his colleagues, and is instantly terminated from his job.

Smith noted, “With only one desultory client left, Rod Tidwell (played with screwballish energy by Gooding Jnr.), a second rate footballer with a surfeit of energy off the field but precious little on it, Maguire decides to go it alone, failing to persuade any of his colleagues to accompany him apart from lovestruck single parent from accounts Dorothy Boyd (the excellent Zellweger). Things don't run smoothly (natch) for the isolated couple: Maguire is screwed by both ex-colleagues and clients, and although he is attracted enough to his partner and her sprog to smooch, shag and finally wed, the marriage is in trouble within weeks with the outside world's cynicism and Jerry's escalating emotional crisis leaching in and poisoning the familial nest.”

Smith continued, “That this doesn't degenerate into an experience akin to being hit full in the face by the Tate & Lyle express is a testament both to Crowe's (director of Say Anything and Singles) script and direction plus a new maturity and confidence in Cruise's performance. Crowe takes a dessicated and predictable genre and invests it with a delightfully off-beam sensibility.” Scenes never go exactly as you expect. Take the opening montage where a boxer-shorted Cruise narrates his dive into extreme doubt while simultaneously weakening the corniness by admitting that this is all a little “touchy-feely.”

Then there’s Cruise, who for the first time in his career may not have required defense. Smith said, “Not satisfied to deliver the kind of by-the-numbers winsome romantic lead that a few years ago he'd probably have been satisfied with, here he fleshes Jerry's struggle with a developing disgust for the world to the point where it's finally possible to forget that this was the man who made Cocktail and Days Of Thunder.”

Other casts included in this sterling supporting performance are Bonnie Hunt as Dorothy’s concerned, distrustful sister, plus a ruffle-haired kid, played by Jonathan Lipnicki, who’ll, as Smith put it, “have anyone leaning towards broodiness, repapering the box-room and spending a fortune down Mothercare.” Also, comedian Aries Spears plays Cuba Gooding Jr.’s brother.

“Jerry Maguire” is that rare movie that reminds you why you like movies in the first place. Be nice to yourself. Go see it.

This film is famous for the lines, “Show me the money,” “You had me at hello,” “You complete me,” and “Help me help you.” I remember this movie was talked about a lot when it was released, but I didn’t see it until about 10-11 years ago. This movie had Tom Cruise not playing his typical self but was quite different from any role he had played at the time. If you haven’t seen it yet, you’re missing out. This is a film that is not one to be missed.

Look out next week when I review a tear-jerker in “Cuba Gooding Jr. Month.”

Uncle Buck

Uncle Buck, played by the late John Candy, is the type of character that no American suburb should exclude. Everything about him hurts middle-class behavior, fashions, and wants. Though his antique car needs a muffler and drives around in its permanent cloud of exhaust smoke, Uncle Buck is refreshing.

Besides making a deal off and on, and going to the racetrack, Uncle Buck does not believe in work. He loves cigars that smell and wears clothes that don’t match, either him or each other. Vincent Canby said in his review, “He is the embodiment of all things uncouth that people in the suburbs hope they have left somewhere else.”

In “Uncle Buck,” released in 1989, John Hughes had the good sitcom idea of putting Uncle Buck in the middle of the perfect suburb (Winnetka, IL), in the middle of Hughes’s idea of an average American family. Canby pointed out, “The results are sometimes funny and, in the way of small-screen entertainment, so perfectly predictable that one could mail in the laughs.”

When his brother (Garrett M. Brown) and sister-in-law (Elaine Bromka) are called to Indianapolis, Uncle Buck leaves his superbly good-for-nothing life in Chicago to take care of his two nieces and nephew. The two younger children, Miles (Macaulay Culkin) and Maizy (Gaby Hoffman) are at first shocked by his different methods and then impressed.

The eldest child, Tia, played by Jean Kelly, is a teenage beauty separated from her parents. She is consecutively embarrassed by Uncle Buck’s simple ways and furious at his nosing in her romance with a boy who’s up to no good, played by Jay Underwood. Canby advised, “You don't need a diagram to know how that will come out.”

Canby noted, “As in ''War and Peace,'' it's not the plot that counts.” In “Uncle Buck” it’s watching John Candy dealing with a clown, played by Mike Starr, who arrives for Miles’s birthday party drunk and driving a Volkswagen with large mouse ears. “In the field of live home entertainment,” says the clown, “I am a god.” Says Uncle Buck, “Get in your mouse and leave.”

John Candy is at his best when is sneaky and, at the beginning, completely cruel to the children. So is the film. Canby said, “When ''Uncle Buck'' goes sweet (complete with Chaplinesque music), fun flees. ''Uncle Buck'' is a movie in which saying ''I love you'' to Mom or Dad or Uncle Buck solves all problems except, perhaps, acid rain.”

Canby continued, “Although Mr. Hughes has had huge success with his theatrical movies about teen-agers (''Sixteen Candles,'' ''Ferris Buehler's Day Off,'' among others), he may be the first real auteur of television-style entertainment.”

He knows exactly what he’s doing and does it with attention to necessary detail. The outside of a house in a Hughes film immediately sets up the sentimental nature of the characters within along with the type of movie it is. He can write funny lines. He comes up with charmingly strange situations. Canby said, “Yet there is something unnerving about the way he denatures real life.”

Canby continued, “One doesn't notice this in the limited confines of the small screen. In a movie theater, too many Hughes images are simply big and empty. They are filler material. Dead. Though he likes to shoot on location, the world he records seems phony or, at best, consistently trivial.”

The cast is good, especially Jean Kelly, who not only looks great but may also be an up-and-coming actress. Amy Madigan does well in the very short role of Uncle Buck’s steady if impatient female friend. It is John Candy who gives the film what size it has. He is an entertaining actor through thick and mostly thin.

Believe it or not, this is another movie I knew about for a while and had been thinking about watching it. A few months ago, I found this on Netflix and saw it while exercising. This is another classic that everyone should see. It’s one of Hughes’s funniest films. This film came out before “Home Alone” when Culkin got very popular, so seeing this before that, he did a good job. As stated before, this is mainly a classic due to John Candy, who was a real force to be reckoned with. Check it out and have a great time.

All right, everyone, we have reached the end of “John Hughes Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed the classics I have reviewed of his and hopefully everyone has seen these classics by now, if they haven’t already. If you have, you might be in the same boat as I am where I just thought a film was good or ok.

Check in next month to see what I will review next.

Ferries Bueller’s Day Off

Here is one of the most innocent movies in a long time. A nice, warm-hearted comedy about a teenager who skips school so he can help his best friend earn some self-respect. The therapy he has in mind includes a day’s visit to Chicago. After we’ve seen the Sears Tower, the Art Institute, the Board of Trade, a parade down Dearborn Street, architectural landmarks, a Gold Coast, and a game at Wrigley Field, we have to allow the city and state film offices have done their jobs: If “Ferries Bueller’s Day Off,” released in 1986, fails on every other level, at least it works as a travelogue.

However, it does work on at least a few other levels. The movie stars Matthew Broderick as Ferris, a smart high school senior from the North Shore who feigns illness to spend a day in town with his girlfriend, Sloane (Mia Sara), and his best friend, Cameron (Alan Ruck).

Initially, it looks like skipping school is all he has thought of – especially after he talks Cameron into borrowing his dad’s repaired red Ferrari, a car the father loves more than Cameron himself.

Roger Ebert said in his review, “The body of the movie is a lighthearted excursion through the Loop, including a German-American Day parade in which Ferris leaps aboard a float, grabs a microphone and starts singing "Twist and Shout" while the marching band backs him up. The teens fake their way into a fancy restaurant for lunch, spend some time gawking at the masterpieces in the Art Institute, and then go out to Wrigley Field, where, of course, they are late and have to take box seats far back in the left-field corner.” (The movie gets that detail right. It would be too much to hope that they could arrive in the third inning and find seats in the bleachers.) There is one great moment when the teens visit the top of the Sears Tower, lean forward, press themselves against the glass, look straight down at the small cars and little parts of life down below, and begin to talk about their lives. Subtly, that introduces the buried theme of the movie, which is that Ferris wants to help Cameron get self-respect in the face of his father’s materialism.

Ferris is a little like a preacher. He says the famous line of the movie, “Life goes by so fast that if you don’t stop and look around, you might miss it.” Ebert said, “He's sensitive to the hurt inside his friend's heart, as Cameron explains how his dad has cherished and restored the red Ferrari and given it a place of honor in his life - a place denied to Cameron.”

Ebert credited, “Ferris Bueller" was directed by John Hughes, the philosopher of adolescence, whose credits include "Sixteen Candles," "The Breakfast Club" and "Pretty In Pink." In every one of his films, adults are strange, distant beings who love their teenagers, but fail to completely understand them. That’s the obvious issue: All of the adults, including an awkward high-school principal, played by Jeffrey Jones, are dim-witted and one-dimensional. The movie’s solutions to Cameron’s problems are very simplistic. However, the film’s heart is in the right place, and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” is small, quirky, and sweet.

I know people love this movie and consider it one of the great classics, but I just thought of this as good. I like the movie; I just don’t love it like everyone else does. I still say you should check this out because you might like this movie a lot, maybe more than I did. You have Ben Stein in here constantly saying, “Bueller,” and a cameo appearance by Charlie Sheen in a police station. See this one if you would like.

Stay tuned next week when we end “John Hughes Month” with another classic film. Once again, I would like to apologize for the late posting as I completely forgot what day of the week it was.

Pretty in Pink

Roger Ebert started his review of the 1986 film, “Pretty in Pink,” by saying, “Although "Pretty in Pink" contains several scenes that are a great deal more dramatic, my favorite moments were the quietest ones, in which nothing was being said because a boy was trying to get up the courage to ask a girl out on a date, and she knew it, and he knew it, and still nothing was happening.”

To be able to listen to this silence is to understand the main problem of adolescence, which is that their dreams are much larger than their confidence. “Pretty in Pink” is a movie that pays attention to these matters. Even though this is not a great movie, it has some moments when the audience is likely to think, yes, being 16 was exactly like that.

The movie stars Molly Ringwald as Andie Walsh, a poor girl from the bad side of town. Her mother abandoned her when she was a child, and she lives with her unemployed father, played by Harry Dean Stanton, whose first words after she wakes him one morning are, “Where am I?” Ebert noted, “Andie works in a record store in a downtown mall and wears fashions that seem thrown together by a collision between a Goodwill store and a 1950s revival.”

Andie goes to high school where most of the kids are from wealthy parents, and she has a crush on a rich kid named Blane, played by Andrew McCarthy.

Ebert mentioned, “Her best friends are Duckie (Jon Cryer), who is a case study of the kind of teenage boy who thinks he can clown his way into a girl's heart, and Iona (Annie Potts), a 30ish sprite who affects one radical hairstyle after another.”

The movie’s plot is very old. It’s about how the rich boy and the poor girl love each other, but the rich kid’s friends are snobs, and the poor girl doesn’t want anyone to know what an untidy home she lives in, and about how they find true love after all. Ebert said, “Since the basic truths in the movie apply to all teenagers, rich and poor, I wish the filmmakers would have found a new plot to go along with them.”

Ebert continued, “Perhaps they could have made the lovers come from different ethnic groups, which wouldn't have been all that original, either, but at least would have avoided one more recycling of ancient Horatio Alger stories.”

Ebert went on, “There is one other major problem with the movie, and that involves the character of Steff McKee (James Spader), the effete, chain-smoking rich snob who is Blane's best friend. He has been turned down several times by Andie and now pretends to be appalled that Blane would want to go out with such a "mutant."” His snobbery almost ruins the romance.

Steff does have one great line of dialogue: “Money really means nothing to me. Do you think I’d treat my parents’ house this way if it did?” But, as played by Spader, he looks much too old to be a teenager, and his scenes play restlessly for that reason. Ebert said, “He seems more like a sinister 25-year-old still lurking in the high school corridors, the Ghost of Proms Past.”

Those problems mentioned, “Pretty in Pink” is a heartwarming and most truthful movie, with some nice moments of humor. Ebert noted, “The movie was written by John Hughes, who repeats the basic situation of his "Sixteen Candles," which starred Ringwald as a girl who had a crush on a senior boy, and learned to communicate with the class geek. But Ringwald is becoming an actress who can project poignancy and vulnerability without seeming corny or coy, and her scenes here with Cryer and Potts have one moment of small truth after another.”

The nicest surprise in the movie is the character created by Potts. Ebert mentioned, “The first time we see her, she's dressed in leather and chains, but the next time, she wears one of those beehive hairdos from the early 1960s.” She is always testing her “look,” and when she finally settles on conservative good taste, the choice seems like her most radical so far.

Ebert said, “"Pretty in Pink" is evidence, I suppose, that there must be a reason why certain old stories never seem to die.” We know all the cliches, we can predict half of the moments. However, in the end, when this boy and this girl, who are so obviously meant for one another, finally get together, there is great satisfaction. Ebert ended his review by saying, “There also is the sense that Ringwald just might have that subtle magic that will allow her, like the young Elizabeth Taylor, to grow into an actress who will keep on breaking and mending boys' hearts for a long time.”

This is another movie that I have been thinking about seeing for some time. Recently, I found this film on Paramount+ and decided to watch it. This is a classic that I cannot believe I have never seen. Check it out if you haven’t. You will love it, I promise.

Next week I will be looking at another classic that I just found to be good in “John Hughes Month.” Sorry for the late posting. I had completely forgotten about the day because I had family over and I was tired from work.

The Breakfast Club

In “The Breakfast Club,” released in 1985, five students at a Chicago suburban high school vent their problems to each other during nine hours of detention one Saturday in 1984.

Their main topic, as they open up, is their parents, who don't understand them and make their lives terrible by paying too much attention to them or not enough.

“My home life is unsatisfying,” says a student. Another says, “Well, everyone's home life is unsatisfying. Otherwise, nobody would ever leave home.” Someone asks, “Are we gonna be like our parents?” The reply: “It's unavoidable. When you grow up, your heart dies.”

The father (Ron Dean) of the jock (Emilio Estevez) does his thinking for him. The brain (Anthony Michael Hall) has thought of committing suicide because his father (John Hughes) demands straight A's. The harsh father of the rebel (Judd Nelson) beats him.

When they finish explaining what's wrong with their parents, they analyze their other big problem: peer pressure. These five kids -- the three boys and two girls, an upper-middle-class princess (Molly Ringwald), and a genetic loner (Ally Sheedy), acknowledge they are prisoners of a student caste system that segregates them.

Joseph Gelmis said in his review, “It should be clear, at this point, that "The Breakfast Club" is a group therapy variation on an otherwise familiar collective portrait of a high school class. Virtually the entire movie takes place inside the lofty school library and a few other rooms in the building.” The two adults in the school are the principal (Paul Gleason), a jailer and bully for a day, and the janitor (John Kapelos), a realist who knows too many of the school’s secrets to be a critic.

Gelmis mentioned, “Given the simplistic treatment of subject matter and the dramatic limitations of confining the cast and action to a single set, "The Breakfast Club" is slightly more interesting than one might expect. Writer-director John Hughes, whose previous film was "Sixteen Candles," choreographs the moves and verbal sparring and intimate disclosures of his young performers like a ritual tribal ceremony.”

Gelmis continued, “Nelson, as the troublemaker Bender, is very effective in the role of the provocateur who disrupts the orderliness of the detention session and leads the others in defying the rules. ("Being bad is fun, huh?" he says with a leer, before turning them on with pot.)” Nelson has the best lines in the movie. When he first enters the detention room, he insults the principal: "Does Barry Manilow know you raided his closet?"

Bender and the principal are sworn enemies. Gelmis noted, “And Bender's inflammatory disrespect goads the dean into a sanctimonious fury. It takes a few beers in the basement with the janitor, apparently a contemporary of his, to cool the dean down.” "If you were 16," the janitor asks the principal, "what would you think of you?" The principal shakes his head.

As each of the five students does his or her emotional venting, we have to respect their pain. Gelmis noted, “To share the growing pains of troubled kids is to become a godparent. You owe them your goodwill and best wishes.” Finally, that's all these five students can suggest. Nothing changes. You hear nothing you haven't heard before. However, you know that for them it is happening for the first time, and they deserve compassion. Gelmis ended his review by saying, “I'm not sure that's a good enough reason to see "The Breakfast Club".”

My sister and I tried to watch this on Netflix some years back, and we couldn’t watch it after about 45 minutes. I did go back and rewatch after a couple of years past as, if I remember correctly, a rental from the library, but I’m not a fan. People consider this film a classic, but I thought it was ok. Maybe if I had grown up around the time the film was released, I would have had a different thought about it, which is why I just think this is an average film. If you want to watch this, it is currently streaming on Max, but I don’t highly recommend it.

Next week I will be looking at another classic film in “John Hughes Month.”

Megamind

Tonight, I watched “Megamind vs the Doom Syndicate,” but first, I should let everyone know of the first “Megamind,” released in 2010.

Mayer Nissim started his review by saying, “When it comes to animated flicks, studios must be tempted to cobble together a cliché-laden script, toss in some pop culture references for the mums and dads, pile on the celeb names, stick it in 3D and hope that the punters will roll in.” Often enough, that works, so it’s nice when a group of people try to make something a little more special. “Megamind” might be cast with big names, it does have the odd mischievous nod for adults – and it is made in inglorious 3D – but it’s also got a screenplay overflowing with charm, intelligence, wit, and a real spark.

We start at the beginning, with Megamind (Will Ferrell) and Metro Man (Brad Pitt) flying to Earth in pods that look like something out of Superman. After the prologue, we see that Metro Man gets a happy life with wealthy parents, while Megamind is raised in a nearby correctional facility. Skip to the present and the two ruthless enemies wage their superhero fight over Metro City. However, the one-sidedness of their fight makes it a little sad. Megamind and his spikey fish sidekick Minion (David Cross) regularly kidnap news reporter Roxanne Ritchi (Tina Fey) from under the nose of her colleague Hal (Jonah Hill), Metro Man saves her and throws Megamind in prison. Rinse and repeat. Then, somehow everything changes, throwing up an existential crisis for our protagonist. Stuck without a rival, he injects the hopeless Hal with some superpowers, naming him “Tighten” to bring back the old good/evil fistfights, but things don’t go exactly as planned.

Megamind’s bad guy with a heart of gold isn’t the most surprisingly original character in movie history, but Ferrell voices him with real emotion to win you over from the beginning. Fey, Cross, and even Pitt succeed by actually playing well-done parts, rather than animated versions of themselves. Nissim said, “Of course, Hill's Hal looks just like him, and his character isn't a million miles away from his usual on-screen persona either. That's a small quibble considering how well-deployed his co-stars are, though, and naturally it's a job he does pretty well.”

There are some smart themes about identity, the nature/nurture debate, and good guys and bad guys, but you never feel as if the film gets too smart for its good. Nissim noted, “There are gigglesome set-pieces, witty sight gags, clever one-liners and references that actually skewer their original source rather than just replicate them for the recognition factor - Megamind's Obama-like 'No You Can't' posters get a laugh every time they pop up on screen.” What makes “Megamind” enjoyable is that it never goes through the motions. You can probably guess at the end from very early on, but it’s really enjoyable getting there.

I think my brother had told me that I should see this movie because he said it was a great DreamWorks movie. When I checked it out a few days ago on Peacock, I couldn’t believe that I never saw the film. Now I can say I saw it and I think everyone should as well if they haven’t seen it. You will like this film, even though there are things in the film that you will question. Still, it’s a good movie for the entire movie to see.

I was surprised to see that they made a sequel this year. However, they did, and it was released on Peacock four days ago, “Megamind vs the Doom Syndicate.”

Seeing how this was written by the same team that wrote the first “Megamind,” it’s no surprise that “Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate” has fingerprints of the charm and humor that made the original a cult film.

Unfortunately, they’re too few and far between. Most of “Megamind’s” sequel is a cliched bore and has a lot of plot holes in regards to the first film that it’s hard to take this seriously as a proper sequel at all.

In “Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate,” the previously evil Megamind, voiced by Keith Ferguson, is no longer evil. He’s now Metro City’s hero, keeping the citizens safe and stopping villains from committing crimes. When Megamind’s old evil group hears about this in the news, however, they think Megamind is simply pretending to be good and visit him, and Megamind has to pretend to still be evil, while thinking of a way to beat his old villain team.

The continuity errors from the first film are shocking. Not one character mentions the Doom Syndicate throughout the first film, but Megamind used to be their leader. The syndicate claims they’ve been waiting patiently for a signal from Megamind, but somehow missed the events of the first film when Megamind took over Metro City. This sequel also claims that villains have been appearing since Metro Man’s defeat, but the only villains we saw in the first movie were Megamind and Titan, and Metro Man was defeated at the beginning of the film.

Joey Rambles said in his review, “Even disregarding the continuity errors, though, Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate is mostly just a slog to get through.” The animation is a step down from the first film, and aside from one scene in the final act, there are no interesting camera angles or movements, either. That’s mainly because the first film had great action scenes of characters flying or controlling contraptions, the Megamind sequel doesn’t have a lot for the characters to do.

Instead, it’s mostly just Megamind doing his best to make the façade of him still being evil, and a predictable subplot of Minion (now called Chum) quitting being Megamind’s sidekick and excelling in his new job at a diner. The setup for this sequel feels more like a comedy than the first movie, and the jokes work a lot less. Rambles said, “The majority of them are pretty groan-inducing, especially the ones that get repeated ad nauseam, and the new characters are too one-dimensional to be any fun watching.”

Rambles said, “There are a few jokes that work here, however, and not just work, but boast traces of the witty writing from the first film.” They’re not on the same level, but they do show both screenplays were made by the same people, which is also evident in the way the returning characters are written.

Rambles said, “Megamind, Chum (Josh Brener), and Roxanne (Laura Post) aren’t nearly as fun this time around — and their voice acting isn’t nearly as good, either — but they also don’t seem too far removed from how they were in the first film, and a lot of the jokes that work stem from an understanding of these characters’ personalities.”

That said, they’ve also lost a large amount of their depth, mostly because they’re not given a lot to do other than try and defeat the Doom Syndicate (Emily Tunon, Scott Adsit, Talon Warburton, Chris Sullivan, and singer Adam Lambert). “Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate” also serves as the pilot of the show “Megamind Rules!”, and because of that, most of the movie feels restricted by the need to set up a follow-up. Rambles said, “There can’t be any intriguing character arcs since this is mostly just a glorified prologue, and what it’s setting up isn’t compelling enough to make you want to watch the show.”

Whether it be as a pilot of a show or a sequel film, though, “Megamind vs. the Doom Syndicate” has little to offer viewers that’s worth watching, especially if you’re a big fan of the first film.

As you might have guessed, this film does not hold a candle to the first film. It doesn’t seem like a needed film or if they needed a sequel to serve as a pilot to a show. If they wanted to make the show, they could have done it with no problem. There was no need to make this film. I don’t know how good the show is going to be as I don’t think I will see it. I don’t think people should see this on Peacock because they will not like it.

Thank you for joining in on this review tonight. Stay tuned on Friday for the continuation of “John Hughes Month.”

Mr. Mom

For March, I will dedicate it to one of the greatest directors of all time, John Hughes. Let’s get this month started with the 1987 classic, “Mr. Mom.”

Francis Rizzo III started his review by saying, “Everything old is new again, be it the fear of nuclear war or the looming spectre of economic disaster.” An 80s comedy like “Mr. Mom” remains very relevant. Jack (Michael Keaton) has been furloughed from his job as an engineer with a car company and, as he hasn’t been able to find a job, his wife Caroline (Teri Garr) finds a job in an advertising company, leaving Jack to be a stay-at-home dad to look after their three children (Frederick Koehler, Taliesin Jaffe, and Courtney & Brittany White). In a less rational time (and in the hands of one of the great writers John Hughes), this is a huge challenge for Jack and a threat to his masculinity and his marriage (thanks, partly, to the awkward pursuit of local promiscuous Joan, played by Ann Jillian).

Rizzo said, “Surprisingly, the film doesn't take the easy "dumb dad" route of making it just about how manly Jack can't cope with "women's work", even though he does struggle with simple tasks like diaper changing and meal prep, as Hughes' script includes several scenes of near-cartoonish coordinated chaos to intimate that a homemaker's life is not an easy one.” Caroline has her problems, like being a newly returned mom who is disrespected by her co-workers (despite having a college degree and experience in the field) and being an attractive woman makes her the target of her harassing boss, played by Leon Carp from “Roseanne,” Willard Kraft from “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,” Vlad from “Danny Phantom,” and Gene Parmesan from “Arrested Development,” Martin Mull. However, as she begins to succeed at her job and Jack settles into domesticity, their changed positions lead to new issues in their relationship (including some gender-swapped takes on classic marriage tropes, like the idea of letting yourself go.)

There’s not a clear plot to “Mr. Mom” that gets the film from beginning to end, but the details of Jack’s lost job (featuring Jeffrey Tambor as a by-the-books boss) and the potential for Joan to break up Jack and Caroline’s marriage are often-present to create drama and a sense that things are moving forward. (Why a single woman like Joan would be so insistent on an affair with a guy who can’t find a job and doesn’t have his life together is a mystery the film doesn’t try to solve.) Rizzo noted, “At one point, a lengthy fantasy scene crops up (with some legitimately funny beats), but it serves mainly to point out how aimless the film is at many points. Yes, Caroline has a big project at work, but that only really sets up the possibility for more harassment from Ron, but Jack's journey and, for lack of a better word, redemption, lacks in motivation and agency. The whole film builds to a humorously disorderly moment that only feels like a payoff because it arrives about 90 minutes after the film started.”

Despite not having a real story (and instead stuck in small moments of domestic life and “What if mom was a dad?” jokes like playing poker for coupons), “Mr. Mom” is driven by performances, led by Keaton (in his first feature lead) and Garr. Rizzo credited, “It would be hard to pair two better, more underrated actors than this duo, with Keaton putting his trademark mix of humor and unhinged insanity on proper display (getting darker than you'd expect at points for a comedy), and Garr reminding us why she is always a delight to watch at work, nevering having to try too hard to earn a laugh.” They are supported by a lot of quality performances, including some enjoyably cute child actors (Koehler and Jaffe) as the couple’s boys, Miriam Flynn as a nosy neighbor, and Christopher Lloyd and Tom Leopold in a fun, small part (along with cameos by Edie McClurg and Pattie Deutsch).

Rizzo noted, “Director Stan Dragoti made several solid comedies between 1979 and 1991, working well with likable stars like Keaton and Garr (as he did with Tom Hanks and Scott Bakula), but the visual flair he hints at here in small doses wouldn't really come to the forefront until his next film, The Man with One Red Shoe.” The film moves well through Hughes’ brand of dynamic comedy but still hits a few brief moments of depth. There’s just not a lot of self-reflection on Jack’s part (as Hughes was still a few years away from his best works of suburban therapy). Rizzo said, “Some sort of through-line that gave Jack more agency could have made Mr. Mom a more cohesive film, but as it is, it's an opportunity to enjoy Keaton and Garr in a lighthearted, if unspectacular comedy.”

There’s nothing that makes “Mr. Mom” stand out in a crowd of 80s comedies, except for the performances of Keaton and Garr, but that’s honestly enough to make it worth watching, as they are both enjoyable to watch, and the movie has enough going on to never stall, even if it’s never really going anywhere.

I had always said I would watch this film, but I never got around to it until a while ago. Now that I have finally seen it, I can say that this film is worth seeing. Check it out if you haven’t because this is nice to see Michael Keaton before he did the darker roles in the years following this film. Especially since this was made at a time when fathers were not seen as stay-at-home parents, but now we can see them as that, even though stay-at-home parents are not as common as they used to be.

Sorry for the late posting. I was tired coming back from work then I was called for a couple of tasks. Stay tuned next week for the next installment of “John Hughes Month.”

MLK/FBI

The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is now a near-universally respected and beloved historical icon, but as Sam Pollard’s careful and silently infuriating 2020 documentary “MLK/FBI” shows, this was not always the case, especially during King’s lifetime. Christopher Bourne said in his review, “Based on historian and King biographer David Garrow’s book The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr.: From “Solo” to Memphis, and largely sourced from recently declassified documents and unearthed film footage, MLK/FBI fills in many damning details of the FBI’s extensive surveillance of King, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover.” This surveillance, which was meant to personally disgrace King and neutralize the supposed threat of the civil rights movement, is described by one of the film’s interviewees, former FBI director James Comey, as “the darkest part of the FBI’s history.”

Bourne noted, “Pollard, a veteran documentary filmmaker who also edited several of Spike Lee’s films, masterfully weaves together this archival material with present-day interviews with historians and King colleagues (including Garrow and Andrew Young).” While fascinatingly laying out the vast scope of the FBI’s surveillance, he also shows how both government officials (including supposed friends like JFK, RFK, and LBJ) and general public opinion were mostly in agreement about the threat King was to American society. Bourne noted, “Much of the archival footage consists of clips from Hollywood films glorifying the FBI and depicting federal agents (or “G-men,” as they were colloquially termed at the time) as dashing heroes preserving the American way of life. Anti-Communist sentiment played a large role, and this was the initial tack the FBI’s actions against King took, focusing on Stanley Levison, a white Jewish lawyer and close advisor with ties to Communist groups.” King’s refusal to end his relations with Levison, even after being personally warned by JFK, was what led to the FBI’s wiretapping of King and his associates. Bourne noted, “While the FBI was pursuing their campaign to smear the civil rights movement as a Communist infiltration plot, fueled by Hoover’s fears of King becoming a “Black Messiah,” they happened upon evidence of King’s philandering and extramarital affairs. The FBI thereupon pivoted to using this as a means to personally ruin King’s reputation and discredit him in the eyes of his followers.”

“MLK/FBI” is a necessary and timely reminder that far from the often relaxing and clean “I Have a Dream” historical figure that he’s often shown as, King was a very divisive and controversial person in his lifetime – “the most dangerous Negro in the future of this nation,” as stated in an FBI memo – and who even lost many supporters when he spoke out against the Vietnam War. The film also has audiences asking unsettled questions regarding King’s assassination, mainly how anyone was able to kill him when he was under such heavy surveillance, and whether the FBI’s obsession with taking King down personally led them to overlook or intentionally ignore the many threats on King’s life. Bourne ended his review by saying, “But perhaps even more unsettlingly — particularly given the current president and attorney general’s attempts to smear current protests against police brutality, and especially Black Lives Matter’s prominent role, as dangerous sedition — MLK/FBI leads us to question whether the governmental overreach it depicts is as safely in the past as some would have us believe.”

I saw this documentary on Hulu and I was surprised at how much I didn’t know about MLK. What they teach us in school is not everything about his life. They leave out a lot of the details, which are shown here. I would recommend everyone to see this film if they have a Hulu or an AMC+. You will be amazed at how many details are in this and how much surveillance the man was under throughout his career. Check this out and see for yourself.

Alright, we have once again reached the end of “Black History Movie Month.” I hope everyone enjoyed this month and will see the movies I recommended. Stay tuned next month to see what other films I will be reviewing. Take care.

LBJ

The 2018 biopic, “LBJ,” based upon a large amount of the life of USA’s 36^th President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, is an odd, wooden look with a strangely distanced feel.

That distance shows one of the film’s biggest problems: neither director/producer Rob Reiner nor actor Woody Harrelson likes LBJ the least. Both Harrelson and Reiner later said they disliked LBJ because he was pro-Vietnam. Now the question is: why make a movie about him?

DM Bradley said in his review, “Although Woody (before he was in War For The Planet Of The Apes, Three Billboards…, Solo: A Star Wars Story and several others) is actually about the same age as LBJ was during the years depicted here, he nevertheless sat for hours in the make-up chair and wore prosthetics to make his lean gob look more like the jowly Johnson’s, and all it really does is make him look weirdly rubbery.”

Strangely focusing more on Johnson’s Vice Presidency than his actual Presidency, this starts with LBJ, his wife Lady Bird (Jennifer Jason Leigh), and John F. Kennedy (Jeffrey Donovan) and his wife Jackie (Kim Allen) in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Bradley noted, “We know the assassination is coming, yet there isn’t much tension (as there was in Jackie, where LBJ was impressively played by the less chameleonic John Carroll Lynch) and the sequence looks a little cheap, with sparse crowds and, briefly, a reflection of the camera crew in one of the cars.”

We jump back and forth from that tragic day as Joey Hartstone’s script continues, and early on there’s a hint that LBJ was very jealous of the more popular JFK and secretly regretted how he only became President after Kennedy was assassinated. Bradley said, “Later LBJ is also seen having it out with Bobby Kennedy (Michael Stahl-David not really looking much like the real guy), who refuses to like him, in sequences that have been stripped of their dirtier excesses. Here you wonder again why anyone would bother making a movie about Johnson if he couldn’t be depicted in all his foul-mouthed glory.”

Stronger in tone are the scenes where Johnson is becoming more faithful to civil rights causes and must fight with evil Senator Richard Russell, played by Richard Jenkins, playing against type. The two of them have dinners and meetings where Russell tells his fear at the fact of allowing black people any type of equality in the South, and that’s the way God would want it too. Harrelson’s LBJ sits there looking quietly shocked.

Bradley said, “Made at a time when LBJ has featured in several films, this is handled by director Rob Reiner with creaky earnestness, and Harrelson is strained, especially when he tries to be awkwardly funny. Why do it at all? The final act shows that LBJ did great things in the realms of social justice, and this sings his praises in the standard final credit crawl too, before noting that, yes indeed, his belief in the Vietnam War was his undoing.” All the way, you might say.

I have mixed feelings about this film. I don’t like that it jumped back and forth between the life of LBJ’s career and there wasn’t much of a focus here. It only got focused after LBJ became president. If you want to watch this, you can see it on Roku, but I don’t recommend this. This is just an average movie, not a good or bad one.

Happy President’s Day everyone. Look out Friday for the continuation of “Black History Movie Month.”

Harriet

“Harriet” is a long overdue 2019 drama about the adventures of the most famous conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman. The film’s greatest trait is Cynthia Erivo, a veteran of the London stage who brings spirit and emotion to the main character. Written and directed by Kasi Lemmons, “Harriet” celebrates life and freedom and reminds audiences of the price people long ago paid for the freedoms we enjoy today.

Harriet, known as Minty to her family and owners, was a God-fearing woman married to John Tubman, played by Zackary Momoh. Since they were planning on having a family, John and Minty wanted their children to be born free which only would have been possible if Minty was free herself. Both John and Minty’s father, Ben, played by Clarke Peters, were freemen, working at a nearby farm. Because the previous owner of Rit (Vanessa Bell Calloway), Minty’s mother, promised freedom at 45 but never followed through, they petitioned owner Edward Brodess (Mike Marunde) to honor the agreement and include Minty. Nothing happened. A prayerful but desperate woman, Minty prayed that God would take Mr. Brodess so that she could be free.

When Brodess suddenly passes, his son Gideon, played by Joe Alwyn, refuses to give Minty freedom and she decides to run away. Not wanting to risk John’s freedom if they were caught, she insists on going alone. I’m not giving anything away when I mention that she made it over the Pennsylvania border to freedom in 1849 and befriended William Still (Leslie Odom, Jr.) and Marie Buchanan (Janelle Monáe) to become involved in abolitionist activities.

Once Minty escapes and goes by Harriet (after her mother), the film starts dragging. Hosea Rupprecht said in her review, “Lemmons decided to keep the film family-friendly so there are no bloody slave beatings like the ones witnessed in “12 Years a Slave,” but along with that also went some of the tension that could have made this film worthy of its subject. The repeated trips Tubman heroically made back into Maryland to gather her family and other slaves seeking freedom begin to feel like been-there-done-that pretty quickly. Some added tension leaks into the story with the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, forcing Harriet to bring slaves all the way to Canada.”

Despite those flaws, “Harriet” due diligence to faith's role in Tubman’s life. Her head injury as a child made her have “visions” and spells but she said that was God’s way of speaking to her and guiding her on her way to lead the slaves to freedom. There is one moving scene when things appear useless but Harriet insists that God will not let the freedom-seeking slaves be harmed.

I agree with Rupprecht when she said, “We in the United States tend to take our freedoms for granted. This film reminds us that what we enjoy today came at a great price to those who lived before us and shaped our country and its history.” Harriet Tubman remains a huge figure in that mission.

I saw this film on Netflix and I loved it. I think it brought the life of Harriet Tubman to life on the big screen. If you haven’t seen this and you love the story of Tubman and her journey through the Underground Railroad, see this if it’s still on Netflix. You will fall completely in love with this film, I promise you that.

Sorry for posting this late. I have been really tired from not sleeping much this past week. Look out next Monday for the yearly “President’s Day Movie Review.”