JOHN WICK

Summit Entertainment

Rated R

Running time: 101 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of John Wick from YouTube.



In Summit Pictures John Wick, widower John Wick/Keanu Reeves has his car - a vintage '69 Mustang - stolen by punk Alfie Allen from his home. After losing everything he cares for, Wick/Reeves - also known as Baba Yaga, or the Bogeyman - goes after Allen and Allen's father Michael Nyqvist, who is the head of the Russian crime syndicate in New York City and for whom Reeves used to work for, in revenge.

The movie is really a personal story between former syndicate associates Nyqvist and Reeves, with Allen almost being a MacGuffin. The respect that Nyqvist had for Reeves as a surrogate son - as opposed to his arrogant spoiled son Allen - was nice to see. The same relationship, but on a different level,  between hit men Willem Dafoe and Reeves was also nice to see - and you never know which way Dafoe was going. It was also nice to see Adrianne Palicki in the movie, who also learned judo and ju-jitsu. After several action roles, Palicki has become the new action heroine of this generation.

Reeves was pretty bad ass in the movie as a retired hitman. He was not psycho, but very reserved and focused. Reeves trained in judo, Japanese ju-jitsu, and Brazillian jiu-jitsu as well as training with members of the LA SWAT and the Navy SEALs that Director Chad Stahelski and Co-Director/Producer David Leitch had known and did 90% of his stunts for this role. And Wick's/Reeves double tap shooting of his opponents was quite believable as a result. Because of all this, I liked this movie better than The Equalizer. I really liked Wick's/Reeves beagle puppy Daisy and I thought that his dog humanized him a lot. Wick's/Reeves wife Bridget Moynahan did not know anything about Wick's/Reeves past, but she is not onscreen long enough to really know and care about her. I did like the hotel, owned by Ian McShane, in the middle of the movie that was used as a neutral ground centerpiece for this underworld.

The subtitles for the Russian language were most interesting in that they were not shown at the bottom of the screen as with typical subtitles, but in the style of a graphic novel.

The last few shots of the movie I felt were too rushed story wise as I felt it was too cute. I would have preferred a couple more shots to bring out the emotion of the movie tag.

On a technical note, when I saw this movie there was a problem with the video projection when the movie started so all we heard was the audio. It was a 9:00 a.m. showing and there were only a half dozen of us in the theater. There was a girl in the audience with us, and she laughed saying that all but one of the guys, including me, went out to complain. I thought what she said was funny. John Wick is definitely a guy's movie.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of John Wick from YouTube.



Rated R for violence, language, sexual situations. Running time: 101 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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INTERSTELLAR

Paramount Pictures

Rated PG-13

Running time: 169 Minutes

Click below to watch a movie trailer of Interstellar.



In Paramount Pictures Interstellar, former farmer astronaut Matthew McConaughey agrees to leave his family behind in order to pilot a desperate mission through interstellar space in order to save a doomed Earth.

A combination of Gravity and 2001: A Space Odyssey - especially toward the end - Interstellar, Written with his brother Jonathan Nolan and Directed by Christopher Nolan, is a dramatic science fiction movie that explores the fate and potential of a doomed human race. This is not your typical CGI action-packed science fiction movie - but a practical examination of the exploration of deep space and the intentions of actually going out into space, with astronauts McConaughey and Anne Hathaway on opposite sides of the argument. It was great that Nolan had researched NASA and the private space program SpaceX - as well having former astronaut Marsha Ivins and theoretical physicist Kip Thorne, who has a cameo, as a scientific consultant to Interstellar to maintain the authenticity of the movie.

With Earth's natural resources, especially food ravaged from a blight, becoming so scarce - humanity is on the verge of failure in the midst of a dust bowl. McConaughey does what he can to improve his farm. It was nice that Nolan got permission from Director Ken Burns of the TV mini-series documentary The Dust Bowl, which took place in America during the Great Depression of the 1930's, to use their interview footage in the movie Interstellar. The logos for Warner Bros., Paramount, Syncopy, and Legendary all have a "dusty" look to them to foreshadow the movie. What got to me the most was the historical revisionism of the Apollo moon landings in McConaughey's daughter Murphy's/Mackenzie Foy's school. Of course McConaughey takes umbrage to such revisionism.

One of the most important plot points in the movie deals with time dilation and suspended animation  - time will go slower for the astronauts than for the people back home on Earth due to Einstein's general relativity equations, especially near the black hole, of which the black hole and the wormhole are two completely different things in the movie, so the people on Earth will age while the astronauts will remain the same age while they travel through the wormhole and are out on the other side of the galaxy. This was a tearjerker of a plot point theme with McConaughey and reminded me of The Twilight Zone episode The Long Morrow as the movie bounces back and forth between Earth and space.

I thought the constant use of the poem "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas, which was written for his dying father, was quite appropriate - especially during the launching of the spacecraft Endurance while it searches for a way to save the human race as they follow after the Lazarus missions.

Interstellar also has an interstellar cast, most of whom were never in the marketing of the film that I am aware of - with at least one star's involvement kept secret. So it was awesome to see these people in the movie, without have any preconceived notions of what kind of characters these stars would be playing. I really do not want to give away the stars of this movie - except for this, it was funny seeing Topher Grace in the movie as I had just seen him that morning on TV in That 70's Show. It is curious when I saw this movie that it was the day before Anne Hathaway's birthday.

Since Nolan wanted to avoid using anthropomorphic robots in the movie, it was strange to me not to see a traditional humanoid-looking robot. But the use of the quadrilateral design of the robots, Bill Irwin and Josh Stewart, were interesting - and more human with intelligence and emotion than most robots, especially with McConaughey programming the robots - and that the design of these robots was especially impressive to me when used on the water planet Miller.

Hans Zimmer's unique musical score was dictated by Nolan who wanted the traditional instruments to go by the wayside.

The movie is a long movie. With the movie trailers, Interstellar is close to three hours.

It is curious that for the limited release of the movie - Interstellar was released in 70mm and 35mm film in theaters that still support those formats, including 70mm IMAX theaters. This is an exception to Paramount Pictures goal to stop releasing movies on film and to distribute only in digital format as nearly all the theaters in the United States have converted to digital projection.

At the end of the movie, the audience applauded.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Interstellar.



Click below to watch a final movie trailer of Interstellar.



Rated PG-13 for violence and language. Running time: 169 Minutes.

Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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LEFT BEHIND

Freestyle Releasing

Rated PG-13

Running time: 110 Minutes

















Click below to watch a movie trailer of Left Behind.



In Freestyle Releasing's Left Behind, Nicholas Cage is an airline pilot - who is one of the few people left behind after millions of people disappear all over the world.

In this Christian film Directed by Vic Armstrong, and based on the Left Behind book series written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, is based on the "end times" described in the Bible and that the people who believed in Christ have been Raptured and taken up to Heaven. While they never used the word "Rapture" in the movie, the characters in the movie - especially Cage - did discuss that this must have been the circumstances of what had happened to the missing people as there was a religious connection to all of them.

While the event was not graphic, I thought it was very suspenseful for me when the event happened, and I got the chills at it's suddenness. I was also crying as all the people left behind, especially the mothers, were worried about their loved ones. This was especially heartbreaking to me with the events happening in the middle of a shopping mall.

With the loss of millions of people all over the world, the world goes into chaos for various reasons. While the First Responders did their best during the end of the world to restore order, it is a shame that the First Responders were not also called during the Rapture. Of course, if they were, the world would have been even more chaotic. Events like this is what CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams) was created for - to support First Responders. I know my CERT team would be out there doing what they can to help, but I would feel just as sad for them if they were not called up to the Rapture. The theme for both the movie and for CERT is, are you ready?

It is amazing how Christians help run and stabilize the world in their jobs. Christians in control of vehicles like cars and planes suddenly disappearing in flight can cause a lot of damage. It makes me sad that while children disappeared, their mothers/parents did not. There is a definite loss in the second half of the movie without the children in the world. It seems a shame that a lot of apparently good people were left behind to suffer the end time, despite their love for their families. While most of these good people are still in shock, a few of them, like news journalist Chad Michael Murray pull together to calm people down and get through this event.

I felt that the Christian message was pushed over the top from the beginning and that many of the lead "Christians" in the movie were not likable. Even Cage's wife Lea Thompson was pushing it when she was talking with her daughter Cassi Thomson who is home from college for an unsuspecting Cage's birthday. If I had written the movie, I would have had the lead Christian characters act as normal people interacting with the other characters and slowly revealing their beliefs during their relationships. As to the film itself, Left Behind felt more like a Hollywood disaster film to me - especially with Cage's runaway airliner, and Armstrong who is known mostly as a Stunt Coordinator rather than a Director - rather than an end time movie.

Although the Left Behind authors LaHaye and Jenkins liked the movie - most of the reviewers, including some of the Christian reviewers, that I have read did not like the movie. I think the movie would have taken a different tone if Ashley Tisdale was able to work out her schedule to be able to play Cage's daughter.

It is curious that I saw this movie near the season of the end times at the end of the liturgical year.

Rated PG-13 for violence. Running time: 110 Minutes.

Click below to watch another movie trailer of Left Behind.




Pancho
All people smile in the same language.

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