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Rating 7.5 out of 10

I like Jason Statham.  He is a good looking action star with that English accent.  I'm afraid he is becoming this generations Jean-Claude Van Damme.   Van Damme had some good movies early then ran off a string of stinkers that even a hard core action fan like myself could not like.  He has made some good movies but lately his choices of what parts to take have you scratching your head.  I'm glad to say Homefront is pretty good for an action movie.  If you like action movies at all you should leave the theater a happy camper.

The movie starts with DEA agent Phil Broker (Statham)  undercover with a very bad biker gang that amazingly enough it big in the drug trade.  When the bust goes down the biker leaders son gets killed and that bad guy blames Broker and vows to get even.  Flash forward several years and Broker is living in a small Louisiana town after his wife had died raising his 10 year old daughter.  After a while he crosses swords with the local drug dealer Gator (James Franco) and life goes crazy.  Gator realizes who Broker is and alerts the bad biker dude in prison.

The action is as good as you'd expect and the acting is better than you usually get in this type of movie.  I'm not a Franco fan yet he does a good job in not going over the top.  This has my all time favorite character actor, Clancy Brown.  Click on the name and you'll say "oh, that guy".  Besides having a cool last name he always plays his part well.  Anorexic Kate Bosworth found a part she is made for, the skinny crack addicted mom that causes trouble.  Winona Ryder shows up to prove she is still around.  The hot redhead from the tv show Under the Dome (Rachelle Lefevre) is the teacher.

If you like action movies I'd put this on the to see list.

Frozen

Frozen

Rating 6 out of 10

I had a good date for this movie so it's hard to be critical at all.  I took my lovely little granddaughter after a yummy meal at McD's.  There was a day when Disney ruled the roost when it came to animated movies.  They would crank out a classic every year or two having parents standing in line saying please take my money.  In the past decade Pixar starting with Toy Story has left Disney in the dust one movie after another.

Frozen is a cute enough Disney-type movie that you will enjoy, you youngsters will like and next year you won't remember ever seeing it.  It goes back to the old school days of Disney when they have a cute/likable lead, a minimal story and a funny sidekick or two.  They also go back to the characters breaking into song every 2-3 minutes.  I will say if you LOVE the musical parts of the old Disney movies you will also love this movie.  There must be 10-12 songs in the 85 minute movie.  I could have done with 2-3 tops.

With Frozen we start at a kingdom far away where the King has two lovely daughters.  One daughter is born with the blessing/curse of ice.  She can create ice/snow with anything she touches at will.  When the daughters are young the ice daughter Elsa (velvet voiced Idina Menzel) accidentally hurts younger sister Anna (Kristen Bell).  The king decides to keep them separate from then on to avoid another problem.  When Elsa is of age he opens the kingdom to her coming out party and problems abound.  She leaves the kingdom and Anna goes after her.

As I said the movie moves along at a decent pace.  Would have been better for this guy had they not broke into song so much.  My three year old date stayed amused for the hour and half (with help of a large bucket of popcorn).  I think last years Rise of the Guardians is far better than this one.  If you are looking for a cute movie to take the young kids to this is not a bad choice.  My theater was packed.

Delivery Man

Delivery Man

Rating 7.5 out of 10

I like Vince Vaughn.  For me he is just a funny, likable guy.  His biggest flaw is picking his movies.  Everyone remembers how good he was in Wedding Crashers.  Yet that was eight years ago.  What has he done since?   Not much.  Fred Claus, Couples Retreat, The Watch, Four Christmases and this years dog The Internship.  Delivery Man was getting hammered in the reviews ((36% on rottentomatoes.com) so I went in with low expectations.  I will say I was pleasantly surprised.  I injured this movie.

I think biggest problem with people going to see this movie is they are expecting a laugh out loud comedy.  It does have some funny parts, but mostly it's a coming of age movie.  As anyone that has seen a trailer for this movie knows Vaughn plays David Wosniak.  He is a irresponsible thirty something guy that works at his dads meat company and is always screwing up something.  He gets a visit from a lawyer from 533 youngsters from back when he was 20 he donated very often to the local sperm bank for money.  On the same day he finds out his on again off again girlfriend Emma (Cobie Smulders) is pregnant with their child.  She thinks she'd rather raise the baby herself than with this goof.

David has information on many of the 533 kids suing him and decides to secretly get to know them.  He starts to get fatherly feelings and feels good when he helps them.  It starts to change him from the inside out.  Vaughn does a good job of showing this.  There is a hokey part of the movie where loan sharks are after him if he doesn't come up with $80,000.

I found the movie entertaining and touching at times.  Much better than the reviews are giving it.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Rating 8 out of 10

I can't remember a movie that was so hard to see.  Opening weekend I tried twice to see it to find it sold out of a theater showing Catching Fire on three screens.  We got to the theater at 225p for a 3p movie on a Tuesday to find it sold out again.  We bought our tickets then to the 6p showing and finally got in.  Lucky for us the movie was worth the wait.

This of course is the second in a series of three movies based on the best selling books by Suzanne Collins.  In a recap of Hunger Games I: North America has been split into twelve districts.  They are run by a the evil President Snow in the Capitol.  Every year they have a fight to the death contest with one male and one female from each district with the winner gaining extra food of their district.  The lovely Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and the male from her District 12, Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) won by refusing to kill the other one instead choosing for death together by poison berries.

In Catching Fire the evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland) is worried that Katniss is the key to an overthrow decides that the next Hunger Game will be between all the past winners including Katniss and Peeta.

There is more action in Catching Fire than the first one, but as before the violence is done in a PG-13 sort of way.  The acting is good and effects are better.  I like this movie alot.  Even if you didn't see the first Hunger Games movie you will enjoy this one on it's own.

Johnny Carson- Book

Johnny Carson by Henry Bushkin

I generally like autobiographies.  All kinds of autobiographies.  Celebrities, sports, politics, I like them all.  Kirk Douglas, Andre Agassi, Gene Simmons, Shannon Tweed,  Bob Barker, Barbara Walters, Jimmy Conners, Mike Piazza, Javy Lopez, Ellen DeGeneres, Adam Carolla, Ann and Nancy Wilson from Heart, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Director Kevin Smith,  Bear Grylls, Regis Philbin, Steve Jobs, just to name several.  I have enjoyed most every one.

When I was a kid there was only one late night guy, Johnny Carson.  If you were going to watch tv after 11p it was watching Johnny or watching late night movies.  He was the King.  I listened to Ed McMahon's book Here's Johnny.  I thought it was interesting yet to me seemed like a real puff piece.  I thought it was funny that it was released months after Carson's death in 2005.  Ed had nothing but wonderful things to say about Johnny and what a great guy he was.

This book is written by Henry Bushkin.  He was Johnny's right hand man and lead lawyer.  While I found it interesting and it does tell a good bit of the behind the scenes with Carson and the Tonight Show.  It is clear from the start that Bushkin has a score to settle with Johnny.  By the end of the book you see why.  I'm surprised it took him so long to write the book.  Bushkin is more than happy to tell what a controlling jerk Carson was.  He talks freely about all of the times Johnny cheated on his wives (often) and how rude he was to people when he wasn't in front of the camera making America laugh.

I'm always leery about books where people recall exact conversations had 40+ years ago down to the hold the mayo on the ham sandwich.  I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday.  Bushkin made million$ off of Carson and enjoyed many all expense paid luxury vacations on his tab.  Yet he has little good to say about him.  He blames much of Carsons stand offish personality on his very cold mother whom he could never please no matter how hard he tried.

At his peak the money Carson was making is hard to comprehend.  In the 80s Johnny was making $25 million a year for a three day work week, thirty seven weeks a year.  Vegas was paying him $250,000 a week with plenty of perks to do his show four nights.  Johnny had his own clothing line of high end suits.  He was making $2 million a year and all he had to do was pose for pictures two days a year.  He found that to be too much trouble for those two days and shut down the company. Three ex-wives. The last wife cost him $38 million.

If you are a Johnny Carson fan you will like the walk down memory lane.  I have no doubt Johnny was as rough as Bushkin makes him out to be.  I just think he could have balanced it out by throwing in some good here and there too.

It was sad that when Johnny died of lung cancer (four pack a day smoker) in January of 2005 neither his wife or any of his kids were at his side.  He was alone.  Maybe Bushkin was right...

Last Vegas

Last Vegas

Rating 6 out of 10

I love Las Vegas.  Got married there nearly twenty years ago.  Have an old college friend that lives there so I go as often as I can. I generally attend and mostly like movies that have to do with Vegas.  This is a mostly harmless fun little movie with a cast of yesteryears A-list actors.  Many of the jokes you see coming and fifteen minutes into the film you can guess what's going to happen.  Doesn't matter.  It's an entertaining ride.

Movie starts with four young boys growing up in NYC.  Best friends.  Defending each other against bullies. Getting into trouble.  Fifty years later the boys are now long in tooth and gone different ways but still in touch.  Billy (Michael Douglas) is the successful one that is getting married to a woman less than half his age. He wants his old friends there when he gets hitched for the first time in Vegas.  Archie (Morgan Freemen), Sam (Kevin Kline) and Paddy (Robert De Niro) come along although Paddy is reluctant to do so.  First night there they meet aging but still pretty lounge singer Diana (Mary Steenburgen) who then tags along.

Lots of old people jokes.  Some corny ones too.  As I said it's a harmless mostly well acted movie.  Good rental.

About Time

About Time

Rating 7.5 out of 10

When I first saw the trailer for this movie I had no desire to see it.  It does star Rachel McAdams and who doesn't like her?  But wasn't she already in a time travel movie?  Who's this goofy looking redhead Englishman Domhnall Gleeson?  This low budget movie can't be good, can it?  Well as it turns out yes it is a good movie.

When young Tim (Gleeson) turns 21 his father sits him down for a difficult discussion.  Not one on the birds and the bees even though he is not well versed in that area either.  Dad (Played very well by Bill Nighy) explains that the males in their family are able to travel back in time.  Go into a dark closet and think real hard at a time in the past and magically he is transported back.

While many could use this power for evil.  Transport back and buy Apple stock at $10 per share and become rich.  Tim instead uses his for love.  He falls for Mary (McAdams) and is not much of a ladies man.  Having this talent gives him a do-over every time he sticks his foot in his mouth.  He is able to make a first impression over and over until he gets it right.  Tim is a good guy and also helps out friends in need.

As he gets older he learns that his power is not a fix all.  Kinda hard to say much more about it without giving things away.  I found About Time to be a well made and well acted feel good movie that I would recommend.  I am glad I saw it.

Thor: The Dark World

Thor: The Dark World

Rating 6.5 out of 10

As anyone who has read my blog knows I like the superhero movies.  They don't need to be very complicated.  There is the good guy superhero.  Bad guy who wants to destroy the world.  Good guy battles bad guy to save everyone.  Maybe in some cases throw in a love story to make things even more interesting.  I like Thor as a superhero even though I don't really understand what all his powers are or what he can do.  I know he has a big hammer that causes big damage and if he swings it around very fast it can allow him to fly.  Chris Hemsworth is as perfect to play Thor as Christopher Reeve was to play Superman.

For me Thor just gets too complicated.  In The Dark World I liked the visuals, but the plot left me wondering what in the nine worlds was going on.  Best I could understand since Thor helped the Avengers save NYC he left the love of his life Jane Foster (the lovely Natalie Portman) for two years to clean up all the bad guys in the nine planets including Earth and Thor's home planet of Asgard.

Now as bad luck would have it when the nine planets align every 5000 years it enables really bad guys to control a black fog thing that can destroy everything.  Thor is out to protect Jane Foster and also enlists her brilliant mind to help defeat the bad guy, Malekith.  There is something with some worm holes that allow people or things to pop between worlds.  They also need the help of Thor's evil brother Loki (played very well again by Tom Hiddleston) as he is the only one that knows a secret passage.

The ending of the movie didn't make much sense to me.  The part after the credits made even less sense.  Still I found the movie entertaining in a visual sort of way.

Ender's Game

Ender's Game

Rating 4 out of 10

I have heard Ender's Game was at some point a best selling book.  I read a decent amount and have never heard of the book.  Now I can say I wish I had never heard of this movie.  That's a little harsh.  This is not a terrible movie.  Just not a very good one.  I was mildly entertained.

The movie takes place in the future.  A group of aliens has attacked Earth and were on the verge of total destruction until hero Commander Rackham (Ben Kingsley) saves the day and defeats the enemy.  Fifty years later the military on Earth is in constant preparation for the next attack that they are sure is on the way.  They have determined the fate of the planet lies in teenage boys and girls.  I think they have been playing video games which would make their minds quicker and able to wave their arms around commanding the space ship armies.  Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) is on the constant lookout for that genius wizard that will lead us to victory.

That genius wizard is a goofy looking boy with a stranger name of Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) who isn't sure he wants the part.  He is grouped with another batch of teenagers including Petra (Haliee Steinfeld- the girl from True Grit).

The movie to me seemed like I was watching a video game.  Harrison Ford seems to be mailing in his parts now and needs to retire.  He has one gruff look and walks thru the part.  The biggest problem for me is I never cared about the main characters.  In the end I didn't care who survived or who didn't.  The effects were a little cheesy.  Most of the action comes from a zero gravity tag game with the cadets at the want to be wizard academy.

I was mildly entertained at times, but mostly bored.  Wished I had gone to see Bad Grandpa again.