Movie: The Final Countdown (1980)

Genre: Science Fiction  

Director: Don Taylor  

Starring: Kirk Douglas, Martin Sheen, Katharine Ross, Charles Durning, James Farentino  

Running Time: 103 minutes  

Synopsis: Captained by Matthew Yelland (Kirk Douglas), the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is one of the largest warships in the world. While hosting industrial executive Warren Lasky (Martin Sheen), the vessel passes through a freak electrical storm in the Pacific Ocean. It emerges on December 6, 1941, one day before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. After rescuing Senator Chapman (Charles Durning) and his assistant Laurel (Katharine Ross) from their sinking yacht (destroyed by a Japanese strafing attack), Yelland, Air Group Commander Owens (James Farentino), and Lasky have to decide whether to change the course of history.

What Works Well: An intriguing "what if" conundrum, this is an imaginative sci-fi military adventure. The production values are high (filming took place on the Nimitz with the full cooperation of the US military), and the cast is filled with quality in the key roles, Kirk Douglas and Martin Sheen contributing subdued authority.

What Does Not Work As Well: The premise is much more interesting than the conviction-free execution. Once the Nimitz commanders wrap their heads around the time warp, the movie shifts into sail-in-circles-to-kill-time mode, occupying itself with the fulminating senator, a Japanese pilot plucked from the ocean, and a tepid would-be romance. A good chunk of the running time is consumed by imagery of warplanes take-off, landing, and conducting surveillance maneuvers. This is dream eye candy material for military hardware fans, but most of these scenes are superfluous to the plot.

Key Quote:

Lasky: Think of the history of the next forty years...

Commander Owens: I have a suspicion history will be a little more difficult to beat than you imagine, Mr. Lasky.

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Movie Review: Deadline (1987)

Also Known As: War Zone; Witness In The War Zone  

Genre: War Drama  

Director: Nathaniel Gutman  

Starring: Christopher Walken  

Running Time: 100 minutes  

Synopsis: The setting is 1982 during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon to oust the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). American television reporter Don Stevens (Christopher Walken) arrives in Beirut and meets Mike Jessop (Hywel Bennett), another veteran jaded foreign correspondent. Don's plan to sit out the war drinking in his hotel room is disrupted when he is selected to interview a high-ranking PLO official, who makes a bombshell announcement. Don finds himself at the centre of a storm in a lawless city, with numerous factions locked into a volatile, violent, and increasingly vicious conflict.

What Works Well: This relatively low budget Israeli production carries echoes of other journalists-in-war dramas from the era, including Salvador, Under Fire, and The Year Of Living Dangerously. Director Nathaniel Gutman captures Beirut's anarchy during the Israeli invasion, with the potential for death around every corner and various militias competing for control of destroyed city blocks. The script just about maintains coherence, impressively capturing shadowy machinations while drawing upon actual events including the PLO withdrawal from Beirut, the explosion that assassinated a president-elect, and subsequent massacres at Palestinian refugee camps.  

What Does Not Work As Well: Christopher Walken is a lanky presence as a generally disinterested reporter, but the characterizations are flimsy and the cast underpowered. Some of the plot points are beyond credible, and in the second half Stevens appears to cheat death or benefit from wild coincidences every few minutes. The budget limitations are generally patched-up, but narrative choppiness and sub-par audio quality persist.

Key Quote:

Mike Jessop (talking to Don Sevens): This is Beirut. No one needs a reason to kill anyone. Here you don't kill who you want. You kill who you can.

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Movie Review: C-Section (2021)

Genre: Dramedy  

Director: David Oryan  

Starring: Pamela El Kik, Rola Beksmati  

Running Time: 140 minutes  

Synopsis: In Lebanon, wealthy and urbane couple Carl and Ray (Chadi Haddad and Pamela El Kik) arrive at a private hospital for a scheduled C-section. Soon after, ramshackle and penniless village couple Massad and Sonia (Ammar Shalak and Rola Beksmati) arrive in an unscheduled panic, with Sonia about to deliver twins. Due to space limitations the two couples have to share a room, leading to conflicts and headaches for hospital head Vahe (Gabriel Yammine), a lover of Charles Aznavour music.

What Works Well: This is an amiable culture clash comedy with an edge, co-writers Isaac Fahed and Doris Saba finding a surprising number of emotional highlights. Chuckles and tears easily co-exist, and the characters are coloured-in enough to enhance the texture: Ray is estranged from her parents for marrying into the wrong sect, while both Carl and Massad are navigating financial challenges. Within the mess of strangers forced to deal with each other, kindness driven by women emerges as a foundational theme.

What Does Not Work As Well: The production levels are iffy, with audio quality suffering the most. The acting veers towards theatricality, and a would-be flirtatious romance involving Sonia's brother and a nurse is abandoned altogether. 

Key Quote:

Vahe: You beat the security guard and made a huge mess. There's no need for that.
Massad: If I hadn't done that, you wouldn't have admitted her.



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Movie Review: Host (2020)

Genre: Supernatural Horror  

Director: Rob Savage  

Starring: Haley Bishop, Jemma Moore  

Running Time: 56 minutes  

Synopsis: The setting is London during the Covid-19 lockdowns. As a fun activity, a group of six friends (each sequestered in their own apartment) including Haley (Haley Bishop) and Jemma (Jemma Moore) join an on-line Zoom call for a virtual séance. Medium Seylan beckons the spirits, but after Jemma disrespects the process, very bad things start to happen to everyone on the call.

What Works Well: This low-budget but highly innovative screenlife horror experience was conceived and filmed during the pandemic, and perfectly captures the isolation, anxious excitement, and radically rewired social norms that quickly emerged in a shut-down world only connected on Zoom. When evil invades, the mostly unknown cast members deliver natural reactions, leveraging the characters' loneliness to enhance the threat level. The unapologetically short running time ensures no wasted content and adds punch to the mounting suspense.

What Does Not Work As Well: The premise only works with some contrivances, like everyone carrying their laptops around whenever they investigate the latest bump. A lot of time is spent with jerky camera movements investigating "what's behind the door" and "what's in the dark room" as a set-up to the next jump scare. The run time expediency ensures character depth and narrative explanations remain at the strictly superficial level.

Key Quote:

Seylan: So because we're doing this over Zoom, what it does mean is that we're slightly less protected than we might've been, so it's very important that you respect the spirits, and you respect each other.

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Movie Review: About My Father (2023)

Genre: Comedy  

Director: Laura Terruso  

Starring: Robert De Niro, Sebastian Maniscalco, Leslie Bibb, Kim Cattrall  

Running Time: 89 minutes  

Synopsis: In Chicago, Sebastian (Sebastian Maniscalco) grew up close to his father Salvo (Robert De Niro), a humble but proud hairstylist and immigrant from Sicily. Now Sebastian has fallen love with Ellie (Leslie Bibb), who comes from a wealthy WASPy family. Father and son are both invited to stay at the luxurious estate of Ellie's parents (Kim Cattrall and David Rasche) for the July 4th weekend. Sebastian plans to propose, but Salvo resents his son drifting away from his Italian heritage, and a culture clash ensues.

What Works Well: Loosely based on the life experiences of comedian and co-writer/co-star Sebastian Maniscalco, this comedy benefits most from Robert De Niro's grizzled presence. He runs through the gamut of facial expressions to convey disdain for the haughty world of the rich and his son's decision to shuffle away from his roots. Elsewhere, the comedy is sometimes amiable enough to generate a few laughs.   

What Does Not Work As Well: The over-narrated and over-gesticulated material is predictable and unfortunately sometimes quite dumb, trying but failing to squeeze juice out of exhausted and simplistic us-versus-them themes. Ellie and her parents are blank vanilla characters, and for a grown man Salvo's uncouth behaviour (making a scene at a restaurant, dismissing tennis as an activity, serving a beloved pet for dinner, improvising a haircut) often blows past funny and towards idiotic.

Key Quote:

Salvo: I just hope nothing gets stolen this weekend because these people love to blame the immigrants.

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Movie Review: Chato's Land (1972)

Genre: Western  

Director: Michael Winner  

Starring: Charles Bronson, Jack Palance, James Whitmore, Richard Basehart  

Running Time: 100 minutes  

Synopsis: At a dusty town saloon, half-Apache Chato (Charles Bronson) kills the racist local sheriff in self defense. Former Confederate Captain Quincey Whitmore (Jack Palance) gathers up a posse of townfolks, local ranchers, and a Mexican tracker, and they set out to hunt down the fugitive. But in the rough and unforgiving terrain it soon becomes apparent that Chato has the upper hand, as divisions and disputes emerge between the posse members.

What Works Well: While the plot also works as a Vietnam War allegory, this is an essentially simple but uncompromising hunters-become-the-hunted Western. Writer Gerald Wilson fills the posse with bloodthirsty racists (with just a few circumspect voices), and most of the dialogue chips away at the group's unity towards disintegration. A remarkably fit Charles Bronson (at 50 years old) has a grand total of two sentences and eight words in English, but dominates proceedings like a shadow of doom descending over the posse's fate. As Captain Quincy, Jack Palance enjoys a thoughtful role lamenting battlefield losses and trying to maintain discipline among a ragtag group slow to understand that both Chato and his land are much more than they can handle.

What Does Not Work As Well: The production values are creaky, some repetitiveness sets in, and morally decrepit men don't make for good company.

Key Quote:

Chato: Back off, lawman.

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Movie Review: The Lost City Of Z (2016)

Genre: Biographical Drama  

Director: James Gray  

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Sienna Miller, Robert Pattinson  

Running Time: 141 minutes  

Synopsis: In Britain of the early 1900s, the Royal Geographic Society assigns Army Major Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam) to map the disputed border between Brazil and Bolivia. He leaves his pregnant wife Nina (Sienna Miller) behind, and is joined on his adventure by Corporal Costin (Robert Pattinson). The expedition is arduous, but exposes Fawcett to the potential for hidden tribal civilizations in the jungle. Intent on finding a mythical city covered with gold, over the years Fawcett embarks on several more dangerous expeditions into the Amazon region, straining his family relationships.

What Works Well: The cinematography and settings are often visually impressive, and some moments of tension are found in the encounters with various tribes. Fawcett's troubled heritage (his father's shortcomings hampered his career) contain the promise of an interesting character, and hiding somewhere in the jungle is the unexpanded theme of men choosing wild adventures to justify a sense of self, oblivious to family damage. 

What Does Not Work As Well: This is a ponderous, meandering, Quixotic, over-long, and ultimately dubious biography that never overcomes a sense of self-inflated importance. Director and writer James Gray finds little drama in repetitive scenes of Amazonian trudging, and errs on the side of excessive padding and distractions, including interludes of anachronistic feminism, a detour to the World War One trenches, a deer hunt, and uninspired family tension. Fawcett starts as a stoic Englishman attached to career responsibility, and 141 minutes later, ends the exact same way.

Key Quote:

Fawcett: If we may find a city, where one was considered impossible to exist, it may well write a whole new chapter in human history.

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Movie Review: Radio Days (1987)

Genre: Dramedy  

Director: Woody Allen  

Starring: Mia Farrow, Dianne Wiest, Julie Kavner, Wallace Shawn, Danny Aiello  

Running Time: 85 minutes  

Synopsis: Narrator Joe (Woody Allen) recalls childhood memories overlapping with radio's golden era from the late 1930s and early 1940s. Raised in a working class Queens family, Joe's parents (Julie Kavner and Michal Tucker) are loving but always bickering. The household is stuffed with relatives, including Aunt Bea (Dianne Wiest), who is desperately seeking a husband. The radio is the main source of entertainment and news, and Joe recounts vignettes from the swish nightclub-centred lives of radio personalities and celebrities, several featuring cigarette girl Sally (Mia Farrow).

What Works Well: This nostalgia-drenched trip down memory lane accentuates an idealized sense of time and place through the prism of childhood. Director and writer Woody Allen uses the music and radio shows of the era as a soundtrack to a warm but chaotic household filled with (dashed) hopes, (unlikely) dreams, and plenty of banter. A world away but only across town, radio stars and wannabes occupy a glitzy universe of parties, schmoozing, and career-climbing, their elite escapades morphing into perfect escapism for the masses. The ensemble cast (including small roles for Diane Keaton, Robert Joy, Tony Roberts, and Jeff Daniels) shares the kitchen lights and spotlights, Mia Farrow and Dianne Wiest leaving the most animated impressions.

What Does Not Work As Well: Beyond the sense of sentimentality and longing for more innocent days, not much is going on. None of the characters evolve into people worth knowing, and the choppy vignette structure squeezes in plenty of music and short sketches but no continuity and little of substance.

Key Quote:

Narrator: I love old radio stories. And I know a million of 'em.

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Movie Review: Harriet (2019)

Genre: Biographical Drama Thriller  

Director: Kasi Lemmons  

Starring: Cynthia Erivo, Joe Alwyn, Janelle Monáe  
Running Time: 125 minutes  

Synopsis: In Maryland of 1849, Araminta "Minty" Ross (Cynthia Eriva) is a slave on the Brodess plantation. Determined to achieve freedom and escape the brutality of her owner Gideon (Joe Alwyn), she leaves her family and husband behind and flees 100 miles north to Philadelphia. She adopts the name Harriet Tubman and settles into a life of freedom with help from abolitionist William Sill (Leslie Odom Jr.) and business owner Marie Buchanon (Janelle Monáe). Unsatisfied with passivity, Harriet then sets out to help others escape slavery, and emerges as a fearless leader of the Underground Railroad.

What Works Well: Based on actual events, this is a story of one formidable woman risking everything to make a difference and push back against a historical wrong. Director Kasi Lemmons co-wrote the script with Gregory Allen Howard, and captures the essence of Harriet's struggle to free herself, her family, and ultimately her race. Human drama alternates with heart-pounding escapes, and Cynthia Erivo's performance is filled with rage but also fragility, loneliness, and longing. While the focus is on Harriet, her faith-enabled journey is surrounded by the dynamic historical context of a country marching towards a civil war triggered by divergent ideological and economic realities.

What Does Not Work As Well: The narrative borders on a hagiography, with Harriet approaching saintly levels of perfection. The overblown and frequently melodramatic music score does not help.

Key Quote:

Harriet: I'm gonna be free or die.

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Movie Review: Champagne Problems (2025)

Genre: Romantic Comedy  

Director: Mark Steven Johnson  

Starring: Minka Kelly, Tom Wozniczka  

Running Time: 99 minutes  

Synopsis: In New York, Sydney Price (Minka Kelly) works for an acquisitions conglomerate specializing in buying distressed companies. She is assigned to close the deal on Chateau Cassell, a French legacy champagne manufacturer deep in debt. Sydney travels to Paris to make her pitch, and learns she is in competition with other bidders. During a night out in Paris she meets the handsome Henri (Tom Wozniczka) at a bookstore, and they spend a romantic night together. The next day Sydney is shocked to learn Henri is the son of Cassell owner Hugo (Thibault de Montalembert). 

What Works Well: Minka Kelly is adequate in the central role, without ever escaping working-girl-seeks-adventure rom-com trappings. The Parisian and French countryside scenery is crisp, beautiful, and scrubbed clean, and undeniably touristy. The French dialogue is allowed to flow freely as necessary, and a few moments of humour extract some mild laughs.

What Does Not Work As Well: The thin premise and underpowered cast result in slow pacing and an abundance of filler scenes. Meanwhile, the stereotypes are layered in thick globs, most notably the tiresome stock characters representing Sydney's rivals: the fun-loving gay Spaniard, the stiff and humourless German, and the condescending Frenchwoman. The daddy issues between patriarch Hugo and his son Henri (who does not want to take over the family business) are of the eye-rolling predictable variety, and both lovers are saddled with missing parent syndrome. Is it even necessary to say that the ending is a foregone conclusion?

Key Quote:

Henri: Do you think I'm flirting with you?

Sydney: Aren't you?

Henri: Si, absolument.

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