BEFORE I FALL  2.8***

          A great look at today's teen youth, which at first is mainly about the negatives. It quickly moves into something more serious as it tackles the question of what would you do if you thought you only had one day to live and that day keeps repeating? In a way this is similar to the classic Groundhog Day, but has more drama and very little comedy. Ultimately this is a film teens and over should see if you're serious about discovering what's really important in life.  

It’s a mystery-drama based on the popular 2010 Young Adult novel, of the same name, by Lauren Oliver. It tells the story of a high school senior who discovers she's reliving the last day of her life, over and over again, apparently until she can figure out what she needs to do to make things right. The film stars Zoey Deutch with, believe or not, Jennifer Beals, playing the mother. The film has received mostly positive reviews, from critics and fans alike.
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Samantha Kingston (Deutch) is a popular high school senior, who’s planning to lose her virginity on the night of Cupid's Day.  She goes with her  “mean friends” (and she is too) to a wild party that night,  skips the sex ( the guy gets too drunk) and then dies in a car accident  with her other popular friends. The next day she wakes up to find out she's reliving the same exact day, and then the next several days she keeps waking up to find out the same exact thing. Samantha slowly realizes that she needs to set things right, in her life and with those of her friends in that repeating day in order to hopefully change things finally.

The movie is surprisingly insightful in dealing with high school life and the dynamics of being popular verses being an  outcast or the object of bullying. It's something the  flawed main character has to learn, and then  better herself by learning, in order to finally set things right. This movie  has a  moving, message about how we  treat others (and how we should treat them).    

Rated PG-13 for mature audiences for content involving drinking, sexuality, bullying, some violent images, and some  language all involving teens. 

Clark            

KONG: SKULL ISLAND   3.5***

            "Kong: Skull Island" (2017 release; 118 min.) starts a new chapter in the King Kong universe. As the movie opens, we are told it's "South Pacific, 1943", and a US pilot and Japanese pilot crash land on a beach, and while they are fighting each other, Kong appears out of the blue. Cue forward and now we are "1973"  Bill Randa (John Goodman) is able to get a US Senator to approve a 'mapping mission' to a remote, unchartered island somewhere in the South Pacific. After some quick preparations, including getting a military escort ( several helicopters with armed soldiers), off they go to that mysterious island... To tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest reboot of the King Kong franchise, more than a decade since the last one (by Peter Jackson). This time, Kong is bigger and better and 'badder' than ever before, and with lots of other monsters on the island, much to our viewing pleasure. The movie has a distinct "Apocalypse Now" vibe going in the first part, even more so as the squad of helicopters approaches the island and is met by Kong who destroys the  squad, knocking them all down and out, but there are several survivors.  Once the action shifts to the island, there is a distinct "Jurassic Park" vibe to it ( In fact there are, among other monstrous creatures,  huge two-legged lizards that are so ferocious, they killed off Kong’s whole family. They are called “Skullcrawlers” They make T-rex and the Raptors from Jurassic Park seem like puppies)

 We all know fully well that there is a lot of CGI in the movie, yet it never bothered me, and in fact  the movie feels very authentic from that perspective. The support cast is okay, with John C. Reilly (as the stranded US pilot now 30 years later) absolutely stealing the show (sorry John Goodman( as the organizer and lead civilian), Samuel L. Jackson ( as the military commander) Brie Larson ( as a photographer and “Yes” she and Kong have “goo goo’ eyes for each other.) and Tom Hiddleston (as the tracker) ).  

I saw it in 3-D Imax and it was awesome. This is a big fun blockbuster movie and I enjoyed it way more than I thought I would.

Rated PG-13 but would be rather strong for 10 and under.

Clark

THE SHACK    2.0*** (barely)

     STORY:  "The Shack" revolves around Mack (Mackenzie) Philips (Tom Worthington).  Mack’s young daughter, Missy, is abducted during a family vacation. Though her body is never found, the police did find evidence in an abandoned shack to prove that she had been brutally murdered by a notorious serial killer who preyed on young girls.  Mack is so grieved and sad he is no help to his wife or remaining son and daughter.  He is living in the shadow of his Great Sadness over the loss of Missy. Then mysteriously he  receives a strange note in the mailbox that  may be from God. The note invites Mack to return to the shack, the scene of the horrible crime, to talk with God. Though uncertain, Mack decides to go to the shack and ends up spending an amazing weekend with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit  . What adds to the uniqueness of the story is that God is presented as a large, matronly African-American woman  (this is how God  chooses to present God to Mack in order to communicate with him) played by Octavia Spencer, Jesus is a young to middle-aged man of Middle-Eastern descent and is Jewish . The Holy Spirit is Sarayu, an eclectic woman of Asian descent. Mack is astonished and unsure about what’s happening but slowly comes around to the realization that he is with the Holy Trinity. They begin to talk with Mack and even among themselves. They seek to re-establish with him a relationship of love and trust and forgiveness. See the movie for the rest.

I read the book in the fall of 2008 from which the current movie is based and was so taken by it I did my 1^st book review ( I have only done 2 since) But I enjoyed it so much and was so inspired I wanted to share that with my movie fans. If you would like to read my book review just let me know.

As for the movie, I had looked forward to it and had great hopes it could come even  close to the book. Unfortunately it doesn’t. A huge disappointment.  Perhaps for those who haven’t been dazzled by the book they can enjoy the movie which is almost good but could have been so much more.

Here are my faults with the movie.

(1)  The screenplay misses the mark and fails to capture the uniqueness and wonder of Mack’s weekend with God, Jesus and Sarayu (the Holy Spirit) . There are 3 people who worked on the screenplay which is almost always a bad sign. You can’t write a good screen play by committee and they proved it. The biggest failing is leaving out book so much of the captivating and inspiring dialogue that was in the book.  It’s like taking a beautiful watercolor picture and turning it into a black and white poster.

(2)  The director also missed the point.. I’m not sure if he even read the book. He did not pick up on the main point of the book   which  focuses on the perplexing  question of why bad things happen to good people and how God responds to this in his talks with Mack. Too much of movie is about Mack’s unbending anger at God and his  inability to consider forgiveness or to be of comfort to his family. It goes darker than the book.

(3)  The lead actor , Sam Worthington, who plays Mack is terribly miscast. Yes he was the star of the blockbuster movie “Avatar” which did not require much acting skills. He doesn’t show much here and his range of emotions is woefully limited. That is unforgivable given the range of emotions his character experiences: the horrible kidnapping and brutal killing of his young daughter whose body is not found. Then his descent into a black hole of grief. To top it off there is the wonder and awe the character experiences when meeting and spending the weekend with the Holy Trinity. Worthington is a monotone of emotions and when he tries, you can tell he’s acting.. wooden and unconvincing.

(4)  The movie suffers greatly from a lack of sound quality and volume. It’s almost if the entire cast was told to whisper their lines, and Worthington makes it worse by mumbling most of his lines.

I could go on but enough said by me.

But despite all that negativity,  you may still want to see Octavia Spencer doing a good job of portraying God and experience the scenario of a man like Mack meeting and spending a weekend  with God, Jesus and Sarayu. I especially suggest that those who HAVE NOT read the book give the movie a chance.  For the book readers, try it out too. I may be TOO sensitive due  to my strong affection for  the book. In  any event, faults #s 3 & 4 above still apply.. so if you go sit fairly close to the screen so you can hear better.

Rated: “PG”

Clark

HIDDEN FIGURES    3.5***

    What a breath of fresh air in these dark times! “Hidden Figures” is an amazing, uplifting, inspiring story focusing on the successes of three African-American women whose mathematical and computer-science skills directly helped NASA launch astronauts into space (and back) and eventually to the moon.

The story revolves around three brilliant African American women, Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) who work at NASA's Langley “Colored” calculating division in the still segregated Virginia. The bulk of the events depicted are from 1961 when Russia beat the USA in putting a man into space and then the an all-out drive by NASA to put John Glenn in space.. If you had asked me "When did NASA desegregate?" I would have been stumped, because I never knew NASA was segregated. The movie gives a disturbing sense of the raw frustration and pain caused by senseless discrimination, and it does so simply by showing , as one example,  the harsh reality and indignity of having to walk over a mile each day just to use the bathroom. The women entrusted to make critical astronomical calculations couldn't even be trusted to share a bathroom for a minute or two in what is one of the most common, natural, and inherent aspects of humanity.

And it's a double-whammy: they're black, and they're women. Hidden Figures is just as much, if not more so, about sexism and exposing the baseless belief that women either should not or cannot excel at science. There's a great satisfaction when, at last,  Kevin Costner,  the Director of the Space Task Group, literally sledge-hammers the”Colored” bathroom signs down, ending a practice that never should have started.

Do yourself a favor and catch Hidden Figures on the big screen, see it with a big crowd, and feel a sense of humanity trickling back in.

Rated “PG”

Clark