PROLOUGE;

Sara and I were surfing thru the Netflix movies and found E.T. and said why not even though we seen it before. back in 1982 when it premier. Well it was like seeing a long lost friend, a very special and beloved best friend. The profound joy, the exhilaration and the sublime peacefulness of seeing and being with the old fiend.

I felt like a kid again experiencing the heights of joy and sadness & what it means to have a unique special friend.

I could go on and on . But the point is for you to draw from my unfettered enthusiasm for a truly remarkable one-of-a-kind movies.

I urge you, I implore you to see” E.T.” even if you’ve seen it before but especially if you’ve never seen it. A MUST see film.

(PS: I you’d  like to read some fascinating Trivia about the making of the movie just reply to this email and ask for the trivia…for instance: Most of the full-body puppetry for E.T.was performed by a 2' 10 tall stuntman, but the scenes in the kitchen were done using a 12-year old boy who was born without legs but was an expert on walking on his hands. (I have several more)

         E. T.  4.0*** 

This  movie delivers an awesome emotional punch.. Spielberg (with the help of John Williams' magnificent score) expertly tugs at the heartstrings of his audience, and makes it look easy. "E.T." is the ultimate in family feel-good movies, and it's truly a portrait of a man at the top of his game in Hollywood entertainment. The heroes are so good, and the message so pure, that it's practically impossible for a human being to walk out of this movie with dry eyes (except the “macho” guys who are really crying inside).

This is a wonderful fun, heartwarming fairy tale of a story for both kids and adults. In terms of a “feel good” science fiction story, no one has ever been able to touch Stephen Spielberg's classic.

The fairy tale begins when some alien explorers visiting earth for samples inadvertently leave behind one of their own on this strange, bewildering new planet. The adorable little alien  is discovered by a 10 year old boy named Elliot, who finds him foraging for food in their garden shed. The friendly alien (ET, as he comes to be called, for Extra Terrestrial) comes to stay in the boy's home. Elliot, his older brother, Michael, and younger sister, Gertie, sort of take him under their wing. But as they learn to communicate, they discover that ET is lonesome. He wants to go home, and to that end, concocts some type of device he thinks might help get him there. However, if he succeeds, Elliot (whose own parents are going through a divorce) will lose his new friend.

It's all so cute, especially the little alien himself. Basically, he kind of represents every homesick kid (or adult) who ever lived. Despite his newfound human friends, he just misses his own home world and fellow critters. Memorable scenes for me are of course the legendary ones...ET hiding among the stuffed animals and assorted junk in a closet so Elliot's mom won't spot him, Halloween trick or treating, and the famed flying bicycle scene. And of course the ongoing "ET phone home".

Great acting by everyone, especially the three kids. ET is simply a fabulous movie with some fancy modern effects and a space age theme, but mainly a story about the bonds of friendship revolving around a touching little guy that needs love and help from his new earthling buddy. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry...just like any truly good movie should. This is one that perennially appeals to the kid in all of us.

Clark (a kid again and yes I cried with tears of joy at the in)

 

LOGAN LUCKY    3.5***

 Steven Soderbergh’s (Director..  Oceans 11,12 & 13) describes this movie as an "anti-glam version of an Ocean's movie", Logan Lucky is a return to the style of film-making that made his Ocean's trilogy box office hits. The film moves at a neat pace, features a strong ensemble cast and is packed with enough twist and turns to keep things interesting throughout its two hour running time. 

 Recently let go from his construction job due to, "liability reasons with insurance," former football prodigy Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) decides to put in motion a robbery plan he's obviously been thinking about for some time. He recruits his siblings, hairdresser Mellie (Riley Keough) and one-handed bartender Clyde (Adam Driver), to aid him. Then they knock on the prison door of infamous local demolitions expert and safe cracker Joe Bang (DanielCraig) whose incarceration proves the first snag of many in the plan to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Coca Cola 600.

 As with all heist movies, much of the entertainment stems from the tension created when the plan, as described deviates ever so slightly risking exposure. What Logan Lucky doesn't just get right but gets near perfect is the way it plays with that convention. Minor problems come across as inspired character moments for which Jimmy, Clyde, Joe Bang and his brothers Sam and Fish Bang  show their goofy, simple, superstitious selves

. The movie had unique visuals in details like the painted cockroaches, jelly beans in the bomb, Joe Bangs favorite: two hard boiled eggs and salt, and strangely artistic stripy prison uniforms. And many steps of the Heist were  creative and a lot of fun and kept me smiling and engrossed throughout.

Rated PG-13 for language and some crude comments.

Clark 

BATTLE OF THE SEXES  3.2***

    A sports story based on the highly publicized  tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs and which was one of the most watched televised sports events of all time, reaching 90 million viewers around the world.  

In 1973 Billie Jean King (Emma stone), and other professional women tennis players, were sick of getting paid peanuts compared to the male pros. So they start their own women's tournament, and find sponsoring through a cigarette company. Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) is a retired ex-champion tennis player, who also thinks he should be paid more money for a game than he's currently being offered, and he sees a chance to make a lot of money by challenging Billie Jean King to a match. King knows it's all a publicity stunt for Riggs, so she's reluctant to accept his challenge, but then she feels obligated to defend all of women tennis players, by participating in the match after he defeats Margaret Court , the then number 1 women’s player.

The movie is funny, surprisingly emotional, and inspiring too. Both Stone and Carell are fantastic in the lead roles, and I really like how the filmmakers didn't make Bobby Riggs the 'bad guy' of the movie. He was obviously doing it just to get back in the game, and make some money in the process, and he's actually a somewhat sympathetic character. The real villain in this story is not Riggs, but Jack Kramer, (a smug Bill Pullman) the head of the Association of Tennis Professionals, whose unapologetic institutional sexism pervaded the sport at the time. We come to learn that Kramer's genuine disdain for women's equality is one of the motivating factors that  light a fire under King.

  Stone, as King, is also excellent and  makes a great badass heroine in the movie too. There are some classic intense dialogue scenes as well, and some intimate emotional ones too. It's an all-around really well made, and an effective movie  And my, wife, Sara agrees.

Rated PG-13 for some sexual content and partial nudity