MOVIE - The Mummy

PG-13 (1:50)

Wide release 6/9/17

Viewed Monday, 6/12/17 at Carlisle 8 (comfy reclining seats)
IMBd: 5.8/10

RT Critic: 15 (Now that's pretty bad!)  Audience:  42
Critic's Consensus:  Lacking the campy fun of the franchise's most recent entries and failing to deliver many monster-movie thrills, The Mummy suggests a speedy unraveling for the Dark Universe.

Cag:  3/Liked it for the most part

Directed by Alex Kurtzman

Universal Studios

Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, Courtney B. Vance

My comments:  I can't believe that both Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe would do such a silly, forgettable movie.  For the money?  Except....actually....as silly as it was, I enjoyed it for the most part.  I loved the ancient Egyptology, I loved going to Mesopotamia/Iran, I even enjoyed the legend...but why did they have to include zombies?  Her minions could've been done so much more cleverly.  It also seemed overly long.  Great ending.  Left it open for many more, and I'm guessing this one will be lucrative enough so there will probably be more coming.  Just not what I pictured as a Tom Cruise/Russell Crowe film.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  Tom Cruise headlines a spectacular, all-new cinematic version of the legend that has fascinated cultures all over the world since the dawn of civilization: The Mummy. Thought safely entombed in a tomb deep beneath the unforgiving desert, an ancient princess (Sofia Boutella of Kingsman: The Secret Service and Star Trek Beyond) whose destiny was unjustly taken from her is awakened in our current day, bringing with her malevolence grown over millennia and terrors that defy human comprehension. From the sweeping sands of the Middle East through hidden labyrinths under modern-day London, The Mummy brings a surprising intensity and balance of wonder and thrills in an imaginative new take that ushers in a new world of gods and monsters. Cruise is joined by a cast including Annabelle Wallis (upcoming King Arthur, television's Peaky Blinders), Jake Johnson (Jurassic World), Courtney B. Vance (TV's American Crime Story: The People V. O.J. Simpson) and Oscar (R) winner Russell Crowe (Gladiator). 

MOVIE - Winter's Tale

PG-13 (2:09)

Wide release 2/14/14

Viewed with Fran at the Orleans on Feb. 16, 2014

RT Critic: 13 Audience: 50

Cag: 1-Nope, didn't do it for me at all

Directed by Akiva Goldman

Warner Brothers Pictures

Colin Farrell, William Hurt, Russell Crowe

My comments: Colin Farrell did the best he could with this material. When the movie was over I looked at Fran and said, "Well that was stupid," and she burst out laughing.  She'd been holding it in, too.   I wanted to like it, I truly did.  But it just didn't work.  That flying horse just took the cake....  (I'm betting this did okay as a fantasy book.  It didn't translate well into a movie.)  PeterTraver's Rolling Stone review is right on perfect! (See below)

Fandango review:  One night in early 20th-century New York, master thief Peter Lake (Colin Farrell) breaks into a Central Park mansion -- and quickly has his heart stolen by its occupant, Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay). Unfortunately, their love is star-crossed; she is dying from consumption, and he is marked for death by his demonic former mentor, Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe). Peter battles the forces of time and darkness to save Beverly, even as Pearly does everything in his power to defeat Peter.

By Peter Travers

February 14, 2014

A kick in the ass to Valentine's Day and the very notion of a satisfying Somewhere In Time kind of romantic wallow at the movies. What happens to Mark Helprin's 1983 bestseller at the hands of Hollywood is a crying shame. In his feature directing debut, Oscar-winning screenwriter Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind), creates a beautiful mess, an embarrassment of epic proportions. On deck is a supernatural love story that spans a century and even death, Colin Farrell—sporting the epitome of a bad haircut stars as Peter Lake. He's the son of immigrant parents who use a makeshift basket to send him ashore like an infant Moses at Ellis Island in 1895. By 1916, Peter is a thief, running from gangland boss Pearly Soames (a scowling Russell Crowe shouting in an indecipherable Irish brogue) with the help of a flying white horse. Hand to God, I'm not making this up. Pearly's scarred face morphs into demon shape when he's really pissed, which is often. His tantrums prompt a visit to the underground lair of Lucifer (Will Smith, following After Earth with another howling fiasco). But Lucifer won't interfere with Pearly's hunt for Peter who has now fallen hard for Beverly Penn, the dying daughter of a publishing tycoon (William Hurt). Findlay, the late Lady Sybil of Downton Abbey (let's hope she didn't leave that classic series for this!), has a breathtaking beauty that helps you suspend disbelief. But, sorry, not to this extent. Peter and Beverly's night of sexual union – her first and last – ends with an ageless Peter being swept into present-day New York where fate has him intervene in the life of a journalist (Jennifer Connolly) and her dying daughter. And then Eva Marie Saint, 89, shows up playing a figure from the past. And a star twinkles in the sky (could it be Beverly?). We're told in voiceover that everything is part of a grand pattern that we may one day understand. I'm calling bullshit. Winter's Tale is preposterous twaddle. Use it as a date movie only if you don't love the one you're with.

MOVIE - State of Play

Very good-suspenseful with a twist at the end
Viewed Thursday, 5/14/09 at El Con with Sheila
Drama 1:58 PG-13
Released 4-17-09
RT: 85% cag: 75%
Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams
Director: Kevin Macdonald
aslo: Robin Wright Penn, Helen Mirren, Jason Bateman, Jeff Daniels

Russell Crowe plays a scruffy investigative reporter for the Washington Globe. Ben Affleck plays an up-and-coming congressman who is in charge of a committee questioning defense spending. When the married Afleck is discovered to be having an affair with an assistant, new Globe online reporter Rachel McAdams jumps in. We soon discovere that the journalist and politician were college roommates with a lot of baggage - the congressman's wife being one of them. The major plotline is about the shady insider dealings of more-or-less legal hitmen while a parallel plotline is about the intertwining lives and lies of the protagonists.

Rachel McAdams's part was sort of weird, she's not a major player, she's not a strong journalist, but a bond forms between her and Russell Crowe, which is kind of sweet, but somewhat out-of-character....a weak , somewhat questionable, link for me.