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Life at the Movies

Movie commentary The superheroes of Captain America Civil War (2016, USA) won’t have the freedom to protect and save under their conditions if they sign a United Nations ratification that allows the UN to decide how the superheroes engage enemies. The superheroes are invited to engage enemies that threaten international security as the UN decides.…

Movie commentary/review Garry Marshall has been directing movies about special days recently. Whatever the reason for that, I do not know, but it has a nice cogency about it. His last two movies were New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day and his latest is called Mother’s Day (2016, USA). Marshall also has a penchant for…

Universal themes of 2015 were described in my previous post. There were also audience specific themes that attracted certain demographics. The Longest Ride, from a Nicholas Sparks novel, is good for couples. It is about commitment costs, but for love the cost of commitment is worth it. A problem for some is that it may…

2015 mainstream films have life themes that are really quite specific, but people see them for entertainment. People are not going to see the big films for their ideas. Box Office champ Jurassic World was about treating nature kindly, hardly a universal theme that everyone can relate to. For those that did take notice, there…

The seventh Rocky film has been out on DVD since March and it takes the franchise in a new direction. Sylvester Stallone is back as Rocky Balboa, the former heavyweight boxing champion. He is the only actor left from the former cycle of films, Rocky—Rocky V (1976-1990) and Rocky Balboa (2006). Though Stallone acted, wrote…

Rocky Balboa was here… Rocky II (1979) -Never give up Rocky has made money from boxing after his bout against the world champion Apollo Creed and is enjoying his success. He marries the ‘love of his life’, Adrian (Talia Shire). Meanwhile, world champ Apollo Creed makes a stir in the media to lure Rocky back…

Rocky V (1990) Rocky V is well-directed but there isn’t a major turning point in the story. The street brawl, instead of fighting in a boxing ring, is a turn off and didn’t do the Rocky image much good. All was forgiven, though. In terms of what’s happening now for the Balboa family: Rocky and…

Movie commentary Perhaps the biggest attraction of The Jungle Book (2016, USA) is its computer generated imagery. The visuals are wide, lush and beautiful. It’s rich and realistic state-of-the-art visuals. The animals are like ‘true’ animals. The jungle is as real as can-be, like watching the jungle on safari. Elephants, monkeys, and bears are around…

I did not want to mention too much about how symbolically bad the darkness is, in Star Wars Episode VII The Force Awakens (2015, USA). So I went back to the film’s premise and discovered a theme that sounded better. It was rediscovering Luke Skywalker. Luke (Mark Hamill) was the hero of the original trilogy.…

Mockingjay Part 2 (2015, USA), the final episode of The Hunger Games, is now available for home viewing. I think we were expecting more. It continues in the vein of the previous film, Mockingjay Part 1, in the same linear fashion, without finishing the series on a high. However, it rounded off the story cohesively and…
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