Month: July 2022

Wannabe blues guitarist Ralph Macchio hunts down Robert Johnson’s long time friend, musician Willie Brown (portrayed by Joe Seneca), and the two embark on a blues inspired journey to Mississippi to settle some unfinished business. Touching on many of the legends surrounding Johnson, including an alleged lost song, the duo cross paths with a devilish Robert Judd and his assistant, the always entertaining Joe Morton. It all culminates in a sudden jump from the sun-drenched Mississippi landscape to an epic showdown featuring the virtuosity of guitarist Steve Vai. Throughout the film, Macchio plays true to form as a whiny young adult who is incapable of listening to his elders who obviously know better while Seneca imbues the production with soul as the older blues guide.  

Documentary director Jennifer Lopez leads her film crew to the Amazon River searching for a local indigenous tribe. Along the way they rescue snake hunter Jon Voight who takes over their boat so that he can hunt down a giant anaconda. The ridiculous over the top camp of the film is only matched by Voight’s acting, especially his attempts at an accent. The rest of the cast, including Eric Stoltz, Ice Cube, and Owen Wilson, is quite appealing and work with what they are given. The CGI is very much of its time, but it’s hard to turn away from a film where nature gets in a number of fabulous kills.     

The delicate balance between a decaying police precinct and the impoverished neighborhood it serves is thrown when a drugged out Pam Grier, playing against type, shoots two officers point blank. This leads newly appointed captain Ed Asner to take a hardline against the surrounding community. Cynical precinct veteran Paul Newman, partnered with a young Ken Wahl, provides the moral compass in a squad filled with corruption. It’s gritty as if from the previous decade but also feels like the pilot to the police procedurals it would later inspire.  

As a reward for his contributions to the best small town newspaper in America, reporter Robert Young is sent to North Africa to report on World War II. Arriving in Egypt, he gets caught up in silly spy intrigue where he doesn’t know which side is which. It’s quite hokey and didn’t increase my appreciation of Jeannette MacDonald any. What I did enjoy was seeing Ethel Waters in a somewhat meatier role. While still relegated to being a maid, she is given multiple musical numbers and a love interest in the form of Dooley Wilson.    

Denied dinner as a punishment for stealing, Sacha Guitry becomes the only survivor of a meal that killed his entire family. He soon learns that dishonesty pays and resolves to live his life by this credo. Narrated by the adult Cheat as he’s writing his memoirs, it’s a delightful romp through his adventures as a charming rogue travelling through a life of deceit with occasional attempts at honesty. The film ambitiously weaves the present and the past relying solely on Guitry’s voiceover for much of its dialogue.  

Raised by two con artist parents Debra Winger and Richard Jenkins, 26 year old Evan Rachel Wood has never been treated as anything other than an accomplice in their schemes. When the family meets Gina Rodriguez during one of their scams, it upends all their lives in different ways. The film somehow takes a weird setup that almost no one should relate to while being a completely raw and real look at people and relationships. Winger and Jenkins are excellent in their roles and makes one wonder how they became their adult selves, but it’s Wood who is the standout. Somehow she becomes the walking embodiment of an infant who was left in a crib and never touched but still survives.

Continuing the tale of Matt Damon’s amnesiac agent Jason Bourne, when it looks like Jason’s warning to leave him ignore has been compromised, he is drawn back into more Treadstone conspiracies. I know there are people who love these films, but I’m not one of them. The action sequences are good, but the plot is unnecessarily twisty and turny, still resulting in the expected ending after all its convolutions.