Following his attempts to bring to stage Fives Kings, his combined version of five Shakespearean plays, Orson Welles took his obsession to play the character of Falstaff to this production in which he wrote, directed, and starred. Falstaff spends his days carousing with the young Prince Hal, much to the chagrin of the Prince’s father King Henry IV. It comes across as a medieval buddy comedy with a youth and his wayward mentor that culminates in a grand battle scene and an unfortunate ending. My lack of a Shakespearean education had me following the wikipedia synopsis while watching, but I still rather enjoyed both Welles’s portrayal and the cohesive way he combined the group of plays.

After the best cops in New York City Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson die in a stupid accident, mismatched partners Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell stumble into their case, putting together clues that have alluded better policemen. The underlying mystery is obvious and filled with ridiculous coincidences. The humor, typical of McKay-Ferrell pairings, is mostly stupid and generally borderline offensive. It’s not without entertainment value, but I would have rather watched more of the Jackson-Johnson pairing.     

With the crash of ADC Airlines Flight 053 in October 2006, Nigeria had experienced three major airline accidents within the span of a year. This film puts some context to those crashes through the fictional crash of a flight from Lagos to Abuja. Beginning with the crash, it quickly flashes back to the circumstances that brought each of the passengers onto the plane. Like the American disaster films of the 1970s, it’s a bit low budget looking, but has a large, appealing cast, each with a compelling story. Once getting a hand of who is who and how they relate to each other, it’s a pretty entertaining ride.    

When tailor Maurice Chevalier travels to Vicomte Charles Ruggles’s castle to collect on past due payments, he finds himself faking an aristocratic identity and falling in love with Ruggles’s niece Jeanette MacDonald. While I liked both Chevalier and MacDonald much more than other films I’ve seen them in, the other characters outshine the leads, particularly a trio of Macbethian aunts and a delightfully sex-crazed Myrna Loy. The film does display a number of surprisingly well-crafted musical numbers that would be more expected during the golden age of musicals versus in a pre-Code, relatively early talkie.   

After a shooting in one Nigerian district leaves a number of election officials dead, the voting results in that district are nullified. A popular candidate who has thus lost the election declares herself the legitimate winner and sues her opponent. My interest in Nollywood films grew with how tight this violent political thriller is. The stench of political corruption blanketed the entire election and until the last moments, it’s impossible to know who is telling the truth and who is in the right, if anyone is.

Placed in an open prison program that provides prisoners with various types of skill training, convict Clive Owen discovers he has a knack for gardening. Loosely based on a true story, it’s a fairly charming, light hearted little British film. While there’s nothing terribly complex about the story, the acting meets the challenge with Owen receiving a patron in Helen Mirren, a love interest in Natasha Little, and a mentor in fellow inmate David Kelly.

The American localized version of Godzilla has Raymond Burr forced into the story as a reporter whose Tokyo layover forces him to stay in the city right at the time of Godzilla’s rampage. Even without having seen the original Japanese film, it is quite obvious that Burr’s storyline is all added-on. Every one of his scenes come across in the same way as Jack Black’s appearance in the Investigative Journalism episode of Community where previous incidents are all shown from this stranger’s perspective. Instead of getting to experience the relationships and actions of other characters, they are all filtered and narrated through Burr’s knowledge and experiences. It’s rather tedious as a narrative and distracts from any message being portrayed.