Bradley Cooper cooks up a hell of a performance as a celebrity chef trying to make a comeback after a serious and infamous flame out in BURNT. Adam Jones (Cooper) was a young, famous and daring chef with two Michelin stars when his diva behavior, insecurities and raging drug habit drove him to massive and very public failure. Jones didn't burn his bridges, he destroyed them along with everyone close to him on his fall from grace. As the film opens, Jones is wrapping up a self-imposed penance in New Orleans and heading back to London to stage a comeback. Meeting his former friends and co-workers, Jones begins a very tortured climb back up the ladder. Restaurant owner Tony (the excellent Daniel Bruhl from "Rush") finds himself with a mediocre dining spot in an upscale hotel, but too many memories of Jones exit to jump at the chance to work with him again. Omar Sy is Michel, badly burned by Jones but anxious to rebuild their magic.Matthew Rhys is Reece, current celebrity chef & rival and Sienna Miller is terrific as Helene, whose talent serves up the perfect pairing to Jones' menu. The road to the top is twisted, interesting and filled with more than a few dangerous hurdles. Cooper is very good as Jones, channeling the verbose profanity and anger of Gordon Ramsey and the most unbalanced aspects of celebrity versus personal challenges. Emma Thompson and Uma Thurman provide nice support in key roles and Director John Wells (August Osage County, ER) serves everything up with a polished shine that equals all the perfect plates. Less than predictable, entertaining and perfectly cooked, BURNT is an entertaining feast of acting talent, presented in style. It gets a B.

A suspenseful English thriller with a terrific performance by Laurence Olivier, BUNNY LAKE IS MISSING kept me guessing right up to its finale. Shot in crisp black & white with terrific location photography, Olivier stars as Detective Newhouse. He's called in when young Ann (Carol Lynley) drops her 4 year old daughter off at preschool, where she promptly disappears. It's not just that she's gone by the end of the day, the mystery seems to be that no one has ever seen the child. Ann's protective brother Steven is played by Kier Dullea, who would go on to huge stardom three years later in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The mystery deepens as it goes, with Ann and Bunny spiraling down a rabbit hole of doubts over the existence of the child. Noel Coward offers a very strange performance as Ann's Landlord, a lurking predator who leaps to the top of the suspect list. But for what? Clive Revill (The Empire Strikes Back) is strong as Sgt. Andrews, confused by a trail that seems to feed back on itself. Dullea's performance is very odd. I spent the first 2/3 trying to decipher how he could be this bad in the role, when he was so effective as Dave Bowman in 2001. Perhaps the resolution offers some answers, but Noel Coward famously taunted him on the set for a lack of talent, saying "Here Dullea, Gone Tomorrow" every chance he got. Lynley is very good. Only having seen her as the lounge singer in 1972's "The Poseidon Adventure" I was pretty shocked at the depth and talent of her performance here. She beat Jane Fonda out for the role. And then there is Olivier, blowing everyone else off the screen as a very clever detective determined to find out who is lying. Never less than interesting, occasionally derailed by some 60's songs by The Zombies, it kept me fascinated on just what in the hell was really going on here. Who's crazy? Famously temperamental Director Otto Preminger (Anatomy of a Murder, Laura)keeps his camera moving in long, lingering shots. Pretty twisted for its day, BUNNY LAKE will keep you guessing from its clever main credits to the jet black, completely mental finale, earning a B.

A harrowing character study, immersed deep in mental illness and paranoia, William Friedkin's 2006 film adaption of the play BUG is completely unhinged. Friedkin (The Exorcist, The French Connection) wields a heavy, in your face approach to his source material, a Tracy Letts (August Osage County) play. I've rattled on to anyone that would listen on how brilliant Letts' "Osage" was on Broadway. No one writes torment, confrontation and searing dialogue like Letts. Michael Shannon (The Shape of Water, Nocturnal Animals) reprises his Broadway role as Peter, a damaged war vet who sees conspiracies in every corner. Quiet, isolated and meek, he meets a very lonely Agnes (Ashley Judd) in a trashy western town and an even trashier hotel. Agnes is damaged, fragile and immediately drawn to what she sees as Peter's innocence. Harry Connick Jr is jacked up and dangerous as Agnes's ex-husband Jerry, fresh out of prison and anxious to pick up his spousal abuse just where he left it in this dingy, desperate hotel room. As Peter and Agnes grow closer, talking for hours and slowly spiraling into Peter's dark world view, his mysteries boil to the surface, including his conviction that hundreds of little electronic cockroaches are just beneath his skin. Agnes is at first doubtful. but is soon feeling the itch herself. As the film goes on, we are sucked into the room, with the walls closing in and the paranoia on full tilt. Watching these two people force out everyone else in the world, believing only what serves their sick narrative, Friedkin carves out a sick, twisted high dive into mental anguish. Letts gives him the words to play with, Friedkin escalates it into terror. Razor blades open up skin to pull out the bugs, flesh and emotions are ripped raw. When Peter thinks there are bugs under his teeth, he grabs a pair of pliers and pulls them out real time, on camera, as Agnes screams. It's horrifying. Shannon is incredible. He's always been a fearless actor in portraying unlikable souls. He's full tilt here, squirming backward into something less than human. Judd is also very good, her Agnes making you sad as you watch this dim, sad woman caught in the black hole of Jerry's madness. We're not talking tin foil hats here, we're talking entire hotel rooms wrapped in foil and riddled with no-pest strips. Nothing's going to keep the madness out. I don't know if I'd call this entertaining, but it's undeniably powerful. It's also bloody, violent and crushingly sad. There's not a person here in front of or behind the camera that's not giving it 100%. I'll give it a B, but get ready to squirm. As I said at the beginning, completely UNHINGED.

Imagine the most foul, graphic, envelope-pushing, adults only, profane action comedy ever made, DOUBLE it and now you are in the uncomfortable but hilarious world occupied by THE BROTHERS GRIMSBY. Sacha Baron Cohen has always displayed genius for pushing the boundaries of comedy. "Borat" certainly had scenes with nudity and physical comedy that made you flinch while laughing, but that's nothing compared to what he's whipped up here. Cohen stars as Nobby, a dim-witted soccer hooligan with 9 kids, a passion for the pub and a limited amount of brain cells. When he was a young boy, he was separated from his brother Sebastian and he's been on a life long quest to find him. Sebastian has grown up to be one of the world's best spies. During the opening credits, we follow him through a mission that combines the best of Indiana Jones, Bond and Bourne in one sequence. Sebastian is played winningly by Mark Strong, who is up for anything and shares our horror at all things Nobby. When Nobby discovers that his brother will be at a mega-wealthy event to kickoff a philanthropic movement, he crashes the party, interrupts Sebastian's efforts to stop an assassination and sends the brothers on the run from the bad guys and MI6. Their adventures on the road are damn funny, often exciting, incredibly well staged on the level of any high budget action film and occasionally SO gross and foul that you will either walk out, or laugh until your sides hurt. I was in the latter group, but I'm definitely the minority here as audiences avoided this big budget film by the millions. To be fair, the punchlines include very graphic elephant sex, Nobby's love for big women that culminates in a mistaken bedroom romp with Gabourey Sidibe, Nobby being forced to suck venom out of various parts of his brother's anatomy and a hilariously inappropriate gag involving Daniel Radcliffe and Donald Trump. This is a great action flick, put through Cohen's very twisted grinder and spit out the other side as a hugely inappropriate send up of spy flicks, buddy movies and all things proper. Cohen and Strong are both great, Rebel Wilson, Isla Fisher, Penelope Cruz are all having a blast and the Screenplay by Cohen and Phil Johnston (Wreck It Ralph, Zootopia, Cedar Rapids) is a lonnnnnnnng way from Johnston's Disney hits here, but on target for very inappropriate fun. The dialogue, even in the throwaway moments, is damn funny. If you are easily offended, DO NOT SEE this movie. If you consider having your limits tested on just what you'll find funny, sign up. If this was edited to be appropriate for viewing by the sensitive it would be 8 minutes long. For those that can take it, its about 90 minutes of disgusting, laugh-out-loud (often uncomfortably), jaw dropping madness. Favorite line: "Nobby! You just managed to do in three seconds what Voldemort couldn't in 8 movies!" Very adult, dripping with revolting scenes (and a few other things) these Brothers get a B.

This movie makes me afraid to go back and watch John Woo's "Face Off". It's one of my favorite films, but I haven't watched it in probably 15 years. After seeing Woo's MI:3 and shaking my head and then sitting through the incredibly stupid BROKEN ARROW from 1996, I'm wondering if I'd still enjoy "Face Off". I guess the big difference is that I thought this one was pretty damn dumb when I first saw it in theatres. John Travolta is horrible as Stealth bomber pilot Vic Deakins, a cocky idiot who's got a master plan to steal two nuclear weapons. Travolta called his performance in this film "larger than life". That's one thing you could call it. The only man in his way is his co-pilot, the much more likable Christian Slater as Riley Hale and Park Ranger Terry Charmichael. (By the way, what is it with these character names? It's like they looked up "hackneyed character names" in Google and started plugging them in.) So how does a park ranger get involved? Well after our two boys get in a fight in the cockpit of their stealth, they get ejected and the unarmed nukes get dropped in the canyon regions of Utah. It's as dumb as it sounds. I love Howie Long on Fox NFL. But there's a reason his movie career never took off, starting with his performance here. If Travolta is way OVER the top here, and oh yes, he IS, it's safe to say Long took the opposite approach, delivering line readings so dull they make him blend into the scenery even more than his camouflage MC Hammer pants. The plot is ridiculous and its more predictable than a Brady Bunch episode, although some of those were probably better acted. This was screenwriter Graham Yost's follow up to "Speed" and its a sophomore slump of the worst kind. Every character seems to think they are Schwarzenegger in Predator, with a clever one liner to follow every landed punch. Its embarrassing. Slater emerges pretty unscathed, as does Samantha Mathis as our park ranger, but great character actors like Bob Gunton (24) and Delroy Lindo (Get Shorty) are wasted and poor Frank Whaley (Pulp Fiction, The Doors) is saddled with horrible lines that Olivier couldn't salvage. Nuclear bombs explode, fistfights happen in trains, on top of trains and under trains. Woo bathes everything in slow motion and silly edits and it eventually fizzles out under the weight of Travolta's horrible performance and really dumb storytelling. It's said that 60,000 rounds of ammunition were used during filming. Less bullets, more story please. Woof. BROKEN ARROW gets a D. And I'm still scared to watch "Face Off" again.....

One of Woody Allen's funniest modern films, BROADWAY DANNY ROSE takes a look at one of the last of the great New York talent agents. Allen stars as the title character, a dedicated agent with a decidedly second (and third) rate stable of talent. When his lounge singer Lou Canova starts to regain stardom in a wave of nostalgia, Danny must reunite the nervous singer with his girlfriend Tina Vitale (Mia Farrow). Tina is also dating a mobster with a lot of angry brothers who are soon chasing Danny when he is mistaken for Tina's other boyfriend. It all culminates as Danny tries to get Tina together with Lou before his big TV shot with Milton Berle, with mobsters in pursuit and a lot of great one liners along the way. Some faves: "It's very important to be guilty. I'm guilty all the time and I never did anything." "Take my Aunt Rose. Not a beautiful woman at all. She looks like something from a live bait store." "I dont want to badmouth the kid, but he's a horrible, dishonest, immoral louse. And I say that with all due respect." Great stuff. Nick Apollo Forte is very good as Lou and the entire cast of Danny's acts are hilarious. Made in 1984, it's Woody at his lighthearted, quick witted, black & white best. Broadway Danny gets a B.

The third season of one of TV's all time best crime thrillers BROADCHURCH is a powerful, interesting and quietly perfect conclusion to the series. It's three years after the events of Season Two. Danny Latimer's killer has been forever banished from the coastal town, Hardy (the brilliant David Tennant) has returned and brought his teenage daughter with him, hoping for a clean start. The town seems to annoy him less than other places he's been and that's a high compliment coming from Hardy. His partner Ellie Miller (the equally brilliant Olivia Colman) is trying to move on from the events of the past two series, balancing raising her teenage son with her Detective role. As the season opens, middle-aged, divorced Trish Winterman (Julie Hesmondhaigh) is raped at a posh birthday part in a rented country estate. Knocked out, dazed and devastated, Trish becomes the focus of Hardy and Miller's investigation. The party guest list is packed with suspects, ex husbands, suitors and deviants. Like David Lynch's small town of Twin Peaks, every citizen seems ripe with a history or a motive, providing plenty of suspense and angst. The pressure mounts when other women begin to come forward with the same exact story as Trish, unveiling a serial rapist at work. Danny's parents from the last two seasons are back.Beth Latimer (Jodie Whittaker) counsels Trish, while Mark Latimer (Andrew Buchan) cant find peace and is determined to track down his son's murderer, who has relocated in another town. Newspaper editor Maggie Radcliffe (Carolyn Pickles) is back as well, battling to hold onto anything resembling a town paper, while protecting the citizens from the tabloid press. For me, Season three is a bit quieter than the first two, but no less powerful. These characters are so well acted and perfectly realized after 25+ episodes that they feel like witty, driven or intense friends you look forward to revisiting. Broadchurch won the award for best Crime Drama at National Television Awards in early 2018. This was the first year the award was presented and Broadchurch was competing against Sherlock (2010), Line of Duty (2012) and Little Boy Blue (2017). Julie Hesmondhalgh (Trish Winterman) was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actress but lost to Vanessa Kirby from The Crown (2016). BROADCHURCH ends its run with another tale that keeps you guessing. Classy and well told, it gets an A. I'll truly miss Hardy and Miller!

How do you follow up Season One of a brilliant murder mystery? Brilliantly if your are BROADCHURCH SEASON TWO. NO SPOILERS! With the stunning reveal of the murderer of young Danny at the end of Season One, we were left wondering where all those lives impacted would go from there. Well, here are eight more terrific episodes to answer those questions. The accused murderer shocks the town by pleading not guilty. The Latimer family thought they at least had resolve after their son's death. Now they and the town are forced to live through a trial that dredges up every nasty secret in their coastal town. Olivia Colman and David Tennant are both back as Detectives Miller & Hardy, exceeding expectations as they are faced to confront a lot about themselves during the trial. Their relationship is one of the best written partnerships in TV history. Their banter is humorous, deep and tortured as the trust between them grows. They are forced to realize that they're in this investigation together, often alone, wherever it leads. All of our favorite town characters are back from the first season, pulled struggling into the trial as it unwinds. Charlotte Rampling (The Night Porter, 45 Years) is a fantastic new cast member as retired lawyer Jocelyn Knight, inspired to come back to work to help the Latimer family in their quest for justice for Danny. Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag, Solo) is equally good as Defense Attorney Abby Thompson. Watching the impact of the trial on her character is shattering. Waller-Bridge is a talent with a fresh voice. Matthew Gravelle is a standout as Joe Miller and Carolyn Pickles (Tess) damn near steals the story as a local Newspaper editor determined to report the news but respect the family. Her relationship with Prosecutor Jocelyn is the heart of the story, along with Hardy (Tennant) and Miller (Colman) struggling to find balance in their own families and the ripples from the case in their own homes. (More a wave than a ripple in Miller's case, eh?) Entertainment doesn't get more powerful or involving than BROADCHURCH, building well on its freshman series, this second series earns a BINGE-WORTHY A. Followed by one more full season with Hardy & Miller pursuing a brand new case three years later.

One of the best crime thriller series I've ever seen, BROADCHURCH SEASON 1 is a gut wrenching, suspenseful murder mystery that will keep you guessing. The cast is flawless. Olivia Colman (Oscar winning Actress for "The Favourite") stars as detective Ellie Miller. Just back from a vacation, Miller returns to her seaside UK town, faced with the body of a young boy on the beach. She knows the family and the news throws the town into a panic. Detective Alec Hardy (David Tennant of "Doctor Who") is new to the village. Angry, rude and not connected to anyone in the town, he battles with Ellie on the right approach to the investigation. She knows all the citizens, he suspects everyone. Jodie Whittaker (also Doctor Who!) is Beth Latimer, the mother of the slain boy, Andrew Buchan (All the Money in the World) is the boy's father. Their relationship and family life are torn apart by their son's death. As the eight episodes unwind, you realize that the small town is full of suspects with the personal secrets and liaisons of the townsfolk overlapping again and again. The reveal of the murderer is a true shocker and surprised the hell out of us. Great writing and acting propel you through a mandatory binge watch to find out whodunit. With plenty to say about the media, marriage, family relationships and how we judge people by their cover, it's a clever tale. Tennant and Colman are nothing short of perfect. These are two very flawed characters that you grow to really care for, each in their own very different way. BROADCHURCH SEASON ONE gets an A+. Followed by two more seasons, all available on Netflix.

Writer/Director James L. Brooks hit a home run with audiences with his second film as a director, 1987's BROADCAST NEWS. The man behind "The Simpsons" and "Terms of Endearment" brings plenty of wit and great writing to his tale of a Washington DC TV News Network. Holly Hunter is hard driving producer Jane Craig. A fast moving control freak, she's got a firm grip on everyone in the news room and detests the pretty faces that are taking over the network news. Albert Brooks is her best friend and terrific reporter Aaron Altman. The two have made hundreds of great segments together and they both feel that Aaron is due his turn at the anchor desk. Enter William Hurt as Tom Grunick. A great looking guy with more instincts than brains, he's everything that Jane detests, so why does she find herself so drawn to him? The trio are plunged into plenty of newsroom antics and breaking stories, some for laughs, some for drama. Brooks writing is witty, sharp and real-life. This IS the way people talk, and the way two guys fight for a woman they both like. Brooks is especially good as Aaron. When he finally gets his stint at the weekend Anchor desk, it's one of the eighties funniest scenes. You've never seen flop sweat on this level. Robert Prosky (Mrs. Doubtfire, The Natural) is great as the network producer and Jack Nicholson brings trademark humor with a touch of menace as the National News Anchor that Tom aspires to be and all others scatter away from at every cost. Joan Cusack is hilarious as Jane's right hand woman. You'll get to know these people, but thanks to Brooks, you'll never quite know what's going to happen next, thankfully. BROADCAST NEWS deserved every one of its 7 Oscar nominations including the ones for its writer/director and all three stars. One of my favorite films of the 80's, and in my all-time Top 100, it gets an A+.

What an interesting concept. A baby arrives via a meteorite to a childless couple on an isolated farm. They raise him as their own, but he begins to demonstrate powers....hmmm, where have I heard that before? BRIGHTBURN is, for the most part, a pretty decent and enjoyable scary twist on that same legend, but with a boy that takes a decidedly different turn at 12 years old. Think Damien, not Kal-El. Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect, The Hunger Games) is Tori, the fiercely protective Mom of our guest youngster from another world. David Denman (13 Hours) is very good as her husband Kyle, whose much quicker to regret their hospitality. Jackson A. Dunn (young AntMan in Infinity War) is Brandon Bryer. He's excellent in the part, just off kilter enough to raise an eyebrow and downright evil when he comes into his power. Like "The Omen" series, the people that get in his way are murdered in very graphic, showy fashion, cutting loose some of the most inventive, freaky and violent slayings in recent memory. It's very gory and doesn't pull any punches, daring you to look away. The special effects team is first rate for the fairly low budget. The stupid character behavior meter is off the charts. One woman has her backyard motion sensor go off three times and a terrifying visit at her front door and responds by (wait for it...) texting her husband that she's going to bed and turning her ringer off. Okay, that's logical. I also started internally bitching and moaning of why the parents would keep the child's arrival and history secret for so long, but then I realized that I'd bought the same premise with Superman for years. The clever angle is making you look at that story in a very different light. What if Superman was more Michael Meyers than Clark Kent? A lean 90 minutes long, it moves fast, keeps you on your toes and offers plenty of surprises, at least the ones that weren't revealed in the trailer, which tells you WAY too much and ruins some of the key story elements of the conclusion. My favorite scene has Brandon levitating just off the floor and entering his bedroom in a very bad mood, with Tori hiding under his bed. It's perfectly shot, well executed by all and tees up a manic conclusion that shows the flip side of that romantic Superman/Lois Lane flight around Metropolis. BRIGHTBURN heats up a solid B from me. It's a taut, lightweight blast.

It always seems fitting to go back and watch a classic war film on Memorial Day weekend. They don't get much bigger or better than 1957's THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI. One of David Lean's best, he created this war masterpiece just before "Lawrence of Arabia" but shows the same massive scale in his storytelling. Alec Guinness stars as Colonel Nicholson, the epitome of staunch British military leadership. He meets his match when he and his men are captured and placed in a POW camp run by the brutal authoritarian Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa). Saito commands the POWs to build a massive bridge across the river Kwai that will enable railroad transport and further Japanese domination. Saito insists that the officers work as well, creating a long standoff of wills. Meanwhile, American soldier Shears (the terrific William Holden) escapes the POW camp and finds his way back to safety. When his superiors and the British forces ask him to lead them back to the camp to destroy the bridge, another test of opposing wills begins, along with a tense, exciting mission. James Donald (The Great Escape) is excellent as the POW camp doctor Major Clipton and Jack Hawkins (Lawrence of Arabia) is classic as Major Warden. No one made huge, widescreen epics like David Lean. He fills every inch of the film with massive on location scenery and danger, including one of the most impressive and explosive conclusions in film history. Guinness won Best Actor for his portrayal of a man obsessed with honor and slipping into madness, creating real tension and "what is he doing!?" tension into the finale. He and Lean notoriously did not get along, with Guinness trying to inject humor into a role he felt was one note and without compassion. Lean insisted he play it straight and the two battled throughout the shoot, but Guinness later acknowledged that Lean had probably pulled his all time best performance out of him. The two worked together again in 1984 on Lean's last film, "A Passage to India". The film won 7 Oscars all together, including Best Picture, Best Director for Lean, Best Screenplay for adaption from the novel by Pierre Boulle (who also wrote "Planet of the Apes"), Best Cinematography for Jack Hillyard, Best Music for Malcolm Arnold (I miss Maurice Jarre personally) and the much deserved Best Editing Award for Peter Taylor, who makes nearly three hours feel like under two. An all-time classic, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI is solidly in my all-time Top 100 and gets an A+.