Burt Reynolds and Goldie Hawn run the gamut of emotions in the uneven but initially charming BEST FRIENDS. Reynolds stars as Richard, a successful screenwriter who often writes alongside his live in girlfriend Paula, well played by Goldie Hawn. When Richard decides that they should get married and Paula reluctantly agrees, the couple suddenly finds themselves at odds, with marriage being more challenging than friendship. The film's first half is by far the best, especially when the newlyweds visit their parents. Richards parents (Keenan Wynn and Audra Lindley) are hilarious and easygoing, which Paula's folks (Barnard Hughes and Jessica Tandy) are classic eccentrics, with all the quirks great actors bring to the roles. Reynolds and Hawn are at their best during these scenes, with easy chemistry and plenty of laughs. As the film rolls on and their new marriage is tested, the film grows uncomfortable. Their interactions and dialogue feel very forced and the movie kind of peters out as it stumbles to the end. There are some great songs over montages, including the eighties classic "How Do You Keep The Music Playing", used to nice effect here. Richard Libertini is a comic standout as the worst marriage minister on the planet, but once they say "I do", you'll want to say "I dont". Half of an 80's classic earns a C.

2011's THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL is a feast of strong acting by some of the best in the business. An all-star cast, including some of my faves like Judi Dench, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson & Maggie Smith star as seniors who all arrive in India looking for either retirement, a fresh start or adventure. Young hotel owner Dev Patel's strongest hotel management skills involve photoshop, as the hotel they arrive at is a far cry from the one imagined online. As they adapt to this different world, they find new love, connect with past loved ones (an especially strong storyline featuring Wilkinson, but not the one you'd expect) and find new qualities in themselves. Director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) is in fine form and has an incredible palette to work with in his cast. By turns funny, sweet, sad, hilarious and deeply moving, you will want to check into the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It's a masterclass in acting and charms it's way to an A.

Strangely lifeless, Robert Zemeckis' motion-capture follow up to his terrific "Polar Express" is a step backward from the charms of that holiday classic. 2007's BEOWULF only comes to life when Angelina Jolie slips onto the screen. Tackling the centuries old story of the warrior Beowulf (Ray Winstone)and his battle against the creature Grendel (Crispin Glover) and the monster's seductive mother (Jolie) , Zemeckis loads the stop motion animation with great actors. In addition to those above, we also have Anthony Hopkins as King Hrothgar and John Malkovich as his trusted aide Unferth. Robin Wright is Hrothdar's Oueen. Alas, the story creaks forward, bursting into action for some brilliant special effects sequences, but then falling back into cruise mode for more 500 AD exposition, mead drinking and angst. Zemeckis is one of my favorite filmmakers. Even his less successful films at the box office like 2015's "The Walk" have been some of my favorites for those years. But for all its $150 million in special effects, a screenplay by Roger Avary (Pulp Fiction) and Neil Gaiman (American Gods) and terrific sound design, BEOWULF feels like its a thousand years old. Slow, too violent and littered with nudity for kids and too boring and simplistic for adults, it ultimately fails to connect. Ray Winstone and Angelina Jolie are both terrific. He's a hell of a warrior and she is an amazingly seductive villain, but the film around them never connects on any emotional level that would serve their efforts. BEOWULF is dead on arrival. The story spans many decades and I felt every year of it.....I'll give it a D.

As the Academy Awards approached this year, I kept reading about Oscar record breaker and winner of 11 awards, 1959's BEN HUR. With a long coast-to-coast flight, what better time to catch up for the first time with this nearly 4 hour film classic. Charlton Heston stars as Judah Ben-Hur, a successful Jewish Prince at the time of Christ. When Ben Hur's childhood friend Messala is promoted to leader of the Roman Army in Hur's town, the two reconnect. Friendly banter is short lived and through an unfortunate series of events, Hur is cast out to become a slave. Hur's lifelong quest is to return to his home town of Jerusalem, liberate the family that was thrown into jail when he was made a slave, and gain his revenge against Massala. The film is of an epic scale, one of the biggest productions ever mounted. The chariot race that concludes the film was shot full scale, with stuntmen and horses performing all the action live in a huge arena. The chariot sequence is amazing. It's one of the most exciting 20 minute sequences in the history of film. I had to go back and watch the entire sequence again to soak it up. To stage that portion alone would cost a couple hundred million today, it is staggering in scale. Charlton Heston is at his best as Ben Hur, Jack Hawkins is terrific as Hur's slave master who finds more in Hur than he expects and Stephen Boyd is strong as Massala. This is old school film making at its best, massive in scale, very long but never boring and powerful in its story telling. Winner of Best Picture, Best Actor (Heston), Best Supporting Actor (Hawkins), best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Sound, Best Editing, Best Special Effects and Best Writing. It's an Oscar record tied by only two films in history, "Titanic" and "Lord of the Rings: Return of the King". This old fashioned spectacle gets an A for the Chariot Race Sequence alone. Throw another 3 hours of legendary film making on top and you have a classic.

In 1970, two years after the blockbuster "Planet of the Apes", producer Arthur P. Jacobs and Fox brought us the next chapter in the ape saga, BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES. James Franciscus stars as astronaut Brent, whose traveled the same time wormhole to end up on future earth and the simian ruled planet. After nearly bankrupting 20th Century Fox two years before with the box office bomb "Doctor Dolittle", Jacobs budget was tight. Combined with the fact that Charlton Heston would only agree to reprise his role as Taylor on the conditions he would die in the film and would only be in it for about 15 minutes, Jacobs does a decent job, for awhile. The good news is that the filmmakers have a good leading man in Franciscus, beautiful Linda Harrison back as Nova, some decent and interesting scenes underground where they find Radio City Music Hall, the New York public library. Not so good is a clumsy gorillas/war versus chimpanzees/peace story line, a very silly last 40 minutes with mind melding nuclear mutant humans conjuring up more illusions that an 80's David Copperfield and not enough lines for Kim Hunter as Zira. Roddy McDowell sat this one film out and his replacement as Cornelius isn't nearly as good. It's short, pretty fast and pretty cheap looking in some of the crowd scenes, where the budget cuts have extras in cheap over-the-head gorilla masks instead of John Chambers incredible make-up. It all comes to a decent, explosive (to say the least) conclusion to which you can't imagine they could come up with another sequel. They fooled everyone with coming up with the best sequel the following year with 'Escape from the Planet of the Apes", my favorite Apes film ever. BENEATH is early 70's b-movie fun and pretty decent considering its budget limitations. We'll give it a B-. Killer 70's movie poster artwork!

In 1971, the rat movie "Willard" was a huge and unexpected box office hit. The producers smelled gold and went right back to work on the bigger budget, rat infested sequel BEN. Picking up with the last few minutes of the original film, it quickly becomes obvious that this is the ALIENS of the rat series. If you thought a thousand rats were great, let's give you 10,000! If one or two rat attacks were a hit, let's give 'em a dozen! Ben the rat and his masses move quickly from Willard's house to one of the neighbors, with Ben befriending sick little boy Danny. Danny is played with a level of sweetness that should drop any diabetic viewer in their tracks. Lee Harcourt Montgomery isn't a bad actor, he's just asked to play a kid straight out of a Barney episode that happens to love giant rats. Oh, he also loves marionettes. By the time he breaks into a second song that makes the musical interludes on "The Partridge Family" look like "Hamilton", I was ready for the rats to chow down. Joseph Campanella (Mannix, The Golden Girls) barks orders to city workers to find the rats, Arthur O'Connell (The Poseidon Adventure) is a newspaper reporter who cant believe the rats are smarter than the city workers and Meredith Baxter is Danny's sister, bringing the bell curve up on the acting talent dramatically. When it's not boring, it's unintentionally hilarious. Rats are thrown on people from off camera, crowds react to scenes of torn up cereal boxes like they're at the scene of the Manson murders and Ben seems to be able to understand the English language. This was supposed to be part two of a trilogy, but thankfully Part 3 was killed along with the rodent infestation. When I was 11, I saw this as part of a double feature. At the time, I thought Ben was okay, but I was traumatized by the second feature on the bill "Night of the Living Dead". I was so scared I forgot all about "Ben". The funny thing is, I watched it again last week and forgot all about it again the next day. The only redeeming thing in the movie is Michael Jackson's hit theme song that runs over the end credits. For a movie about rats, it's probably appropriate that this stinker is 100% cheese. Ben gets a D.

Writer/Director James Gunn is best known for his excellent "Guardians of the Galaxy" films. He takes a decidedly more bloody turn with a fantastic concept in THE BELKO EXPERIMENT. The premise alone is worth the price of admission. Picture an American company doing business in a very remote part of Bogota, Columbia. In a well guarded monolith of a building built to keep armies out, the inside looks like any American office, down to the corner offices, suits and ties and cubicles. Eleven minutes into the film, a voice comes over speakers throughout the building and announces that there are currently 80 people in the building and in two hours, if 30 of they haven't been killed, they will kill 60 of them at random. Who "they" are is left for our office workers and the viewer to discover. As you and the staff realize that it's not a joke, watching the personalities and players (d)evolve into their primal selves makes for one hell of a horror thrill ride. Tony Goldwyn (Ghost, Scandal) is the boss, John C. McGinley (Seven, The Rock) is the office perve, Brent Sexton (The Killing) is the everyman manager and Adria Arjona (True Detective) is terrific as Leandra. John Gallagher Jr (who blew us away on Broadway in "Spring Awakening") is Mike Milch, the central character who's meant to be our voice as the viewer. Gallagher is always good, but feels a little underwhelming here, taking a little to long understand what's happening. You want to yell at him to get with the program and be the hero! Of course, that's what the film does well, is make you think about what you would do in the scenario. The film doesn't quite deliver on the promise of its first half, which is tight, fast and fascinating. It nails an interesting last five minutes though. If you like your horror films very graphic, over the top, profanity laden and pretty clever, you're gonna love the ride. They had my interest from the moment I realized the Belko building wasn't meant to keep armies out, its meant to keep them IN. BELKO gets a blood splattered B.

Surprisingly suspenseful and entertaining, BEIRUT is a smart thriller loaded with talent. Jon Hamm is a CIA operative in 1982 Beirut, stuck in the middle of an exploding and seemingly endless civil war. He and his wife have carved out a fairly normal life, a beautiful home and good friends. When a person close to them suddenly becomes a political liability with questionable ties, their world explodes and sudden violence brings tragedy. The film then jumps years ahead, with Mason (Hamm) being pulled back into a high level government operation in Beirut. Drunk, beaten down and uninterested, Mason is faced with a present day dilemna only he can fix to save the life of a friend. Rosamund Pike (Die Another Day) is excellent as Sandy, a straight shooting CIA agent with compassion for Mason, but unyielding focus on the mission. Mark Pelligrino (The Big Lebowski) is also good as Mason's friend in peril and Larry Pine (The Royal Tennenbaums) is slippery as hell as a key figure in the ever shifting Middle East landscape. Writer Tony Gilroy (Nightcrawler, Rogue One) is terrific, serving up a complicated story that's intelligent, fast moving and unpredictable. Gilroy seems to specialize in damaged characters. Like his Louis Bloom character in "Nightcrawler", so brilliantly acted by Jake Gyllenhall, Hamm's Mason Skiles is a dark figure without the basic self preservation most humans share. Watching where he takes Mason and how well Hamm captures the spiral downward is a hell of a show. Director Brad Anderson did a dozen episodes of "Fringe" one of my fave TV shows of the last decade. He knows how to stage conversations in dark alleys just as aptly as he presents large scale mayhem. He's one to watch. Beirut made very little noise in theatres, but it deserves plenty of eyes. If you like Spielberg's "Munich" or Hitchcock's "Topaz" you're going to love BEIRUT. It gets an A.

WOW. All I can say is that I'm very glad some of the older folks in my life will probably never see Behind The Candelabra, HBO's bold, frank, in your face peek at Liberace. I have vivid memories in the 1980's of them staunchly defending Liberace as being straight. Of course, they also thought Paul Lynde was hetero too, so that speaks for itself. Michael Douglas is crazy brave in his portrayal of the huge Las Vegas star, with virtually no ego on display in allowing himself to be filmed in the most unflattering, bald, frail ways. Matt Damon matches him as Liberace's (MUCH) younger lover, Scott Thorson, on whose book this is based. The movie captures the Las Vegas 60's and 70's perfectly, with a cavalcade of guest stars including an unrecognizable Debbie Reynolds as Liberace's mom, Dan Aykroyd as his long suffering manager and Scott Bakula as one of Scott's close friends. But I could never get past the fact that Liberace is portrayed (seemingly accurately) as a lifelong predator of underage boys, who he seduces with fame, liquor, drugs and the gaudiest display of gold and wealth on record. As Liberace begins to mold himself with plastic surgery and then asks Scott to match his look with surgery of his own, the movie becomes some mad psycho-sexual, bright lights version of Vertigo, but lacking any of that film's mystery. I lost track of how many times I thought Douglas and Damon must have fallen over laughing after filming some of their love scenes, which are very graphic. I can only imagine any older fans of Liberace also fell over after seeing those scenes, but I doubt they were laughing! Rob Lowe IS hilarious as Liberace's plastic surgeon, a man unable to move any part of his head in a very funny role. Very well directed (Steven Soderbergh), acted and cast, but isn't Liberace just a predator? If NBC Dateline had been in business in the 80's, I think Liberace would have been caught holding a glass of lemonade and a half eaten cookie as reporter Chris Hansen walked out with the camera crew. And part of me thinks he would have just flashed those pearly white teeth and sat down at the piano with a smile. This is a story without a happy ending and by the film's end you feel horrible for both main characters. Money can't buy you happiness, but it can apparently buy you a house made of gold, lots of jewelry, diamonds and a lots and lots of drugs. A sad, sad portrait of a very unhappy man. B-

One of Clint Eastwood's most offbeat films, 1971's THE BEGUILED broke plenty of rules in the early seventies and died at the box office. Time's been kind to this quiet, Gothic/civil war drama. Eastwood is Union soldier John McBurney, shot by the confederates and left for dead. Young schoolgirl Amy (Pamelyn Ferdin, who you'll recognize from every popular 70's TV show) runs back to the girl's school she attends and they take the soldier in to save his life. The school for girls is run by Martha with an iron hand in a giant Louisiana bayou mansion. Geraldine Page (Hondo, The Trip to Bountiful) is excellent as Martha, all repressed sexuality, longing and authority, tightly wrapped and ready to explode. As McBurney slowly begins to recover, the older girls fall into two camps. Some are horrified they are hiding an enemy soldier, the others find themselves drawn to the only man that's been in the house in recent memory. Elizabeth Hartman is the school's teacher Edwina, who finds herself falling in love with McBurney. Eastwood creates an interesting character, not quite a victim and certainly not a hero. Audiences of the day were not ready for Eastwood to be this flawed, but he and director Don Siegel make bold choices and commit 100%. The two would re-team later the same year to much greater box office success with "Dirty Harry", which would break ground of its own in creating another (more audience friendly) anti-hero in Harry Callahan. Siegel often told reporters this was his favorite film he ever made. THE BEGUILED is ahead of it's time and goes down a very dark path to its conclusion. With graphic violence, predatory sexuality and a strangely effective music score by Lalo Schifrin (Mission Impossible, Bullitt) this Civil War get drama is a quirky mix. It's an odd entry in Eastwood's legacy and one of the first signs of the challenging films and roles that Eastwood would choose in the nearly 50 years since. Pitched by Universal Studios to audiences as an Eastwood action film, it was a box office failure. There's very little action in this slow-burn character study, but plenty of conflict. The Beguiled gets a B. Remade by Sofia Coppola in 2017, starring Colin Farrell in the Eastwood role.

This quiet, warm little movie features great performances by Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer as his father, who decides to come out of the closet at 75 years old. Melanie Laurent proves her role in "Inglorious Basterds" was no fluke with a really sweet and genuine turn here. Plenty of flashbacks show how all of the relationships in our lives come together to make us who we are. A really touching, relaxing and enjoyable 90 minutes. A

Ten years after the terrific first film adventure of Chili Palmer, "Get Shorty", John Travolta returns in a terrific, hilarious sequel, BE COOL. In the decade since we last saw the former gangster enforcer become a Hollywood producer, Chili has grown tired of the movie business. When good friend & music producer Tommy Athens (James Woods) is the victim of a hit while Chili is in "the men's", Palmer is dragged into the music business. The entire cast in his new adventure is fantastic. Uma Thurman is Edie, Athens window and now the President of his failing label. Cedric the Entertainer is HILARIOUS as music producer Sin LaSalle, Preppy rich neighbor by day and gangsta by night. Andre Benjamin all but steals the movie as Sin's nephew Dabu, the most hapless right hand man in history. Everyone wants the music contract for up and coming star (and current waitress) Linda Moon, played with real stage presence and singing talent by Christina Milian. Harvey Keitel is another producer/mob member that has her contract, with the Russian Mob circling he and Chili at every turn. Danny DeVito pops up as a famous actor that still owes Chili and Dwayne Johnson (still THE ROCK at this stage) turns in a star making performance as bodyguard to Raji (Vince Vaughn). Johnson is laugh-out-loud funny as a gay Samoan wanna-be-actor whose audition consists of both sides of a cheerleader argument from "Bring It On". Vaughn has never been funnier. Adopting every bad black stereotype like some time traveler from an early seventies "Superfly" flick, Vaughn is out of control funny AND dangerous at the same time. Even Steven Tyler shows up as himself to give Chili and Edie some support in launching Ms. Moon. At the film's center, Travolta is all cool charm, generating plenty of laughs in one of his best roles. Packed with laughs from start to finish, BE COOL is a terrific sequel to a great original film and gets a pitch perfect A.