If you’re going to watch only one film called “Arrival”, about alien visitors, make it Denis Villenueve’s 2016 incredibly smart thriller. But if you are in the mood for a smaller budget and more old-school take, you might be surprised by just how good THE ARRIVAL is from twenty years earlier, in 1996. One of the first films to use solely computer graphics for its aliens, it hearkens back to a day when its lead actor Charlie Sheen was known more for his acting on screen in films like “Platoon” and “Wall Street” than his off screen antics. Sheen is quite good as Zane, a radio astronomer who discovers a signal from a distant world that signifies intelligent life. When every attempt to let his superiors know about it quickly disappears and the others that know about it are quickly found dead, Zane heads off to Mexico on the trail of the signal’s signs. Once there, he encounters a conspiracy on not just a global but intergalactic level. You have to credit writer David Twohy (The Fugitive, Pitch Black, Waterworld) with a clever story and a sure hand for a first time director. The story is never less than interesting and keeps you engaged. There is more intrigue and suspense than massive battles or explosions, and that’s not a bad thing. Lindsay Crouse (The Verdict) is a global warming scientist following a different trail to Mexico that provides a key piece of the puzzle to Zane and Teri Polo (Meet the Parents) is Zane’s girlfriend, who is running out of patience with his constant paranoia. It’s interesting to see Sheen actually acting well, long before his spiral into addiction. You’ll root for Zane as he goes up against crazy odds. He spars really well with the late Ron Silver (Ali, Timecop) as his boss, who appears to have plenty of reasons to bury Zane’s discovery. The effects were cutting edge at the time but haven’t aged that well, more interesting now than they are believable, but at the time they were startling. Filmed mostly in Mexico, it makes great use of locations and strong photography by Hiro Narita (Star Trek VI). Any film that manages to weave killer scorpions, the Day of the Dead, massive hidden alien bases, giant gaseous fireballs, spooky marionettes and Charlie Sheen into one story has my attention. Surprisingly, it also has my respect! THE ARRIVAL gets a B.

I've seen Clark Duke around as an actor. The final season of "The Office", in Burt Reynolds final movie, a TV episode here and there. Somewhere along the line, he decided to try his hand at writing and directing, putting together a decent cast for his debut film ARKANSAS. Let's hope there are still acting roles available for him. Mired in some kind of false mythology that good ol' boy drug runners in the South have deep and therefore interesting loyalties, the film meanders from scene to scene with no real sense of story. Great actors are wasted. Vince Vaughn is a drug lord named Frog, hiding behind other identities and wielding an explosive temper. Vaughn is stranded by the material and deserves better. So do John Malkovich and Liam Hemsworth. Malkovich earns some laughs with some of his dialogue when he's being tortured for information, but Duke the writer suffers from the all too common "Tarantino-wannabe" disease. QT writes eccentric dialogue that spews forth from his characters in violent tirades. Often foul, fast and venomous, the words feel real. It's a style that's almost impossible to replicate and Duke fails miserably in the words he's given his characters to speak. He even adapts QT's habit of dividing his film into titled chapters. While Tarantino's chapters tend to be non-linear and very clever, Duke's tend to just reward you with the knowledge that you've managed to stay awake for about another 25 minutes. I've been to Arkansas more than once. It should sue this mess for sullying its name. And it was Arkansas to begin with, so that's saying something. A waste of time, talent and my time. This turd gets an F.

I have to apologize to Ben Affleck. I've avoided Gone Baby Gone, I skipped The Town. After seeing Affleck's newest film, ARGO, I can't wait to go back and watch them. Comparable in every positive way to Spielberg's "Munich" and Fred Zinnemann's "The Day of the Jackal", ARGO is a masterpiece. From the moment the late seventies Warner Bros. logo fills the screen, followed by a smart, fast history lesson on the USA and Iran, I knew I was in the hands of a great director. I can't remember the last movie I saw that was this fast, this suspenseful and this well done. ARGO details the story of six Americans who escape to the Canadian Embassy as the American Embassy in Tehran falls. CIA operative Tony Mendez, in a very good performance by Affleck, concocts a plan to sneak the six out of Iran pretending to be a Canadian film crew. Alan Arkin is excellent and hilarious as a b-movie producer who takes part in the plan by creating a lot of buzz around the fake film. John Goodman plays John Chambers, a real-life Academy Award winner for the creation of the Planet of the Apes makeup, who takes part in the plan and Bryan Cranston is Affleck's boss at the CIA. This is a great cast in a GREAT film. ARGO moves so fast and so brilliantly that all you can do is fasten your seatbelt and experience the mission. On top of being a crackerjack thriller, ARGO also makes you think about America's role in the world and the hostages in Iran as the flame that sparked the radicalized Islamic world we live in today. I predict Argo walks away with Best Picture and Best Director next year. It's very early in his directorial career to call ARGO Affleck's masterpiece, but it ensures I'll be the first in line to see whatever he does next. RUN to see this movie, it's fantastic, and my favorite film of 2012. An A+ for Argo.

ARBITRAGE is a really great film in the spirit of Margin Call. A drama that plays more like a good thriller, Richard Gere stars as a very, very rich man whose world spirals out of control during several monumental days of his life. Hitchcock was always good at casting dashing lead actors as characters that were BAD, but were often so charming that you found yourself rooting for them. Will Gere get away with his impulsive actions in Arbitrage? It's a suspenseful ride with a great supporting cast, including Susan Sarandon as Gere's wife who may be more calculating than she seems, and Nate Parker (Red Tails) as a young man Gere reaches out to for help in his darkest moment. Newcomer Brit Marling is really great as Gere's daughter and CFO, caught in her father's web. TIm Roth is a NYC detective who begins tightening a noose around Gere's world as it begins to slip away. This is a really enjoyable movie with a great cast, well directed by new young director Nicholas Jarecki. He is one to watch. Playing NOW in Theatres and also on iTunes. Gere's best performance since "Chicago". Power is the best alibi, and this is a powerful A.

Clever, powerful and a fun thrill ride, A QUIET PLACE delivers unexpected emotions while ratcheting up the tension for 90 solid minutes. The film establishes the plot perfectly in a chilling prologue. It's a post-apocalyptic world in which surviving humans are few. Nasty creatures the size of a bear but more closely resembling a mashup of the Predator and a crustacean are 100% blind but have incredibly good hearing. The slightest noise brings them quickly to you with a taste for humans. These are NOT George Romero's lumbering zombies. They're as fast as a Cheetah with a lot more teeth. John Krasinski (The Office, 13 Hours) is Lee Abbott, married to Evelyn (real life wife Emily Blunt from "Edge of Tomorrow") and trying to survive with their three children. Noah Jupe (Wonder) is terrified son Marcus, who has watched tragedy hit the family and lives in fear of it repeating. Deaf actress Millicent Simmonds (Wonderstruck) brilliantly plays daughter Regan. Independent, carrying enormous guilt and struggling with their new life, Regan becomes a core figure in their fight for survival. Krasinski also directed and does a hell of a job, slowly twisting up the suspense throughout. The last half hour provides non-stop terror as Evelyn goes into labor, the parents find themselves separated from their children and a band of nasty creatures comes-a-calling. I admit before seeing the film that I didn't think the concept was sustainable for a feature length film. Why the hell would I want to watch a silent horror movie? I was wrong. Thanks to clever story telling, VERY good acting, terrific photography by Charlotte Bruus Christensen (Far From The Maddening Crowd) and a killer, creepy music score by Marco Beltrami (World War Z, Logan) the film is anything but silent. But when it happens, the silence IS very scary. I really enjoyed this movie. It's well crafted, filled with people you'll care about and a tale well told. That "nail on the stairs" sequence feels almost Hitchcockian in its execution. The way the family uses those red lights is inspired and visually arresting. Krasinksi's performance will gut you. A QUIET PLACE gets some very loud cheers from this corner of the dark basement and gets an A. (now be very....very....quiet......)

Arachnophobia is an 8 legged summer hit from 1990. Directed by long-time Spielberg producer Frank Marshall and produced by Steve himself, its a lightweight thriller with some fun jolts and set pieces. Jeff Daniels stars as a doctor leaving the big city for small town life. His arrival coincides with the arrival of a stowaway giant poisonous spider from an expedition in South America. Setting up its nest in Daniels barn, the spiders start to take over the town with a very nasty lethal bite. Some of the supporting cast, including Julian Sands and Henry Jones are fun and John Goodman is a highlight as an exterminator who is an apparent lost twin to Bill Murray's Carl in Caddyshack. Lightweight, OK with mechanical special effects that look AWFUL dated since the advent of CGI, Arachophobia spins a harmless and average web. We'll spin it a C.

I'm just back from AQUAMAN and the good news is that its not a waterlogged mess. It's better than any of the other DC film bores, but not quite up to 2017's terrific "Wonder Woman". You can't blame Jason Momoa, who takes a ridiculous concept and turns Arthur into an incredibly likable, funny and winning superhero. Director James Wan (Conjuring 2, Furious 7) brings style and a strong sense of action to the movie. He clearly knows how to stage the big moments. The special effects and designs teams are superb, creating the coolest new cinematic universe since James Cameron brought us "Avatar". Most of the cast is strong. Nicole Kidman is very good as Arthur's mom, Queen Atlanna. Her story that opens the film builds a strong and surprisingly powerful origin story. Patrick Wilson is having fun as Arthur's brother and current ruler of Atlantis, who's got a taste for war mongering against the Earth's landlubbers. Willem Dafoe brings some backbone to his important role and Dolph Lundgren continues his strong year at the movies after his appearance in "Creed II". But why in the hell is this movie two and a half hours long? The plot is simple. There's a very good 2 hour movie under the seaweed here. Couldn't they have shored up the search for the Tritan by a couple stops? The weakest part of the film is the main human villain Manta, dully played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen. His reactions seem a bit extreme (ya think?) and he's forced to wear a villain costume so stupid that I almost laughed out loud the first time I saw it. He looks like the Elephant Antman. Amber Heard is fine in action mode as Mera, but anytime she had long dialogue scenes, I started having bad George Lucas/Natalie Portman flashbacks. However, when Momoa is on screen, AQUAMAN is a blast. There are some great sequences, including a spiraling plunge into the depths by Arthur and Mera, with their in-hand torch providing the only safety as thousands of nasty creatures that are afraid of light circle nearby. The climactic battle featuring just about every creature of the sea you can think of is visually spectacular too. When the sharks with lasers came on screen, I was looking everywhere for Dr. Evil, but he was nowhere to be found. Fun but flawed, Aquaman left me feeling like I'd been in the pool a little too long. For a DC Movie, it's top notch. As a superhero movie, I'll give it a B-. Movie fans: listen closely to the voice of the massive creature guarding the Trident. That's Julie Andrews. Who would have thought she'd have a film launching the same weekend as Mary Poppins comeback after 5 decades?

You can just hear the pitch for this one..."It's Paranormal Activity on the moon!" yeah, it wishes...a couple good scenes buried in 90 minutes of D U M B. We'll launch it a D.

A fascinating chronological documentary of the mission that put men on the moon, APOLLO 11 looks like it was filmed yesterday. 4K restoration and presentation of preserved film brings every visual nuance of the mission to life in eye popping fashion. The film shows the mission from beginning to end, without talking heads and narration, letting the bravery and drive of the NASA team speak for itself. Neil Armstrong is the reserved leader and the film serves as an interesting companion piece to Damien Chazelle's terrific Armstrong biopic "First Man". Buzz Aldrin is a hilarious mix of ego and brass balls, qualities that have stayed with him since the 1969 mission, as anyone that's seen interviews of the last decade knows well. Michael Collins, the man left orbiting the moon to re-connect with his fellow astronauts after their moonwalk is a fascinating subject too. I am an Apollo mission fan since the actual events, and I have fond memories as an 8 year old watching the mission at school along with the rest of the Earth. I was fascinated throughout with the amount of this footage that I had never seen before and its pristine condition. CNN and Director Todd Douglas Miller deserve a lot of credit for assembling what should stand as the definitive capture of this incredible moment in human exploration. The genius of its structure as a documentary is achieving the fine balance between the intricacies of the mission and the smaller human stories within it. The helicopter shots of all the people of every age and demographic crowded together on the decks of Florida hotels and beaches to watch the launch are incredible. It also recalls a time when ALL Americans came together with pride, fascination and patriotism to be part of an incredible achievement. What an incredible time that was. APOLLO 11 is a jaw dropping tribute to American exceptionalism, bravery and triumph. From launch to splashdown, it gets an A+.

An all time (anti)War classic and one of Francis Ford Coppola's best, APOCALYPSE NOW is still an amazing, unique film experience. Martin Sheen stars as Captain Willard, hired by the CIA to track down Colonel Kurtz, a former military genius who has lost his sanity and is operating on his own in the jungle. Willard (Sheen) is far from stable himself, drinking himself into a violent stupor in the film's opening scenes. As he begins his journey up river to track down Kurtz, he gathers his team around him. Frederick Forrest is Chef, Sam Bottoms is famous surfer Lance Johnson and 17 year old Lawrence Fishburne is nearly unrecognizable but excellent as "Clean". Willard and boat Chief Phillips (Albert Hall) meet up with the Airborne Battalion on their first rendezvous, where they experience the mad genius of Lt. Bill Kilgore, played to perfection by Robert Duvall. Coppola's staging of the airborne infantry's attack on a Vietcong village, staged to "The Ride of the Valkyries" by Wagner is a modern film classic. "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning" indeed. Willard's ragtag team heads further north, encountering a USO Show complete with flown in Playboy bunnies, an intense encounter with a Tiger in the jungle canopy and finally the truly mad, psychotic genius of Kurtz, played with legendary eccentricity by Marlon Brando. The final 30 minutes with Brando, a very high Dennis Hopper, legions of newly painted natives and an ancient native temple is truly mad, but I found it much more entertaining and intelligent than I remembered from earlier viewings. This was one of the most difficult movies ever made, with the schedule never ending and both Coppola and Sheen suffering heart attacks during the filming. In 1991, a great documentary was produced called "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse". If you love the movie and haven't seen that behind the scenes story of the massive troubles during production, check it out. It's a fascinating companion piece to the movie. Sheen is fantastic, appearing in almost every scene. He looks like he lived through hell making this movie and it comes out of every pore of him in his best performance. So many pieces of this film are perfect. The camera work by Vittorio Storaro is amazing, the screenplay by Coppola is some of his best work. It's probably the ONLY film I have ever really thought narration worked in, but here its like another character. Writer Michael Herr wrote the narration separately and it truly adds some classic moments. Watch closely for a VERY young Harrison Ford as one of the soldiers giving Willard his orders early in the film, Scott Glenn and R. Lee Ermey (the drill sergeant from "Full Metal Jacket") in small roles. From the opening and closing strains of The Doors "The End" to the Stones "I Can't Get No Satisfaction", the music of the sixties sets the tone, along with an eerie electronic score by Carmine Coppola. I watched the "Apocalypse Now Redux" version of the film, with 45 extra minutes of footage supervised by Coppola and cut back into the film. Long sequences at a French Plantation deep in the jungle and more leisurely side trips on the boat trip flesh out the journey into madness. Much of the film is left open for interpretation. How much of the film truly happens and how much is drug fueled hallucinations experienced by Willard? The farther the boat goes, the more surrealistic the events. Coppola structures the journey so well that the trip is worth taking at every moment. Coppola had plenty of great film making left in him, but APOCALYPSE NOW was probably his last masterpiece, standing alongside "The Godfather" and "The Godfather II" as the best films of the entire decade. If you haven't seen it for awhile, join Willard and his team for the mission upriver. It truly is a TRIP. One of my all-time favorites and an A+.

I'm a huge Woody Allen fan, but even HE can't put out a film like clockwork every year and not create a couple lesser efforts. ANYTHING ELSE could be called a lesser effort if you were being kind. If you weren't so generous, you could also call it a painful misfire. Jason Biggs takes the younger Woody role as comic writer Jerry Falk. Madly in love with one of the most unlikable women ever, Amanda Chase, Jerry finds himself in a hot & cold relationship with an obnoxious, loveless, chain smoking, rude and dizzy partner. Poor Christina Ricci. She can be so charming and funny on screen (Pan Am, Sleepy Hollow) but she's saddled with a bad, harshly written role here and you spend the film growing to dislike Jerry for not having the balls to dump her. Danny DeVito has an underwritten role as Jerry's longtime hack agent, a young Jimmy Fallon shows screen presence as a friend and Stockard Channing seems to wonder in from another film occasionally as Amanda's mother. Balance those folks with Woody Allen (admittedly laugh out loud funny at least a half dozen times here) as an academic friend of Jerry's who has a very violent streak and you've got a a big, unappealing mess. Woody has said that he wanted to write and star as a character that was the antithesis of himself. Violent where he is passive, confident where he is timid, the anti-Woody. In turn, he gives the usual neurotic role to Jason Biggs as Jerry, who is in way over his head. Very little of this works. It's all rather painful. If you're in the mood to watch this 2003 Woody Allen film, do yourself a favor and pick another Allen film. Anything Else, but this. It gets a D.

After the emotionally wrenching ending of "Avengers: Infinity War", we were due a purely fun entry in the Marvel canon. It arrives in fine form as ANT-MAN AND THE WASP, the follow up to the funny & enjoyable original in 2015. Paul Rudd is back as Scott Lang/Ant-Man, just days from the end of his house arrest. When a portal to another dimension that Scott was the only one to return from in his last mission is opened, Scott is reunited with his former love and partner Hope/Wasp and her father Dr. Hank Pym. They are attempting to recover Hope's mother, whose been trapped in the "phantom zone" like realm for thirty years. Evangeline Lilly (Lost) is great as Hope, exasperated that Scott left to fight with Captain America in the "Civil War" battle in Germany that led to his arrest. Michael Douglas is equally good as the clever Dr. Pym, unveiling a never ending series of suits and scientific breakthroughs like a more quiet and less well-funded version of Tony Stark. Michelle Pfieffer (The Witches of Eastwick, Scarface) is great on screen as Hope's mother and the flashback scenes of her and Douglas three decades ago are a triumph of CGI. Walter Goggins (Vice Principals, Justified) is our earthly villain in a predictable subplot that shows him chasing the tecnology for evil-doers. Hannah John-Kamen (Game of Thrones, Ready Player One) is our less than Earth bound Ghost. The action scenes are first rate, with a car chase through the classic hills of San Francisco made even more enjoyable when our heroes cars are shrunk and expanded to varying sizes that add a whole new dimension to a traditional movie chase scene. Michael Pena is back as Scott's friend Luis and is even better than he was in the original. His storytelling during a truth serum questioning is hilarious and just one of many solid choices from Director Peyton Reed that continue and build on the fun he created in the original film. Randall Park (The Interview, Veep) is the most inept FBI chief in history, which is great for us as he delivers a TON of great comic relief. He is the perfect, socially awkward foil to Rudd's deadpan delivery. At the center of it all is Paul Rudd (Anchorman, The 40 Year Old Virgin) who looks like a super hero but brings many laughs with perfect comic timing. He's a riot. Throw in a great action music score by Christophe Beck (Edge of Tomorrow), songs from The Partridge Family, references to everything from "Them!" to "Animal House" and a fantastic closing title sequence and you have a really enjoyable, lightweight Marvel flick every bit the equal of the original. We kept asking ourselves when this film takes place in the timeline of the series. Stay tuned after that great End Title sequence for a post credits scene that will answer that question to perfection. ANT-MAN AND THE WASP have plenty of comic sting and deliver a fun-filled B+.