The Clock with the Walls in its House

Children's fare? Well, it's for children, fair.

Kid's parents die (family picture!), so he goes to live with his uncle. Who lives in a kooky house because magic is real! However, in an attempt to impressed a so called friend, the kid brings a dead warlock back to life, and who hasn't done that? But then they have to fight, and it turns out there's a clock in the house that's really bad, so we can't be having with that.

On the one hand, this is light hearted fun. On the other hand, this is light hearted fun. This is the good and bad because the writer/director tries to turn up the whimsy, which just results in cutesy for the same of being wacky and no real sense of menace, despite how often Jack Black says 'creepy'.

Which is the other issue. This does feature Jack Black and Cate Blanchett but neither of them are trying. You can tell they see this as an easy child-friendly gig, and just relax and just cruise on through the movie. Owen Vaccaro isn't too annoying as the kid, although don't worry, he is annoying. But the overham performance goes to Kyle MacLachlan, which is impressive considering that the main role is Jack Black.

It's certainly a breezy movie that won't challenge you, so if that's what you are after, go for it.

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Frist Mon!

Hey, it's that one guy from the space program that people know of! And people only really seem to know that one guy, despite Tom Hanks' movies.

Neil Armstrong is flying a plane really high, has a small problem, and gets back down. He has some time with his family, has a tough time of it, then goes back to work. He goes up in a shuttle, has a bigger problem, but gets back down. He has some more time with his family, but is really stiff, and goes off to work. Finally, he gets to the moon, but comes back to be with his family.

Yes, this is relating the events of history (more or less, you can look up how they truncated the timeline and such elsewhere), but this is more about Neil the man rather than the astronaut, and as such there is a certain repetition of events to drive the story home that he was better astronaut than husband/father.

My star of choice in this is Claire Foy, who, as the wife, gets some excellent moments to play off against Ryan Gosling's more controlled stance. And, hey, Kyle Chandler is still getting work. But...

You know what... dammit! I want a Michael Collins movie! He gets no love. You could do it as a comedy where he's up there having slapstick adventures with the ship having problems while the others are oblivious, or have him do the "real mission" while the other two are a distraction.

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In Blackest Night...

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In Brightest Day...

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The Pre Dater

Yeah, I have some "big" movies to catch up on, so let's go with this original...

Two Predators are attacking each other, and one ends up on Earth. We then switch to Predator vs the military, then switch to random militia group vs military, then vs another Predator. With also a 'lone kid' plot. And also there's a plot about Predators upgrading themselves... or not because we saw the original had the human dna, not the upgraded up...

What I'm saying is that there's a lot of plot threads here, and the movie jumps around a lot of them as it wants to without really settling down and getting something sorting out. I'm sure Shane Black had an idea, but what we end up with a large hodge podge of different scenes with recurring characters. And the kid is considered important and special to the plot... does Shane Black have kids that he wants to show this too?

Not to say it's bad, there are good scenes, fun characters, there is a lot going on, and lots of effects. It's just that I'm not sure what the point of any of this is.

Still, there is a set up for a sequel, so I'm sure that's going to happen...

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