Sean’s movie thoughts

I liked the Cotton Club Encore. This is a new cut of the Cotton Club, Francis Ford Coppola’s 1984 movie centered around the famous night club in Harlem. It has almost thirty minutes of footage that was taken out of the original release. Maybe 15 minutes of footage of the original cut has been removed. Gregory Hines was really good in this film. Richard Gere stars and this is not among his best performances. Either that or Hine’s character and story were just more interesting than Gere’s. Bob Hopkins and Fred Gwynne are among the supporting cast. They have some nice moments. Diane Lane was Gere’s love interest and her performance did not great reviews and got a Razzie nomination or award for it. Which seems a bit unfair. I don’t think she had a great role. (The Razzies are the anti-oscars. They are awards for the worst in movies for the year. Some critics suggested that the Razzies have become just cheap shots in recent years and just pile on movies that already have a bad reputatio

There is not much to Zombieland Double Tap. It is not terrible but it is nothing special. Maybe there is not much to do with this concept. Oh well I made the right choice not seeing this in theaters. It is not terrible and there are a few fun moments. The cast is too talented for this to be a complete waste of time. Zoey Duetch was fun in her role (which maybe should not work as well as it does) but Rosario Dawson might be underused. The returning cast is good.  I don’t think this is worth revisiting. Maybe finishing it was a mistake but it was under 2 hours. If there is ever a third one, I think I will skip it.

I have too many Star Wars audiobooks and novels to be a casual Star Wars fan. I have an affection for the franchise and maybe I was too generous in my last blog post about the Rise of Skywalker. The movie is bad, both as an individual film and as part of a trilogy. It really doesn’t build off the Last Jedi. There are some good points. Adam Driver and Daisey Ridley are good at times and the scene with Han Solo as a memory talking to his son was good. It was the only moving scene in the film. It was also nice to see Lando again, even if the film didn’t do all that much with his return. The death of Carrie Fisher probably hurt the film more than we will ever know. The first film belonged to Harrison Ford, the second film belonged to Mark Hamill, and the third movie was supposed to belong to Carrie Fisher. Obviously her death changed that. Maybe the role of Leia could have been recast but that might have been awkward.  Bringing back the emperor was a bad idea or badly executed

On one hand, this is not a terrible movie and it has some nice moments. It was nice to see Lando again. On the other hand, it is long (and feels long) and a couple of moments that should have an impact do not have an impact.  (I am trying to avoid plot details.) I am glad I saw the movie but it has problems. There was no plan for this series, I am pretty sure about that. People will say there was a plan but I can say that I can sing like Johnny Cash (trust me, I cannot).  If there was a plan, it was thrown away at some point. There is a plot point that contradicts a major plot point from the previous movie. There are plot points here that make no sense or that the movie does not bother to explain. I, at one point, could explain the post Crisis history of Hawkman, so trust me I when I say a plot point makes no sense. (After the Crisis on Infinite Earths in DC comics, Hawkman's history become complicated and over the years there have been attempts to fix it. Those usually made th