“Night School” is the latest comedy starring Kevin Hart with his old pal, Tiffany Haddish, along for the ride.  Malcom D. Lee directed this film in which Hart shares writing credit card.  It’s another typical fil where Kevin Hart seems to excel at being Kevin Hart.  He is pretty funny in this one for the most part, but audiences have seen this type of character from him many, many times before.  Tiffany Haddish also holds her own as the somewhat jaded but dedicated teacher. Her big screen credits are not quite as stout as Hart’s, but her performance does not seem to be a stretch either.  She is basically excellent at being Tiffany Haddish, which isn’t too bad. Both of the leads do have their talent and charm, but it would be interesting to see them do something different.

The rather pleasant surprise was that the cast of classmates actually had their moments where they weren’t overwhelmed by Hart’s somewhat bombastic performance. Rob Riggle was pretty good, but the rather surprisingly hysterical moments were from Mary Lynn Rajskub.  Her role of over-worked, under-educated homemaker, Teresa, was a bit of a comedic dark horse.  Of course, the whole business of her being easily overlooked made some of her scenes even that more amusing.

This really isn’t a masterpiece of cinematic comedy, but I thought it was reasonably entertaining, even if not every joke or moment landed all that solidly.

“The Sisters Brothers” is a western directed by Jacques Audiard and stars Joaquin Phoenix, John C. Reilly, and Jake Gyllenhaal.  It is one of the better ones in the genre in recent years.  It is gritty and violent but also has some complicated characters and dynamics at times.

Eli and Charlie Sisters are brothers who work as hired assassins in the Pacific Northwest in 1851.  They are sent by a mysterious crime lord known as the Commodore to hunt down a prospector who is a talented enough chemist to concoct a formula that can reveal the presence of gold in the riverbeds.

There are times that the pacing seems strangely slow for a western. When violence does erupt, it is brutally realistic for the most part. The film has plenty of beautiful scenery throughout which seems a bit ironic considering the gruesome body count often left in the wake of the Sisters Brothers.

This is a talented cast, but Reilly really stands out as Eli Sisters, a man capable of effective violence when the situation calls for it but one who does not relish it in the manner of Phoenix’s Charlie.  Reilly has some compelling and at times moving scenes such as when he opens up to Hermann Kermit Warm, the disarming chemist played by Riz Ahmed and tells of the tragic childhood that precipitated the violent career path of the Sisters Brothers.

There are times when the film appears predictable, but it manages to throw in some unexpected twists.  There are some moments that require a bit of a patience before the action resumes, but this is as much a character study mixed into the traditional western trappings.

All of the performances were solid, and I was impressed that Rutger Hauer appears as the Commodore, although those appearances are very limited. The Commodore seems more of a mostly unseen menace than an actual person. Although it would have been interesting to actually see Hauer say some lines and interact with the other cast members, his sort of cameo presence works too.

I may need to see this movie again to see some of the other more subtle aspects and nuances of the film, but I certainly hope this gains some more significant viewings and appreciation.

Wally Lamb’s “She’s Come Undone” isn’t the usual sort of novel I would select, however I just joined a book club. It seems just like the kind of novel a book club would go for.

It is described as a coming of age tale told from the perspective of Dolores Price, who starts off as a young girl in 1956. Her parents’ marriage starts to unravel rather dramatically. The novel is replete with all kinds of classic personal traumas, including divorce, bullying,  sexual abuse, mental illness, sudden death, and all sorts of various unpleasantness.

Lamb is a pretty talented writer. He seems to have either done research or has been exposed to those who have faced some terrible trials.  I have a day job where I have some exposure to the consequences of some of these upheavals.

There are moments when Dolores demonstrates some inspirational tenacity.  Lamb infuses her with a rather biting wit that helps the reader not tumble into complete despair over her various plights.

There are times when the novel just seems to go a little longer than necessary. It’s still an interesting journey for the most part, and I think most readers will want to see this one through to the end.

On September 25, 2018, Bill Cosby was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison by a judge in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania for sexual assault.  He apparently drugged and raped a young basketball coordinator of Temple University back in 2004.  He was convicted after a second trial was conducted in April of this year.

Andrea Constand was one of about 60 women who accused Cosby of sexual abuse. She seems to be the only one likely to see her abuser receive the criminal conviction.

I have to admit that I rather liked Cosby’s act for the most part.  I enjoyed “The Cosby Show” generally. Fortunately, I wasn’t a rabid die-hard fan, but I respected his talent and his messages. I did enjoy his live stand-up performance at West Texas A&M once.  This particular fall from grace won’t likely plague my conscience very  much, but he was an important part of American entertainment for a very long time.

I liked Cosby well enough to want to believe in his innocence when the allegations first started coming out in more detail after fellow comedian Hannibal Buress referenced the misdeeds in a stand-up comedy routine in 2014.  Unfortunately, my hopes were disintegrating as more women came forward, and then I heard about the deposition that was taken in 2005 where Cosby admitted to the use of Quaaludes as a means of engaging in what he called casual sex.  This was during a civil suit that had been filed by Constand around 2005.

Although I applaud the courage it took for these women to come forward and for the prosecutors to pull the case together to finally get a conviction that really seems to have been deserved, I am still saddened by the wreckage of an accomplished career all because Cosby never bothered to reign in his darker impulses.  It appears he never tried. He just ended up likely adding to the cynicism and despair that many people try to escape from through entertainment and comedy. Cosby had some good solid messages and ideas regarding personal responsibility as well. All of that means nothing  now.  The messages themselves may still carry some validity, but this particular messenger is damaged goods, which is putting it lightly.

Victims of sexual abuse getting justice in court should be celebrated.  I think Constand does deserve this victory. Even though I believe Cosby deserving of his downfall, I still can’t quite shake the sadness that is blended into that belief.

I also want to applaud the police and prosecutors in the State of Pennsylvania for finding enough probable cause to secure an indictment and ultimate conviction, which was probably not that easy to pull off since so much time had passed since the crime was committed.  Even if I am not exactly jumping for joy over this outcome for Cosby, neither am I critical of it.  Cosby needed to be held accountable.

“The House With A Clock In Its Walls” stars Jack Black, Cate Blanchett, and Kyle MacLachlan and is based on a children’s novel by John Bellairs. Director Eli Roth presents a fairly charming film but probably not one I will remember for very long.

A young orphan is taken in by a very eccentric uncle who means well but has a few secrets.  He has a mysterious friendship with his equally strange yet charming neighbor who has quite the fondness for purple.  Lewis Barnavelt, played by Owen Vaccaro, is the typical shy oddball who seems to really struggle with fitting in with fellow students even without the grief of his parents’ recent death.  He finds that his uncle is in possession of a temperamental, magical house that possesses its own secrets.

Black and Blanchett are entertaining enough as the playfully bickering neighbors and friends.  Vaccaro holds his own with a solid enough performance.

The visual effects were fine. There were moments of real imagination and creativity with various menacing, bizarre objects bedeviling the protagonists.  The costumes were pretty eye-catching.

Blanchett still managed to look quite attractive in spite of the peculiarity of her appearance in this film.  She also had some very effective scenes when she had to act as the conscience of Black’s Uncle Jonathan.

The story takes place in 1955, and I thought the period was captured well enough.  Some of it appeared to be a little exaggerated at times, but this was based on a children’s story, so I think I could forgive that easily enough.

MacLachlan played his part well enough as the evil wizard known as Isaac Izard.  His role just seemed to be fairly cliché, but he handled it fine.  Renee Elise Goldsberry played his wife, Selena.  Once again, the performances were fine but nothing all that engaging between the two of them.  They were outshined by Black and Blanchett as far as entertaining banter and chemistry.

There were times that coherence seemed to falter. There was of course one rule of the house that young Lewis just had to break, which seemed a bit predictable.

There was not anything to really hate about this film, but there was little that really seems likely to stay with me.  It was a reasonably enjoyable film in spite of some of the silliness peppered throughout.

“The Skin of the Sleek” is a Doctor Who audio play from Big Finish Productions and stars Tom Baker and Lalla Ward.  Marc Platt, a long-time and frequent writer for the series, comes up with a planet where people can walk on water, but they better keep moving or they will sink, much like the TARDIS does in this story.  Sleeks are enormous electric eels that inhabit the rather unusual waters of the planet Funderell.  The more unexpected inhabitant of Funderell is a classmate if Romana’s from Gallifrey named Sartia, played by Joannah Tincey.

This one had some interesting ideas such as exploring Romana’s past and who she knew at the Academy on Gallifrey. Once again, Platt presents some imagery that can be a little hard to picture in the mind’s eye at times. He is a talented writer, and the performances of Tom Baker and Lalla Ward are too compelling to let that dampen my enjoyment of this episode much.

This story actually ends on a cliffhanger and will be concluded in the following release in the Fourth Doctor Adventures, “The Thief Who Stole Time”.

“The Third Doctor Adventures Volume Four” has two full cast audio dramas with Tim Treloar standing in for the late Jon Pertwee in this release from Big Finish Productions. Katy Manning once again reprises her role of Jo Grant.  Both stories bring back two well-known adversaries of the Doctor.

“The Rise of the New Humans”, written by Guy Adams, has the Doctor encounter fellow renegade Time Lord known as the Meddling Monk. Rufus Hound once again performs his version of the Monk, which was originally brought to the screen by the late Peter Butterworth.  The Monk has appeared in a few of these Big Finish audio plays in recent years.  An attempt to cure various ailments in humans also has the unfortunate effect of bring about some troubling mutations.  The story was fairly entertaining, although there are times that Hound’s performance grated on my nerves a bit.  Once again, the performance of the leads and probably nostalgia for the Third Doctor era is what makes this story work generally. I am just not sure I can get enthusiastic about Hound’s interpretation of the Monk.  Treloar’s rendition of Jon Pertwee is still effective enough to imagine the familiar craggy face and white hair.  Manning may not sound exactly like he did forty-five years ago, but she gets close enough for the age in her voice to not be a distraction from my enjoyment.  I hope she has several more of these plays left in her since the other two female assistants have died.  She is still a strong performer in spite of the clumsiness and absent-mindedness she admits to.  May she continue to be well.  Anyway, this particular adventure is fine.  Nothing really wowed me, but it didn’t annoy me much either.

I preferred the second story because it finally has the Third Doctor have a proper confrontation with the Cybermen, my favorite of Doctor Who villains. “The Tyrants of Logic” is written by Marc Platt and has the Doctor and Jo arrive on an abandoned mining colony on a planet with the distinctive designation of Burnt Salt. I think I have a more favorable bias toward this story since it does feature the Cybermen, but even they can be overused at times. Platt takes a moment to explore the deep trust and bond that is so prominent between the Doctor and Jo, and he handles it well. Nicholas Briggs once again fires up the voice modulator to perform as the Cybermen and does well, but he usually come through without any problem.  I like listening to Briggs in interview because he knows so much about the history of the program and his enthusiasm is infectious.  There are some pretty bizarre characters and situations, but Platt makes it work in the writing. The performances were engaging so I didn’t mind that I could not quite envision how a guy has various musical instruments or tones built into him.

I don’t know if either stories are going down as classics, but the overall output had some fun ideas.  The performances are good. I can so easily believe the accounts of how hard Treloar works to put forth an accurate and affectionate impression of Jon Pertwee. I can easily believe how much Manning loved her time on the television program and with Pertwee.  Even if there are some aspects about this range that don’t always work, I loved the Third Doctor and hope further efforts to represent that era will continue.

“My Teacher, My Obsession” is a B movie that was released last year and stars Lucy Loken, Rusty Joiner, and Laura Bilgeri. Director Damian Romay had very little to work with in regard to talent and budget. Unfortunately, he is not one who is able to make stretch his meager resources very far to make this of much interest.

It’s a very old story. A handsome single father starts a new job at as a high school English teacher. The sexy psychotic student befriends the daughter as the teacher happens to start dating her mother.

There really isn’t much that works in this  movie.  The teacher, who is still reeling from the sudden departure of his wife, tries to be upstanding and moral, but the wiles of the obsessed teen-ager are a bit too overwhelming.

Bilgeri plays the troublesome teenage vixen, and it was somewhat interesting to see what she would come up with next to bedevil the hapless teacher, played by Rusty Joiner.

There was too much of this movie that was easily soluble to easily suspend disbelief.  The final scenes where Bigeri’s character really unravels mentally were mildly interesting.

It is only amusing to those who like to inflict these cheap B flicks on themselves. Actually, I did find it to be fairly amusing, and I can still say that I have seen worse. Still, you are probably giving yourself much more of a treat by passing this one up.

In 1959, a version of “Tarzan, the Ape Man” was released by MGM, starring Denny Miller as the iconic creation of Edgar Rice Burroughs.  Joanna Barnes played Jane Parker while Robert Douglas is cast as her father. Joseph M. Newman directed this rather forgettable remake of the 1932 version which had starred Johnny Weissmuller.

This film reuses a lot of effects and shots from the previous version and other movies such as “King Solomon’s Mines”.  Apparently the distinctive Tarzan yell was also reused from the earlier version.  Not all of the visuals were terrible, but there were some inconsistencies in the setting.

I did find the narration provided by Robert Douglas to be rather distracting. There wasn’t anything particularly awful about the performances, but nothing much stood out.

Also, Tarzan’s back story was never explained as it was in the original novel.  Tarzan was taken in by a group of apes after his aristocratic parents were marooned in the jungle and later died.  In the novel, Tarzan was able to teach himself to read and speak before meeting Jane.  Miller’s version is not quite as verbose as the literary depiction conceived by Burroughs.

I would not say that this movie is completely terrible, but there are better adaptations out there.  This version should likely be viewed with the expectation of not remembering much about it for very long afterward.

“A Simple Favor” stars Anna Kendrick, Blake Lively, and Henry Golding.  Jessica Sharzer adapted it for the big screen from a novel that just came out last year by Darcey Bell.  Paul Feig directed this mostly engaging thriller that also has a biting dark humor.

I will start off with saying most of this film works pretty well.  Anna Kendrick plays a young widow who does various homemaking video blogs to support herself. Her young son becomes friend with another boy at school. This leads to Kendrick’s character, Stephanie, befriending the other child’s mother, played by Blake Lively.  Emily is a very intriguing sort with both a sense of elegance and dangerous recklessness. The scenes where the two vastly different mothers get to know each other are pretty compelling, but both Kenrick and Lively are attractive and talented performers who really seemed to work well together.  What also works is that the two actresses are attractive in different ways. Kendrick has that cute girl next door quality that probably has led her to be typecast a bit while Lively has that sultry, dangerous vibe. I am not sure that Lively has played many bad girls in her career, but she seemed to jump right into this one pretty convincingly.

The real trouble begins when Emily asks Stephanie to pick her son up from school and keep him until she can get there.  Emily then does not turn up to collect her son and ends up missing for several days until a body is found in a lake.  Stephanie and Emily’s husband end up turning to each other for comfort, which is easy to predict where that leads.

Kendrick is once again playing the very familiar role of the naïve, somewhat clumsy yet charming cutie pie which is now getting a tad repetitive when I see her onscreen. She has some moments where her character displays some steel and courage, and she manages to be fairly convincing there too.  Kendrick is charming enough where I didn’t necessarily mind seeing this kind of character from her several times before. I am not sure that I have seen many films with Blake Lively, but this seemed a little different part for her, yet she seemed to play it with ease.  Although I have heard for years, that actors love a good villainous part.

There are quite a few interesting twists which was a bit hit-and-miss as far as believability. The movie is labeled as a dark comedy as well, so it’s hard to know how hard to judge on some of these turns.

Henry Golding is fine for the most part, but there was not much about his performance or character that I found all that interesting.  I am not sure that he is an actor with much range. I would probably have to see him in more films, which may happen since his other recent film, “Crazy Rich Asians” did so well in the box office in recent weeks.  I will try to reserve judgment until I see more of his work. At least, he doesn’t wreck this particular movie for me.

I didn’t think much of the strange committee of other moms, one of whom was a man, who seemed to be observing and making comments about what they were observing in this very strange tale unfolding before their eyes.  I am not sure they are in the novel but it feels like they were sort of added in this movie for extra humor.  Andrew Rannells plays the effeminate, probably gay, father who hangs out with the moms.  His background is never quite explained, which actually worked for me. He wasn’t that germane to the story until close to the very end.  Even then, his contribution was more of a lucky break than a real significant plot point.

One supporting character that I did rather like was this detective played by an actor with the rather complicated name of Bashir Salahuddin.  His Detective Summerville had a pretty refreshing attitude of jovial, friendly skepticism.  Even when he was not exactly sure of everything going on, he still seemed like he was going to if the writer had wanted to make him the real protagonist.

Much of the movie strained the suspension of disbelief a little much, but it still was rather enjoyable.  Kendrick and Lively seemed to spark off each other pretty well during their shared scenes.  It’s one of those movies that probably won’t be considered a giant among cinematic endeavors, but it’s a pretty engaging distraction.  Some of the plot twists weren’t all that predictable, but there were moments that seemed a little rushed and could have used a little more explanation.  Paul Feig once again presents a film that still kept me interested in spite of the occasional moments that caused some mild befuddlement.