Media Captures April/May 2025

MOVIES

Accountant 2 – 8 

I must admit it.  I’m a big fan of the first movie, The Accountant.    It has a cool construction and a great storyline; plus a reveal I never saw coming.  I was really surprised it took them 8 years to make a sequel.  So, is it any good?

Well, it’s far from a classic.  But, it’s a nice, solid, entertaining movie that builds on the complexities of the first one.  Ben Affleck plays Christian Wolff, an autistic accountant to criminals around the world with just enough morality to play informant when he finds their actions abhorrent.  It’s quite the balancing act.  His brother, played with gusto by Jon Berthnal shares Christian’s incredible physical talents. Their relationship is the best part of the movie.

When called to help solve a murder, Christian calls on his brother to come help.  It gets complicated, violent, and turns into a high stakes game.  Good stuff considering we learned so much in the first movie. 

The Order – 8

Jude Law is an FBI agent hunting down white nationalists doing some bad crimes and planning worse ones.  This is based on a true story.  I rarely find Law believable, but here he’s at the top of his limited game.

Good stuff and surprisingly riveting.

99 Homes – 8

A pretty solid 2014 look at the aftermath of the housing crisis, this is the story of an unscrupulous Florida real estate agent played by the always dependable Michael Shannon.  As Dennis Nash he hires a man who he has just booted from his house, played by Andrew Garfield.  He wants Rick Carver to take over the dirty work of evictions.   It gets pretty grimy as they work the crisis to their advantage.  There are many lessons here about how the rich get richer, and the pain of poverty.  Not pleasant, but quite the education.

Dune 2 – 7

Dune 1 was terrible, and Dune 2 got much better reviews, but I didn’t get it.  It was a dusty, sandy  mess, hard to tell the bad guys from the good guys, with an almost voodoo-laden undertone.  The final showdown was obvious early on and it took 2 and a half hours to get to it.  Maybe it’s me, but I just have no patience for the muddle of a movie like this.  The bad news is that there's obviously room for a Dune 3.  Remind me to pass.  

The Exterritorial - 7

This is one of those Netflix movies that looks like it was shot in three different languages.  This one is about a Mom who has her son kidnapped in an embassy, but fortunately, she’s former special forces, because isn’t everyone?  So she has to fight, tunnel, climb, and dive around the building in an attempt to find out what’s going on and why her son has disappeared.  It’s a far-fetched mess, but fun nevertheless.  Jeanne Goursaud plays the mother and displays enough charisma, especially while she’s in motion, to hold your attention.  Not bad when you want an action-diversion.

STREAMING/BINGING and what’s left of Network Television

1923 – 9

A terribly powerful, exhausting, grueling, brutal entry in the Taylor Sheridan creative universe, this 15-episode entry stars Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren as Duttons occupying the log cabin, around well, 1923.  At times I got frustrated with the travelogue nature of getting the magical nephew Spencer Dutton from Africa to Montana, and I thought it took awhile for Ford to find his footing.  But, you can’t deny the compelling nature of life about that time.  The depression was coming, and Montana was ripe for exploitation, which is at the center of the plot.  Former James Bond Timothy Dalton is the main bad guy.  The “law” was a little flexible back then, so there’s a lot of gunplay. 

But what I’ll always remember is the star-making turn of the stunning Julia Schlaepfer who blisters the screen as Alexandra Dutton.  The chemistry between her and Brandon Sklener (Spencer) is something to behold. If you like love and ranch wars, don’t miss this one.  As for me, I’ll be watching for Julia.

The White Lotus, season 1 – 5
The White Lotus, season 2 – 6

Much like the two Dune movies, the HBO hit series The White Lotus flies over my head like they were the Blue Angels.  Disjointed and trying too hard to be trendy, both seasons I’ve watched just bounce around.  I just didn’t get them.  No doubt the scenery is great, on two fronts, if you know what I mean and I think you do, but they didn’t engage me in the least.  Even Aubrey Plaza didn't get my attention.  I used to love groundbreaking stuff.  Now I find it tedious and obvious.  Getting old, I guess.

DOCUMENTARIES

Crisis:  Behind a Presidential Commitment – JFK - 9

This is a documentary about the standoff between the Kennedys and George Wallace, the Governor of Alabama.  In early 1963, two black students were trying to attend the University of Alabama.  Governor Wallace, famously stood in the doorway to turn the back.  The President and his Attorney General had to construct a strategy to get the students in.

It’s shocking on several counts.  It's a shock to see the racial tensions, and it’s equally shocking that many of the discussions between John and Robert Kennedy, and George Wallace and his staff were filmed! We’re not talking iphone cameras here, these were monster size cameras that were allowed in the room.  Incredible stuff, that I’d never seen before, and had no idea how it all played out.  Very cool.

Carville:  Winning is Everything, Stupid – 10

James Carville, our neighbor (about 10 miles away) is a renown huckster for the Democratic party, and the very definition of a “character.”  This documentary chronicles his political career as a campaign strategist.  His first big win was 1986 when he piloted Bob Casey to the governorship of Pennsylvania, followed by a winning string of upsets.  When he was picked as the chief strategist in 1992 for the Bill Clinton campaign, he took the gloves off, dealt with one crisis after another in the campaign, and successfully navigated Clinton to an upset win over incumbent George H W Bush.

To make this more memorable, at the time James was dating his future wife Mary Matalin, who was an advisor to Bush.  They’ve been the talk of the political sphere ever since, and have earned a nice living debating each other – leading to the expected marital ups and downs, which they’re quite candid about.

Today, James is a frequent talk-show guest and speaker, and he definitely hasn’t mellowed.  He’s outspoken and entertaining, and I need to go re-introduce myself (met him once) and talk about the deficit.