Shameless Self Expression

Aging military man Col. ‘Chappy’ Sinclair (Lou Gossett Jr.) this time leads a band of geriatric WWII flyers who are part of an Air Show-type deal. His comrades include a Brit (Christopher Cazenove), and surprisingly a German (the late Horst Buchholz) and a Japanese dude (Sonny Chiba). Debutante Rachel McLish turns up as the sister of one of Chappy’s old buddies to tell him that he’s been killed in what appears to be some kind of drug operation coming out of their own air base! This little operation is headed by former Nazi nasty Paul Freeman and his Colombian (or is it Peruvian? I’m not sure) cohort Juan Fernandez, as well as some traitors in Chappy’s midst. Chappy decides to round up his aging buddies, and aided by McLish and a streetwise low-level gangbanger (Phill Lewis) they head out to save the day. Fred Dalton Thompson (he be dead, too now) turns up as the good ‘ol boy promoter of the air show, Mitch Ryan is the commanding officer on the American Air Force base, and Tom Bower...

Based on a true story, Tom Cruise stars as a former airline pilot named Barry, who is secretly recruited by CIA man Domhnall Gleeson to go on covert dangerous missions to mostly Central American countries with supplies or on intelligence-gathering missions in an effort to stop the Reds from making inroads. Things get sticky for Barry, however when drug cartels decide to recruit him as their cocaine shipper to the US. He’s paid handsomely for his efforts, and since Barry’s a family man with monetary needs to support wife Sarah Wright and the kids, who is he to say no? It goes well for a while, too. Then it doesn’t. When I first saw the trailer for this 2017 flick from director Doug Liman ( “Go” , “Fair Game” , “Edge of Tomorrow” ), I thought Tom Cruise was repeating himself and giving us another “Knight and Day” . It turns out that this true story-inspired flick isn’t quite the rip-off I was anticipating. Scripted by Gary Spinelli, I wouldn’t quite call this a good film or eve...

30ish mum Mila Kunis finds out her husband has been having an online affair. The mum of two (including young Oona Laurence) finds sympathy from other mums at her kids’ school like Kathryn Hahn and Kristen Bell. They’re all fed up with ‘adulting’ (to use the modern parlance, not quoting the film directly) and decide to let their hair down and get cray-cray (OK, I’ll stop now), or at least the male screenwriting duo’s imagination of what that would be like. Christina Applegate plays a super-ambitious mother and PTA president who has it out for the trio of mums and their kids. Jada Pinkett-Smith plays Applegate’s Yes-Woman. Jay Hernandez plays a hunk, Clark Duke is Kunis’ creepy boss, and Martha Stewart turns up as herself. If ever there was a film made for me, this 2016 motherly version of “The Hangover” from co-directors/co-writers Jon Lucas & Scott Moore is…the opposite of that film. I loathe the “Hangover” films (Lucas and Moore wrote the first one) and adding oestroge...

Following the death of Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman/Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck) starts forming a group of superheroes to ward off any potential villainous threat. That threat arrives in the form of the destructive Steppenwolf (Ciaran Hinds), so it’s up to the Caped Crusader, as well as Amazonian warrior Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), nerdy but fast Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Momoa), and the moody Cyborg (Ray Fisher), son of scientist Silas Stone (Joe Morton). ***** POSSIBLE SPOILERS. YE BE WARNED FROM HERE ON ***** I’m not much of a Marvel fan, and the only films in the modern crop of DC Comics films I’ve enjoyed have been Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel” and perhaps the unfairly maligned “Green Lantern” . I did however enjoy Snyder’s “Watchmen” quite a bit. However, I hated the universally fellated “Wonder Woman” , “Suicide Squad” was incoherent for the most part, and I thought Snyder’s “Batman vs. Superman” was a hollow, dour wankfest. I’m clearly not ...