Shameless Self Expression

The story of astronaut Neil Armstrong (Ryan Gosling), who is about to go down in history being the first man to walk on the moon, circa 1969. Among the famous characters, Corey Stoll plays Buzz Aldrin, Shea Whigham is Gus Grissom, Pablo Schreiber plays the infamous Jim Lovell, whilst Jason Clarke is Armstrong’s friend and neighbour, Ed White. Ciaran Hinds and Kyle Chandler play the NASA men on the ground, whilst Claire Foy plays Armstrong’s nervy wife. Real-life Astronaut movies aren’t particularly my bag, the most popular ones like “The Right Stuff” and “Apollo 13” left me particularly cold. I won’t count “Hidden Figures” since it’s entirely about figures on the ground, but I liked that film nonetheless. I’ve gotta say I entered into this 2018 flick from director Damien Chazelle ( “Whiplash” , “La La Land” ) and screenwriter Josh Singer ( “The Fifth Estate” , “Spotlight” , “The Post” ) rather trepidatiously, as the film didn’t especially set the box-office alight nor were...

Clint Eastwood is macho detective Wes Block, a divorced father of two (Alison Eastwood and Jenny Beck) investigating some kinky serial homicides of hookers. He becomes involved with a feminist self-defence instructor named Beryl (Genevieve Bujold), but also has connections to several of the hookers. Intimate and rather lurid connections with them, in fact. Seems he and the killer have a thing or two in kinky common. Dan Hedaya plays a fellow cop, and Rebecca Perle plays an ice block-sucking hooker. This 1984 kinky crime-thriller from writer-director Richard Tuggle (whose only other film credits were writing the terrific “Escape From Alcatraz” , and directing the Anthony Michael Hall flick “Out of Bounds” ) is a sleazy bore with an uncomfortably cast Clint Eastwood at his most wooden in one of his worst films. Less “Dirty Harry” and more Z-grade 80s Charles Bronson thriller Cannon fodder, Eastwood is either unwilling or incapable of delivering the kind of 3-D performance requ...