I’d heard good things about this doc but wasn’t sure I’d like it. Turns out I loved it. A singer-songwriter named Rodriguez (who sounds a lot like James Taylor with a cold) had 2 albums out of Detroit in the 70s that were complete flops. Twenty years later he’s making ends meet doing construction, while in apartheid South Africa he’s become their Elvis, selling hundreds of thousands of albums – and he has no idea. They all think he’s dead. But an Africaaner goes looking for him and brings him to SA for a tour before delirious fans. If this were fiction, you’d laugh it off. But it’s real. And the unassuming way it unravels the mystery of Rodriguez is fascinating.

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This was on the tube. I stopped to watch. A few chuckles, some family warmth. Basically a by-the-numbers 3-act comedy with some good points about the absurdity of current PC parenting theories but no surprises. You can find worse ways to kill 90 minutes on a Sunday afternoon. You can find better.

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I put off watching this because nothing pains a libertarian heart as deeply as racial hatred. We judge people by their actions, not their genes. Jackie Robinson endured a shitload of hatred. The film didn’t shy away from that, and I was squirming at times, but it’s worth the trip. He wasn’t on the Dodgers because of affirmative action or a quota system. The guy was a freakin’ phenom. After his first season, managers started looking for “the next Jackie Robinson,” and the racial barriers dropped like dominoes.

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One hell of a cast, and one hell of an unsettling movie, mainly because the string of real-life murders (he’s estimated to have killed 100+) is presented in such a matter-of-fact tone. Not a lot of gore, but still not for the squeamish.

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I liked this film about a turning point in a 14-year old’s life that comes off without rainbows and fireworks. It manages to be feel-good without getting syrupy. It’s all sorts of predictable but diverged just enough from the formula to keep me watching. I’m not a fan of Steve Carell but he did a great, understated job playing a dickhead. I AM becoming a big-time fan of Sam Rockwell who pretty much steals the film (as he did in 7 Psychos).

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Ashton Kutcher was quite convincing as Steve Jobs. To the film’s credit, it didn’t sugarcoat the man. I came out not liking him very much. I mean, he’s a lying, cheating narcissist with no sense of loyalty to the people who help him get where he is. Some pedantic, cringe-worthy dialogue, especially between Kutcher and James Woods in the draggy opening, but the pace picks up once they move into his father’s garage and start building home computers.

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I don’t know how Chris Morgan keeps topping himself, but he does, with every installment. More over-the-top cars in more over-the-top crashes. He even adds a tank in this one. The final battle takes place in and around a Russian cargo plane accelerating down what has to be a twenty-mile-long runway. If you liked the preceding 5, you’ll love this.

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Totally stupid but lots of fun.  Left me with an urge to spend the day dropping 3rd-person epigrams. “Wilson don’t do Angry Birds” . . . “Wilson don’t do smileys”

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Not a great movie by any stretch, but engaging and unexpectedly touching. (It’s the perfect setup for a TV series, BTW.)

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Finally saw this. What fun. And what amazing sets and effects on such a tiny budget. A cross between space opera and an SNL skit with a Laibach soundtrack.

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