Limitless - the movie- Even Better

So I watched Limitless the movie the other night and it was better than I had hoped. Of course, the actor, Cooper Bradley was hands down the best actor considering performances by actors, but that should have been expected. After all the guy's an "A" list actor these days. And he was terrific as the main character who becomes Senator Mora in the short-lived TV series of the same name.

But it's the first show of the Limitless franchise, so I had to see it. Now that I have, I'll enjoy Limitless the TV series even more. At least Cooper Bradley has some cameo appearances in some of the episodes. You never really know when he'll show up, but when he does, he lifts the show miles higher than it already had been. He's just that kind of presence.

I remember first seeing Cooper Bradley in that movie Silver Linings Playbook. You know, the movie in which he co-starred with Jennifer Lawrence. It was Jennifer Lawrence who won the Oscar for best actress in that movie. I don't think Bradley even got nominated. But you know what? He should have been not only nominated for best actor in SLP, he should have won it. Not Lawrence.

Because Jennifer Lawrence didn't even act in that movie. She was always possessing the same demeanor throughout the movie. Not like Bradley's character. Bradley's character underwent a plethora of different mood swings. He played a man with special needs, although that's not to say he was handicapped really, he just had some emotional issues. And to act out those emotional swings took a great performance and Bradley delivered.

Lawrence's character had the same facial expression throughout the movie. It was like her character was stuck on morose mode throughout the story line. She didn't smile, she didn't laugh, she didn't cry, she didn't do anything. So how was it that she won best actress for a part in a movie she didn't even have to act in is beyond me. I guess she's just Hollywood's latest darling. You know the type. Usually they're the ones who make you sick.

(By the way, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos was a far superior Mystique than Jennifer Lawrence was. Why the X-Men franchise changed from Romijn-Stamos to Lawrence for the part of Mystique is beyond me. Oh, wait, it's not beyond me. Lawrence is Hollywood's new darling, I already had that figured out. Too bad. I'll take Romijn-Stamos over Lawrence as Mystique any day.)

But I digress. Limitless was yet another example of a terrific acting performance from an actor who is quickly joining my list of favorite actors. They include Jason Statham and Vin Diesel (of late) and Sean Connery, Burt Lancaster, and Kirk Douglas (of the old days.) But even better was the writing was superb. Yeah, I had a couple minor issues with it, but by the end of the movie I was stoked. It was a great ending, leaving you feeling great. Not like those stupid movies that end making the viewer feel like shit. I hate those movies. But Limitless wasn't like that. I was feeling terrific when it ended. I might even go buy the DVD. (or Blue ray.)

So, here's to Cooper Bradley. To me one of the best actors out there today.

Limitless - Quite Good!

It's still a slow phase for me in the publishing world. So I'm using this time to comment on some shows I've seen, both on the big screen and the small.  I'm not a movie goer much anymore, so the small screen has held most of my attention when it comes to viewership. And I've been critical of much of it, (with the big screen too btw.)

But I can make some positive comments about a show I've been watching recently. Limitless. It came out a couple years ago, I think, and it's based on a movie of the same name, which I never saw. I never watched the series either, but now with the Netflix connection, I can watch it without those hated commercials, and whenever I want. And I like it. Unfortunately there's only one season but there's a lot going for it.

First of all, it doesn't feature a woman as the main character as so many shows do nowadays. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But for me at least there comes a point when I want to see a man as the hero again. Let me stress I am not a misogynist or a chauvinist. But when every show (well almost every show lately) both on the big and small screen features a woman as the hero, and the men are all incompetent second fiddles to her heroism, it gets tiring.

So Limitless has a male hero. But of course he's not really a hero, because the main character is a college drop out and a drug user, which I don't think much of either really. But whatever. He takes a pill and can use 100% of his brain. He's the only one who can do that because some senator played by Cooper Bradley, (who's an actor I like) provides him with a monthly shot to counter the side effects. But the premise is the FBI doesn't know he is getting those shots. They think his immunity to side effects is something normal in him. I've since learned that the senator was the original user of the drug from the movie. I'll have to check out that movie sometime soon.

But even though those premises I just described are really things I don't agree with, I like the show anyway for another reason. A simple and basic reason. It's entertaining. The actor really nails his part. And the writing for each show I've seen so far is outstanding. I'm about midway through season 1 right now, (which seeing as how it's only one season, that means I'm halfway through the entire series.) But whatever, so far so good.

I just watched the episode where Brian Finch has put together his own team, and it at first seemed like a light-hearted story. But it turned out pretty heavy. It had some serious drama, and I thought it was realistic. But that depended on the viewer buying in to the character's boyish behavior, which I do, because a lot of dudes are like that in real life. So yeah. It's believable.

I also like the female lead. She's the FBI agent in charge of Brian and they cast the right actress for the part. Why? Because she's not a beauty queen. Most actresses they hire to play FBI agents or female cops are total lookers. I mean they could be models or, well, beauty queens. But FBI agent Rebecca Harris, played by Jennifer Carpenter is not a beauty queen. She looks like, well, she looks like a female FBI agent. so there you go.

Anyway, I'm not surprised that a TV show I like only lasts for one season. I'm still surprised The Blacklist is sill going strong. (Although I'm hearing rumors about that one being cancelled soon.) But for the moment, I'll be enjoying what's there. And it is what it is. Enjoyable.

Alien Covenant - Worse

I did like the Alien movie franchise, at least somewhat, and Ridley Scott had always been a director I thought was highly talented. But his latest installment of the Alien franchise was way below the standard he had set years ago with the first movie Alien.

I remember the chilling first Alien movie well. It reminded me of the old black and white movie called It! The Terror from Beyond Space. I knew from the beginning that the first Alien movie was a copy of that movie, but it was no big deal to me. Fifties movies should be redone. I'm still waiting for Earth vs. the Flying Saucers to be redone, but I digress.

The latest Alien movie sucked. "Covenant" is so full of holes that it's a sieve. And Scott's directing was a total disappointment. First you have a space woman acting like a crazed 10 year old the first moment that trouble hits. Then she locks her friend, another space woman in the room with the sick guy who's getting the "alien" bursting out of him. Never mind that there was plenty of time to let her out before the monster baby alien popped out, but that would have been too logical.

Before that you had the spacemen disembarking from their landing craft with no breathing apparatus whatsoever. They are breathing another planet's air without testing for pathogens or dangerous elements that might infect them. And of course, that's exactly what happens. It was just too stupid and unbelievable.

Finally you have the redone concept of the robot going bad. How many times have we seen that in movies and sci-fi stories? Even the first Alien movie had that bad robot concept. It's tiring. And here we go again.

The bottom line is that when I see the characters acting stupid and completely illogically, then I can only call that movie stupid and not worth watching. It is what happened in Covenant, and I'm sorry I wasted my time watching it. Probably the worst of the lot.

Counterpart - Boring!

My wife and I started watching the new STARZ show Counterpart. It seemed like a cool concept at first. A parallel world - with identical counterparts living in it. Of course, it's not an original concept. The concept has been done before. Star Trek's Mirror, Mirror episode from the original series comes to mind. But still, the concept remains cool even though it's not original.

And I like the actor J.K. Simmons, who I first saw play the part of J. Jonah Jameson, in the first Spider-man movies. You see him on TV a lot these days as an insurance spokesman on commercials, but he was doing a fine job of acting in Counterpart. He plays two roles - a timid clueless dude on the original earth, but on "the other side" he's a mean, competent spy type dude.

So yeah, that concept was pretty cool. I had some problems with it though even from the start. First of all the story line is BORING. And I really mean it with those all caps btw. Another problem is that the writing so darn LAZY. And the all caps are appropriate there too. Why? They never explain just how the earth got duplicated. It's not like in Star Trek, where other dimensions existed by nature.

I think the whole premise is that earth, or our universe, or our dimension, somehow was duplicated. But they NEVER EXPLAIN JUST HOW THAT HAPPENED. I can only conclude the writers themselves don't even know how it happened. Because at this point the fist season is almost over, and not once have they even tried to explain just how it happened.

So the viewers are just supposed to buy in to the premise that the universe got duplicated. I'm not quite that gullible. I need at least some kind of attempt at an explanation. Even if it's far-fetched. Since they never made that attempt, it tells me the writers themselves are clueless. Perhaps they don't even care. If they don't care, why should the viewers?

And now with this latest episode I've had enough. That means I won't be watching anymore. Like I said, the story line is boring as hell. Another thing is here we go with another bad-ass chick. Yeah, a little 110 pound woman again, is a bad-ass assassin from "the other side" and she can beat up men twice her size and twice her strength.

But even worse, there's a nerd guy who has a wife. And he finds out a duplicate from the other side came over and took over her life, which means his real wife is probably dead. But does he turn her in? No. He says the timid clueless dude, "(J.K. Simmons' part) is the mole, not the fake wife who murdered his real wife. So to that I say bullshit, and I'll call this show what it is. Bullshit.

Bottom line on Counterpart. Good acting from J.K. Simmons, but it's boring as hell, with lazy writing, and bullshit choices by the characters. Not for me. Nor is it for anyone with a brain.

The Black Panther movie

It's a slow period in the publishing arena for me. And since there's not much to report, I'll just do what I sometimes do and review a TV show or movie.

I was a kid when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the world's first black superhero Black Panther. He first appeared as a supporting character in the comic The Fantastic Four. I figure it was Jack Kirby who came up with the concept. But I might be wrong. It could be that Stan Lee told Jack to draw a superhero from Africa, i.e., the first black superhero, and Jack did. I'm content to give them both credit for the concept of the Black Panther and his backstory.

The concept was certainly unique. The Black Panther is the king of a hidden African kingdom, and not just another tribal kingdom, but one that more resembles the advanced technological nations of Europe, albeit, entirely African. And this fictitious nation called Wakanda will have a one-up on the European nations. It will have "vibranium" which is a rare metal from a meteor that landed in Wakanda some years earlier, and provides the means to create highly specialized devices.

For instance, Captain America's shield is made from vibranium. I never really learned just how the Americans managed to get the vibranium from Wakanda to make the shield, since no one was supposed to even know that Wakanda existed. Nevertheless, it's one example of a special something made from vibranium. And the movie came up with a bunch of other stuff as well.

The Black Panther, even as a kid was always one of my favorite superheros. You might ask me why. I'm not black. And I had no special connection to Africa. But there's one thing about me, and it's something that I wasn't taught. And it's something of which I can be proud. Skin color never mattered to me. It just never did. Throughout my youth, in the 60s and 70s, skin color was a non-issue to me even as all the riots and racism, (both white AND black racism, that is,) raged all around me.

To me people were people, and it didn't matter what color was their skin, what country was their origin, or what language did they speak. And to this day I remain the same. And when I see others who do not share that belief, I can only shake my head and consider them with disgust.

Whenever my students happen to bring up skin color or nationality in any negative way, I chastise them immediately. I tell them the same thing I just wrote above. And I ask them why does anyone have to consider people as white people, or black people, or brown people, or this kind of people or that kind of people? I ask them why cant we all just be PEOPLE, and leave it at that? And I can sense that they agree with me. It's a wonderful feeling to sense that from kids.

But for adults, perhaps it's just an impossible thing. Just like it's impossible to get rid of all the guns in this country. It's just an impossible thing. It's the world we live in. And however it goes, I won't be in it for that much longer. But my sons will and their sons. What's in store for them?

Chaos - The movie - Not as good

So after seeing a Jason Statham movie I had never heard of before, (Wild Card) and enjoying it so much, I found another one that had slipped my notice. This one was called Chaos, costarring Wesley Snipes. It was free On Demand, and I checked it out.

Sure, it was good, (as is any movie with Jason Statham,) and Wesley Snipes makes a good bad guy, and he did in this movie too, but there were problems. This movie had too many holes in it. Sure the twist in the end (spoiler alert) did come as a surprise to me, as it turned out that Statham and Snipes were working together the whole time. But since they were former police partners, (and current crime partners) it didn't make sense that Snipes was going off the deep end throughout the movie.

I guess they had to have it that way so Snipes could be killed at the end and Statham gets all the money, but I think the writing could have been better, and should have been better. I would have come away from the movie feeling a lot better if it had been.

Okay, it was a good movie, but look at it this way. Snipes was an ex-cop. Now the movie didn't reveal that until the movie was almost over. So the viewers didn't get a clue as to his relationship to Statham the whole time. Otherwise viewers might have made that deduction. But once it was revealed, it didn't make sense that Snipes was killing people throughout the movie.

He shot a bank teller in cold blood in the beginning. He was killing his other crime partners left and right throughout, or trying to. And he was trying to kill the young hero cop in the end, too. It was predictable the young hero cop prevailed and Snipes bit the dust, but again, it didn't make sense to turn him into a cold blooded killer. He used to be a cop for goodness sake.

So, in the end, the real hero, Jason Statham gets away with all the money, and the viewers are supposed to be pleased, since the viewers are most probably Jason Statham fans, like me. But again, even though I am a Statham fan, and Statham gets away with the money, and lives happily ever after, I would have preferred the end being reached with a more realistic or more believable means to that end. Instead they turned Snipes into a mad dog, and if he hadn't been a cop, maybe I could have bought into that. But he was. So I didn't.

Wild Card - Great Movie

I hadn't even heard of the movie called Wild Card. But I had always been a "fan" of the actor Jason Statham, and have enjoyed the movies in which he's starred. The Transporter movies come to mind, and The Mechanic movies as well. He's even joined the Fast and Furious crew and is a regular on the Expendables franchise. He's been a great action movie star for more than a decade now, and is tops in the genre, up there with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

When I was channel surfing today, I came across a Jason Statham movie I hadn't seen yet, called Wild Card, and as I said, hadn't even heard of. So with the wife beside me, I settled down for the evening to check it out on the "On Demand" feature of my TV service.

At first it was kind of slow. I was even thinking I might not last for the duration of the movie. But it picked up a bit, and the climax of the story was such that I ended up thinking this was a movie that might even be one of my all time favorite movies. It's up there with The Transporter, to be sure, and even John Wick, which I thought was a great movie too, albeit with Keanu Reeves as the star instead of Jason Statham, but whatever.

I have had enough of the tough chick movies that have flooded Hollywood lately. Look, I am not a misogynist, I guarantee you. But watching a 5' 2" woman whose 110 pounds, like Scarlett Johansson, beat up dudes who are over 250 pounds like they are nothing more than first graders just doesn't make it for me. A tough guy like Jason Statham is totally convincing however, and is perfect for the role of a tough guy like the character Nick Wild.

But wait, there's more. Nick Wild was not a typical tough guy. He didn't go around beating everyone up in every scene throughout the movie. I was even thinking at one point that the action scenes were far and few between, thus my initial impression that I might not last the duration of the show. But the show was more than just about a tough guy. Because Nick Wild is not just a tough guy. (Although what a tough guy he turned out to be!)

In Wild Card, Nick Wild is a multifaceted personality, very complicated, with strengths and weaknesses, which will satisfy even the strictest critics who pine for multi-dimensional characters. But when it was time for Nick to spring into action, the viewer, (me in this case,) was not dissatisfied. I was thoroughly entertained, and now I have another movie to claim as an all time favorite.

Jason Statham once again cements himself onto my list of all time favorite actors. I would ask the movie gods to please make more movies like this. And I have one in mind. It's called Killer of Killers from a novel written by an author named Mark M. DeRobertis. It even comes with a sequel: Killer Eyes. Who knows. One day it might happen.