CAptain Phillips

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Tom Hanks is back in the new action, thriller Captain Phillips.   This is based on the true story of a American cargo ship taken hostage in Somali waters in 2009.   You may not remember the actual incident, but you will remember the end game clearly.  Enough said.

Hanks is Captain Phillips.  A veteran ship captain of the huge cargo ship Maersk Alabama.  It sails with thousands of tons of cargo in sometimes very treacherous waters.  The Alabama was in waters off the coast of Africa in 2009 when it was taken by Somali pirates and was attempted to be held for ransom.  This is common practice in these waters, as the corrupt war lords and organized crime leaders in this part of the world are very powerful.   BTW, the Maersk Alabama was the first American ship pirated in over 200 years.

As the ship is taken, Phillips tries with all he knows to save his ship, and end this siege as quickly and safely as possible.  But he soon finds that to be impossible.  And he finds himself in a situation that is simply terrifying for any man, anywhere.  Hanks is great as our hero, and it is good to see him land a nice role in as story worth telling.

The real star of this movie though is an actor named Barkhad Abdi.  He is simply sensational as the "captain" (Muse) of the Somali pirates who commandeer the Alabama.  The character written for him was remarkable, and complex.  He gaunt and scary physical appearance here was amazing.  He is truly scary in this movie, in a script that had to have it.   You needed a believable, haunting, interesting and intimidating villain to pull this off and he is it.  This movie, does not work without his performance and the inner conflict of his character. His character is the single key to success here.  I don't now where Abdi came from, as there is virtually no information available on him anywhere.  But he is terrific.  Exceptionally well done.

Captain Phillips though good, does suffer from a couple of problems, first it is entirely too long at 2 hours 15 minutes.  This could have been shaved some and been far better.  It also belabors some points to point of nausea.   And there are few dead sports where it all seems so slow.   But in it's defense, it does take us where we have never been before.  On the bridge of a gigantic freighter and lets us inside that world.   And alerts of to the plight and bravery that it takes to sail these waters, and they do ti every day.  That is well done as well.

Captain Phillips.  Good, not great.  A good night at the movies.

Gravity

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First off, this movie is absolutely made for today's 3-D.   It really works well here.  Also, all of this is filmed in zero-gravity, or simulated zero-gravity and is certainly challenging movie making.   That is very impressive.   But for me, this is a movie that is far more concerned about what it can do, as opposed to what it should do.   Huge on effects, but this is loaded with redundancy.

The story in short is this.   A group of astronauts is orbiting the earth doing a repair to the Hubble telescope. As they are outside the shuttle, they are bombarded with a shower of space debris from a Russian space experiment goes wrong.  The debris which is traveling at 20,000  mph is now destroying all other satelights and that debris is crashing into them as well. All of the crew is killed except for them and the shuttle is destroyed.  So they must fight all odds to try to survive.

The goal is to get to the International Space Station, and get on the emergency pod and come back to Earth. But you can probably guess that doesn't pan out well, and now what?  Can they possibly live through this storm 200 miles above the Earth?

I have seen a ton of great reviews on this movie, and I have to respectfully disagree.  I think many are star struck by our cast.  True, there are some remarkable effects as this is exceptionally complex movie making and that isn't lost here.  But this movie really had a tough time holding my attention as it is scene after scene of people tumbling through space.  This would be a sensational scene in a movie that had something else to say.  But, this has little to say.  But it certainly looks great on the big screen and in 3-D.  This movie was absolutely made for the theater.  This is not a movie that will transfer well to DVD.

Sets are great, effects are great, but the story is average.  Also there are a few large holes in this that really stall it out.  Do you think that NASA, the agency that does all of these remarkable things all over the universe would get the info of the accident that causes all the problems to these guys with no notice?  Yeah, me either.  It all seems to come out of left field, and nothing ever comes out of left field to NASA.  That bothered me.  Huge hole.

This movie will also shock many as to how short it really is.  To be honest, you may be ready for it to end, with all the zero-gravity filming and you can become fatigued by it.  But you are paying a huge premium movie ticket price for 3-D, or IMAX 3-D and for Clooney and Bullock for a movie less than 90 minutes.  Should be noted too, this has a ton of Bullock, and a sliver of Clooney.

Gravity.  Complicated movie making.  But in the end a star studded, dressed up special effects fest for adults.

Catching fire

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It took me over a month (instead of a week to read), so it didn’t really pull me in like the first book. Since it’s the middle book, it’s kind of like a place holder, developing a story line linking the exciting first book, and the grand finale of the last book.

The beginning is just a quick recap without really telling us what the return from the Hunger Games really was like.

The middle is like Hunger Games revisited. I was mad they had to do it again and I was kind of bored reliving it all again, even though it was slightly different this time.

I was disappointed by the lack of character development for Katniss. She became a vague character. I loved her courage and strategic way of thinking in the first book, but in the second one that basically stopped, and frankly she just started getting on my nerves.

But I did like it! I just didn’t *love* it as much as the first one. And have been told that the last book of the series is good so I am definitely going to read on.

What I liked:

I liked knowing what happened next after the Hunger Games.

The first 75% of the book was uneventful, but the end was very good! I was surprised by the turn of events and was excited to finally be sucked back into the story in the very last chapters.

Nothing really catches fire, literally… but all the events of the book set up a lot of conflict. Their world starts to “catch fire,” causing the end to be a cliff hanger. It sets readers up to go read the final book, so I am looking forward to reading it and finally finding out the results of the love triangle (I’m on Team Gale) and the rebellion against the Capitol.