Author Archives: Keith Garlington

REVIEW: “Star Wars: Episode V – “The Empire Strikes Back” (1980)

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While perusing my website’s ever-growing archive of movie reviews (you can find it HERE), I eventually came to the Star Wars films. It was there that I made an alarming discovery. Out of all the Star Wars movies I’ve written about, there were only two I haven’t reviewed, “The Empire Strikes Back” and “The Return of the Jedi”. I won’t rehash my deep adoration for the franchise, but this was particularly jarring, especially since these are my two favorite Star Wars movies. So it’s time to plug those two gaping holes starting with “Empire”

“The Empire Strikes Back” is an important movie to me for a number of reasons. Not only do I think it’s the very best Star Wars film. I also think it’s one of the best sequels ever made. And on a more personal level, it’s the movie that really opened up cinema for me in an entirely new way. I remember leaving the theater as a kid in awe. Not just at the incredible world George Lucas had expanded on or the swagger and swashbuckling of my favorite character, Han Solo (Harrison Ford). But it was the storytelling which left the youngster me utterly amazed and wondering what was coming next.

“Empire” released here in the States on May 21, 1980 and was a box office smash. It opened to fairly mixed reviews, but over time and following countless reappraisals, the film is rightly heralded as a great Star Wars movie and one of the greatest movies ever made. Directed by Irvin Kershner and co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett, “Empire” mixes an immersive story with great characters and dazzling world-building. And it all emanates from the creative mind of George Lucas.

While 1977’s “Star Wars” ended on a high note for the fledgling rebellion, the fitting title of “Empire” hints at the sequel’s darker tone. We see little in terms of victories for the rebels beginning with the film’s epic opening as Darth Vader (David Prowse/voiced by James Earl Jones) and his imperial troops lay siege to the hidden rebel base on the snow planet of Hoth. It’s quite the opening; one that does a great job reintroducing the major characters and raising the stakes which only get higher as the story progresses.

After being forced to evacuate on the Millennium Falcon, Han, Leia (Carrie Fisher), the loyal furball Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), and protocol droid C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) find themselves pursued through space by Vader and his fleet of Star Destroyers. Meanwhile Luke (Mark Hamill) and the spirited astromech droid R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) are on their way to a remote swamp planet called Dagobah following a vision from Obi-Wan Kenobi (Alec Guinness). Luke’s old mentor (slain by Vader in the previous film) tells him to seek a Jedi Master named Yoda (puppeteer Frank Oz) who will complete his Force training.

Of course the movie finds a way to bring all of our heroes back together, this time in Cloud City where we’re introduced to fan favorite Lando Calrissian (Billy Dee Williams), the administrator of the floating mining colony. From there the movie gives Star Wars fans everything they could possibly want. There’s a daring escape, an epic showdown, a franchise-driving revelation, and an amazing cliffhanger that would set the table for the trilogy’s finale that would come three years later.

“The Empire Strikes Back” is a landmark movie for a number of reasons. Not simply because it’s a spectacular sequel with a great forward-moving story and cutting-edge special effects. But it also injected so much into pop culture, much of which still flourishes today. “Empire” launched Star Wars to heights that neither George Lucas or the world could have expected. And for many kids in the early 80s (like me), “Empire” etched Star Wars so deeply into from our childhoods that it left a permanent mark. And my love the franchise hasn’t waned a bit since.

VERDICT – 5 STARS

First Glance: “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One

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Ooooooh yes! There’s really no need in me trying to hide or even downplay my enthusiasm for the next Mission: Impossible installment. I’ve love this blockbuster franchise, and it has only gotten better and better. In fact, a good argument could be made that the last film, “Fallout” has been the best of the lot. But not to be outdone, Tom Cruise and company are back for the series finale. And if the new trailer is any indication, we’re in for the biggest M:I film yet.

Cruise teams up again with writer-director Christopher McQuarrie to give the iconic action character Ethan Hunt a fitting send-off. The film brings back franchise favorites Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Vanessa Kirby. New to the series are Hayley Atwell, Shea Whigham, Carl Ewes, Pom Klementieff, and Rob Delaney. The trailer shows Hunt once again hopping the globe, and we get glimpses of some truly incredible action sequences. And of course if features Cruise doing his own signature stunt work. Originally slated for a 2021 release, we’re finally getting the first of the two-part finale next year. I can’t wait.

“Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” hits theaters July 14th. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

REVIEW: “Facing Nolan” (2022)

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(CHECK OUT my full review in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

Growing up as a kid and a baseball lover in the 1980s, it was hard not to know the name Nolan Ryan. That’s especially true for a young fan of the Texas Rangers, the team where the first ballot Hall of Fame pitcher spent his final five years. It was during those later years (1989 to 1993) that I really came to appreciate what an incredible (and in many ways unprecedented) 27-year career he had. The new documentary “Facing Nolan” brought many of those memories flooding back.

Nolan Ryan was an intimidating presence on the mound, with a 100 mph+ heater that he amazingly maintained for his entire baseball career (his last fastball, thrown at age 46 and with a torn ligament in his elbow, was recorded at 98 mph). Armed with heat and a knee-buckling 12-6 curveball, Nolan set a total of 51 Major League live-ball era records including some that will never be broken, such as his seven no-hitters and his 5,714 career strikeouts.

He was also known to be “conveniently wild”. That occasional wildness led him to be the all-time leader in walks (by a pretty large margin). It also struck fear into opposing batters and Ryan used that to his advantage. Slugger Dale Murphy said of Nolan “he’s the only pitcher you start thinking about two days before you face him.” Reggie Jackson said Nolan “was the only guy that could put fear in me. Not because he could get me out, but because he could kill me. You just hoped to mix in a walk so you could have a good night and go 0-3.”

Statistically you could say Nolan Ryan’s heyday was his amazing run with the then California Angels from 1972 till 1979. During that span he pitched well over 200 innings every year but once (over 300 innings twice). Five of those years he pitched over 20 complete games (a nearly forgotten statistic these days). He struck out over 300 batters five times including 383 in 1973. He went on to spend nine extremely productive years with the Houston Astros and his final five years in Arlington with the Texas Rangers.

“Facing Nolan” hits on all of those career highlights while also stressing the family man he was (and still is) beyond the stardom. And as the title suggests, the film includes interviews with several former players, many of whom played against him – Pete Rose, George Brett, Cal Ripken Jr., Dave Winfield, and Randy Johnson. We also hear from teammates like Rod Carew, Craig Biggio, Art Howe, Kevin Bass, Pudge Rodriguez, and Bobby Witt, who share what it was like to play with “Big Tex”.

Written and directed by Bradley Jackson, “Facing Nolan” uses the down-home coffee shop narration of Mike MacRae to escort us through this improbable life starting in Alvin, Texas. It’s there that a tall slender kid with a big country drawl and an even bigger arm first picked up a baseball. He would eventually attract the attention of a scout for the New York Mets and they soon signed him to a $7,000 a year contract. Nolan’s plan was to try and play at least four years in baseball, just enough to receive a pension. After that he would come back home to be a veterinarian. But those plans changed dramatically.

During his time with the Mets, Nolan married his high school sweetheart, Ruth Holdorff. The movie puts a big emphasis on their relationship, stressing how crucial Ruth’s support was to Nolan’s career. As she describes it, “People say when you marry a baseball player you really marry baseball.” While listening to the players is great (especially for baseball diehards like me), some of the film’s best bits come from Jackson’s interviews with Nolan and Ruth. And watching the couple with their children and grandchildren offer a fresh perspective on one of the game’s most intense pitchers.

But of course it’s the old baseball stories that will excite fans most. Stories about his time in New York and the eventual trade that sent him to the west coast to play for the Angels. Stories about his time in Houston where he became the first sports athlete to make $1 million per season. And stories of his time with the Texas Rangers in what normally would have been the waning years of a career. Instead Nolan’s legend only grew. There he earned his 5,000th strikeout, his 300th win, and pitched his sixth and seventh no-hitter. Oh, and there was that whole Robin Ventura incident on August 4th, 1993.

“Facing Nolan” does a great job blending the personal with the professional to give us a well-rounded portrait of one of baseball’s greatest and often undervalued pitchers. The film should be catnip for fans of the game, especially those (like me) who enjoy sitting back and listening to former big leaguers share old stories. It highlights key moments in Nolan’s career, debunks a few myths along the way, and shines a light on the husband, father, and grandfather beyond the mound.

VERDICT – 4 STARS

First Glance: “The Forgiven”

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“The Forgiven” is the latest movie from writer-director John Michael McDonagh, the filmmaker behind 2014’s stellar “Calvary”. Here he leads an electric cast featuring Ralph Fiennes and recent Oscar winner Jessica Chastain. The film also stars Matt Smith, Caleb Landry Jones, Saïd Taghmaoui, Christopher Abbott, and Ismael Kanatar. “The Forgiven” premiered last September at the Toronto International Film Festival and is finally set to be released via Roadside Attractions and Vertical Entertainment.

The story follows a wealthy couple (Fiennes and Chastain) who hit and kill a young local while driving to a friends wedding in a remote section of Morocco. Instead of notifying the authorities, the couple load the body into their car and take it to their friend’s (Smith) home. And the cover up begins. But when the young man’s grieving father unexpectedly shows up, the couple come face-to-face with the consequences for their choices. This looks to be a sharp and candid haves vs. have-nots story, and I’m interested to see how far McDonagh goes with it.

“The Forgiven” hits theaters July 1st. Check out the trailer below and let me know if you’ll be seeing it or taking a pass.

REVIEW: “Senior Year” (2022)

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In the new Netflix teen-ish comedy “Senior Year”, a cheerleading accident leaves a high school senior in a coma. After she wakes up 20 years later, she sets out to finish her high school dream of being named prom queen. Sounds utterly ridiculous, right? Well, it pretty much is. And while first-time feature film director Alex Hardcastle deserves points for trying to make something out of this nutty premise, the utterly predictable movie can only manage a few mild laughs and even fewer interesting characters.

The movie begins by introducing us to Samantha Conway (played in the early scenes by a really good Angourie Rice). Since moving to the United States from Australia with her parents, Samantha has struggled to fit in with the popular crowd. She has her loyal yet eccentric friends Seth (Zaire Adams) and Martha (Molly Brown), but she really want to be in with the in-crowd. So Samantha begins her freshman year with a pledge to become the most popular girl in school.

Image Courtesy of Netflix

After reading a lot of magazines and fixing her hair a certain way (because apparently that’s all it takes to be most popular), Samantha becomes the toast of Harding High School. By her senior year she has the hunkiest boyfriend, Blaine (Tyler Barnhardt) and even wins cheerleader captain from her snooty rival, Tiffany (Ana Yi Puig). All she needs to cap off her self-centered popularity run is winning Senior Prom Queen.

But then an cheering ‘accident’ during a pep assembly puts Samantha in a coma. Now played by Rebel Wilson, she wakes up 20 years later to an entirely new world. Older Blaine (Justin Hartley) has married older Tiffany (Zoe Chao), older Martha (Mary Holland) is Harding High’s principal, and older Seth (Sam Richardson) is the school librarian. You would think it would all be a shock for Samantha who’s physically 37-years-old but mentally still 17. Instead, she just picks up where her younger self left off, determined to finish her senior year, regain her popularity, and be voted prom queen.

But these days things are much different at Harding under the more buttoned-up Martha. The school has moved from the privileged, egocentric clique culture of Samantha’s youth to a more self-important, ultra-progressive, and hyper sensitive environment. So of course we get the inevitable bits where Samantha’s ways are constantly clashing with the new. Some are mildly amusing while others see the trio of screenwriters (Andrew Knauer, Arthur Pielli, and Brandon Scott Jones) working way too hard.

Yet despite it’s more enlightened exterior, Samantha learns Harding still has the same nonsense but in a different form. It’s embodied in the new most popular girl, Brie (Jade Bender), a social media maven who (of course) happens to be Tiffany’s daughter. She touts her social consciousness with the same smugness as Stephanie once brandished. But in today’s Harding, the popularity contest is determined by the number of online followers you have. So it’ll take an adjustment if Samantha wants to reach her dream of prom queen.

Image Courtesy of Netflix

The movie milks it central conceit dry and touches on several pretty obvious themes in the process – true friendship, reevaluating your dreams, learning what really matters in life, etc. Meanwhile the characters are more or less caricatures who click a wide assortment of genre boxes. Some still manage to be entertaining. Rice is quite good as a young Samantha, impervious to how her lust for popularity impacts those who love her. Wilson’s version of older Samantha has its moments, but it often feels like a performance rather than something genuine. I did like Chris Parnell as Samantha’s single dad. It’s a very by-the-book character but Parnell pulls some feeling from it. There’s also a great cameo later on that I’ll let you discover for yourself.

As the movie plays out it gets more and more predictable. Eventually everything falls right into place, exactly as expected. A few dance numbers are thrown in, but they aren’t particularly fun or well done. The worst one comes at the end – a corny cringe-soaked musical finish that turned this shallow yet watchable mess into something I was anxious to get away from. “Senior Year” is now streaming on Netflix.

VERDICT – 2 STARS

RETRO REVIEW: “Con Air” (1997)

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There was a time when Jerry Bruckheimer was to action movies what Jason Blum currently is to horror. Obviously it’s not a true one-for-one comparison as both producers had very different approaches to the kind of movies they made. But their names did become synonymous with specific genres and both had loads of success giving those genres some much needed boosts.

While the 78-year-old Bruckheimer is still steadily producing (he has the highly-anticipated “Top Gun: Maverick” next week), one could argue that his box office blockbuster heyday was in the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s. Included in that ten-year stretch were four films with the delightfully enigmatic Nicolas Cage. One of them was none other than “Con Air”.

I’ve always enjoyed Cage, and while his career is certainly at a much different point today, there has been a surge of love for the actor following his wacky (and not-so-great) recent film “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent”. So what better time to look back at one of Cage’s silliest yet most entertaining action movies, “Con Air”. The film came out in 1997 to fairly positive reviews and it was a box office success. So how does it play 25 years later? Well, pretty good to be honest.

Cage plays Cameron Poe, an honorably discharged Army Ranger returning home to Mobile, Alabama to surprise his pregnant wife Tricia (Monica Porter). The two have a bubbly reunion as Trisha Yearwood’s Oscar-nominated original song “How Do I Live” simmers in the background (such a movie staple of the 80’s and 90’s). But when they’re attacked by three obnoxious drunks, one of the thugs ends up dead and Cameron is sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter. While in the penitentiary, he misses the birth of his daughter Casey (Landry Allbright). But the two frequently exchange letters, anxiously anticipating the day Cameron gets out and can finally see his daughter.

The day finally comes when Cameron is granted parole, and just in time to make it home for Casey’s birthday. But to get back home he has to hitch a ride on plane carrying inmates to a new maximum security prison in Alabama. It’s a prison designed for lifers, “the worst of the worst”. So he’s put onboard a converted Fairchild C-123 (appropriately called The Jailbird) with an “all-star” lineup of the country’s most dangerous felons.

Obviously there are a ton of questions. For example, why was Cameron sent off to a prison so far away for what amounted to self-defense? And was there no other way to get him back to Alabama other than a flight full of the most savage criminals? To be honest, in a movie like this those are details I’m happy to overlook. That’s because director Simon West and screenwriter Scott Rosenberg are clearly having a good time stacking up their wacky scenario. And part of what’s fun of “Con Air” is throwing ourselves into it and watching how it all plays out.

As far as the “Who’s Who” of convicts onboard, John Malkovich plays Cyrus “The Virus” Grissom, the brilliant yet psychotic mastermind of the inevitable takeover of the plane. Some may laugh, but this is one of my favorite Malkovich performances. He’s a great fit – equal part hammy and cold-blooded menace. It’s said Malkovich wasn’t high on the movie, but he makes for a delightfully devious (and at times dryly funny) chief antagonist.

Cyrus is joined by Nathan “Diamond Dog” Jones (Ving Rhames), a black militant domestic terrorist and Cyrus’ right-hand man. There’s William “Billy Bedlam” Bedford (Nick Chinlund), a mass murderer who killed his wife’s entire family; a serial rapist who goes by “Johnny 23” (Danny Trejo); Earl “Swamp Thing” Williams (M.C. Gainey); a wild-eyed convict with piloting experience; and a chatty arsonist/dopehead named “Pinball” (Dave Chappelle). Oh, and then there’s Garland Greene aka “The Marietta Mangler” (Steve Buscemi), a notorious serial killer who creeps out even the most hardened of the cons.

As Cyrus’s plan unfolds in the air, U.S. Marshall Vince Larkin (John Cusack) works on the ground to regain control of the plane. Along the way he constantly butts heads with the insufferable (and annoyingly over-the-top) DEA Agent Malloy (Colm Meaney) who wants to shoot the plane down despite there being innocent people onboard including our protagonist. Cage is a hoot with his hit-and-miss Southern accent and his flowing gif-ready locks. The movie has fun with his unique style of action hero and hearing him utter overtly silly lines like “Put the bunny back in the box” never gets old.

“Con Air” only gets crazier with two particularly memorable set pieces, one at an abandoned airfield and the other on the Las Vegas strip. If you’re looking for realism, you’ll be disappointed. Instead West goes for the gusto with over-the-top action and a hearty wink of the eye. It’s that last part that is so important. “Con Air” never takes itself too seriously. It knows how preposterous it is and doesn’t try to be anything other than wild raucous popcorn entertainment. And sometimes that’s all I’m in the mood for. Sadly, we rarely (if ever) get these kinds of movies these days. But at least we have escapes like “Con Air” for whenever that mood hits.

VERDICT – 4 STARS