What a time and place to watch good and great movies this weekend!
On Friday, three films enter the cinemas across the country: Where’d You Go, Bernadette, Ad Astra and Rambo: Last Blood.
These are three very different kinds of films. Where’d You Go, Bernadette could be a treat for the whole family or for a pack of friends to enjoy. Ad Astra will take the moviegoer to a subconscious trip and may require a more serious and focused approach while Rambo: Last Blood is here to thrill you with a fantastic classic revenge story.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette stars Cate Blanchett as Bernadette Fox, a deeply-caring mom who has become sidetracked from her creative
Her marriage is in trouble. But there’s hope.
The plot is based on an eponymous novel, written by Maria Semple and published in 2012. Blanchett has praised the book in countless interviews. She’s a fan.
For the viewers’ delight, Blanchett brings the pages alive on the big screen with passion. She takes the viewer to an acting masterclass and a trip that will not easily be forgotten.
Ad Astra is a movie where a man is looking for his father from outer space.
If that doesn’t sound like your thing, just keep on reading.
Roy McBride is an astronaut played by Brad Pitt. His resting heart rate is 45. When he’s surrounded by danger, his pulse could rise by 10. He is subconsciously obsessed by the thought of meeting his father, who left him and his mom at an early age. His father, you see, played with finesse by Tommy Lee Jones, has for the best of his adulthood been obsessed with a mission of finding extraterrestrial life. He’s been in space for a long time.
In Ad Astra, directed by James Gray, the scenes shift with a pace of a snail, and the viewer is dazzled by colors and planets. It’s a mind trip more than a film shaking your nerve system with a complicated plot.
Ad Astra trusts that Brad Pitt’s portrayal of the half-alive astronaut will be captivating enough to keep the viewer glued to the seat for two hours and two minutes. In this, it almost succeeds.
Rambo: Last Blood is one of Sylvester Stallone’s best works. Directed by fairly unknown Adrian Grunberg with the commanding grip of Stallone’s screenplay, Rambo, now as an old but still powerful man, has to bring hell and fury upon those who hurt his loved ones.
Stallone made himself a movie icon with a series of Rocky and Rambo films in the ‘70s and ‘80s. He’s an actor who has united generations.
While his chiseled physique and energy may have been the draw in the early days of his career, it’s the captivating portrayal of men of few words who are very capable of inspiring dialogue, too, that has still kept him in the game. When Stallone utters a word, we know he means business. When he crucifies the bad guy with an arrow and a bow, we feel like he could actually do it.
Rambo: Last Blood brings the best of Stallone in a compact, brutal and very violent package of action. It stays true to the expression: “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”
