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Cry Macho is a fable about redemption, it’s the journey of an old man, bringing a teen from Mexico City to his estranged American dad. Their long journey is one of two men each attempting to win the upper hand.

The movie is adapted to the screen by Eastwood and N. Richard Nash, who wrote the novel this movie is based on back in 1975, but the mostly two-character movie is very slow and doesn’t really elevate.

Eastwood vulnerability in Cry Macho is one of an older man with minimal careful movements, dry slow speech and a look that is closer to what his real age.

For the ingenious filmmaker who has been retiring for the past thirty years, Cry Macho, marks his 40^th as a film director. This feels like a movie that might probably only be remembered as a placeholder the next Eastwood movie, which usually comes once a calendar year, yet with pandemic slowing down Hollywood, at this point, no new Eastwood film is in the works!

At the end of the day, this is an Eastwood movie, and one can’t go against an instant classic, so it gets a THUMBS UP from me.

From the writer of Taxi Driver and Raging Bull and director of American Gigolo comes this revenge thriller about an ex-military guy haunted by the ghosts of his past, who turns to gambling to salvage his life.

Initially, The Card Counter comes across as a poker movie, however it doesn’t take too long to understand this flick is about a whole lot more than just playing cards. The realization this is actually a movie about consciousness and past trauma should not really be a huge surprise to those who have seen past Paul Schrader movies, it is kinda his trademark. If there is one thing you can say about the Schrader flicks is his obsession with dark men souls.

One of the biggest surprises is the casting of comedic actress, Tiffany Haddish, in an impressive dramatic role as La Linda, the woman that transforms Oscar Isaac’s William’s life. Speaking of Oscar Isaac, he gives an impressive performance that industry insiders already predict will get him certain awards recognition. This is a role that reflects so much of what America is going through, as it withdraws from more and more international conflict areas, it neglects the fates of the people who fought those wars.

For a movie that has very little camera actions, it certainly has a lot of emotionally explosive drama going on for it. Once the story is ready to seal the fate of its characters, the result is profound and this is exactly what I felt about this movie, it is structured perfectly giving the ending you did not expect. This is an easy THUMBS UP!

A modern spin on a classic fairy tale we all know so well, brings the story of a struggling servant who dreams of becoming a fashion designer, despite her menacing stepmother’s sabotages.

This Amazon Studios production comes from the writer-director behind the Pitch Perfect franchise, Kay Cannon,  who has created a fantastic plot that puts a glimmer of something new to the Cinderella fairy tale from the 17th century tale by Charles Perrult, and if you like characters who just break into song with no apparent reason that’s the flick for you.

Having said that there seems to be a number of frustrating creative choices like the undeceive pace the plot is presented that makes it hard to enjoy the flick. Having said that, the musical numbers really make up for the poor storytelling.

The casting of singer Camila Cabello in her feature film acting debut feels like the most natural choice, almost asking yourself how has no one cast such a screen darling before.

We have seen endless incarnations of Cinderella from the classic Walt Disney animation to the live-action movie directed by Kenneth Branagh to the Drew Barrymore starer, Ever After, however this version seems to be a bit dull in message and a bit too obsessed with conspiracies, to the point that it confuses whoever is watching it. I am split if I liked it or not, so will have to give it only a THUMBS IN THE MIDDLE!

As if the Marvel Cinematic Universe wasn’t big enough, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings will attempt to corner a market niece where the Marvel behemoth still wasn’t the #1 film studio – the Asian market. And they only had to dig about five decades to find the Master of Kung-Fu, Shang-Chi, who first was introduced to the world in 1973 and has been one of the lesser-known heroes.

There is no doubt that social pressures motivated Disney to diversify its roster of white superheroes first came black superheroes in Black Panther and the upcoming G.I. Joe origin story, Snake Eyes, and now it’s time also for an Asian superhero. Shang-Chi stars is an unknown Canadian-Chinese actor, Simu Liu, but that doesn’t really make a difference because at the end of the day, let’s face it, the real star of all those superhero movies is Marvel.

In the center of the story are those ten rings dating back to ancient China. Those rings are the equivalent to those elusive rings of Lord of the Rings or what the lightsabers were to the Star Wars mythology.

The flick is smart to acknowledge China as a global superpower, continuing the courting of the studios after the Sino audiences it started when it added when it added China-set scenes to the release of Iron Man 3.

And if you are asking yourself how does Shang-Chi fit into the Marvel universe, then don’t forget to stick around until the very end of the credits for a cameo of some of the beloved Avengers for some interesting answers.

Now that the Avengers’ Infinity War saga has run its course, Marvel probably is weighing its options into who will dominate its money making machine for the next few years, meanwhile, I gotta admit, I enjoyed this movie a lot because after you peel off all the regular Marvel manusha, the story about accepting your past while forging ahead to who you would want to be in the future really resonated with me. I give it a THUMBS UP!

A classic slasher movie gets a modern day reboot almost three decades after the original Candyman was released. Like the original this incarnation is also based on the short story by British playwright, Clive Barker.

Director Nia DaCosta, who co-wrote the flick with Jordan Peele (who also produced it) is trying to give it a sense of being rooted more in reality than the original movie, according to its creators.

In the centre we find a struggling artist who decides to explore a myth about the Chicago location where his studio is located and unknowingly to him unleashes a pandora’s box of violence, which puts him on a collision course with destiny.

The uniqueness of Candman is that it was written in a way not to fall into the usual pitfalls of horror flick formulas. It also attempts to make us believe that it is not setting up a new franchise, although this might be deceiving, as every Hollywood studio wants a movie to be lucky enough to create endless sequels to any movie they produce.

Candyman is DaCosta second feature as a director. From one side a follow up to her award winning, Little Woods, and from the other side just a minute before she is going to become a Hollywood mega director, following the release of her next movie, The Marvels, the much anticipated sequel to Captain Marvel. This movie still has the exciting feel of what you would expect of a sophomore director.

This is a definitely a movie that you can tell is masqueraded as a horror flick, when it actually is a social satire about society in America at large is a very elegant way. I liked it a lot and give it a THUMBS UP!