Playing with Fire (2019)

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to review this movie.  There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to admit that I sat through the whole thing.  Then again, I did learn that smokejumpers are a real thing.  So, there’s that.

The movie focuses on a team of smokejumpers (Jake Carson, Mark Rogers, Rodrigo Torres and Axe) who have to take care of three children (Brynn, Will and Zoe) that they rescue.  Due to a safe-haven law, the smokejumpers have to take care of the children until the parents can arrive.

You’d think this would be simple.  Four grown men with should be able to manage three children for a few days.  If that’s the case, there would be no movie.  The children tend to be difficult.  The adults are inexperienced with children.  Oh, and Carson is up for a promotion, so the division commander might be dropping by.  Add to this that Zoe’s birthday is coming up and.  You get the perfect storm of a movie that most adults won’t find funny.

I suppose it would have helped if I was much younger.  Maybe the movie would have appealed to me.  I honestly don’t know what I was expecting.  The one saving grace was that I saw the movie while school was in session, meaning that was a lack of small children in the theater with me.

This is exactly the kind of movie that parents will just have to sit through.  There are no redeeming qualities.  There’s not even a lewd joke that might go over a kid’s head.  (The closest thing is some scatological humor.)

If your kids aren’t begging you to see it, don’t suggest it to them until it comes out on DVD.  It’s exactly as childish and moronic as the coming attractions would suggest.

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Breakthrough (2019)

There’s a scene, early in the movie, where we see a Christian band performing.  Rather than keep it brief, it goes on just a little too long.  All I could think was that it was time to move on to the next thing.  This proved to be a pretty good analogy for the rest of the movie.  Everything about it is just a little too much.

The movie is based on a book, which was an account of a true story.  The book was written by Joyce Smith about her son, John, who fell into a frozen lake and was pronounced dead.  He makes a full recovery because of Joyce’s faith in the Christian God.  There are a few scenes where this is done subtly.  Tommy Shine, a paramedic trying to get John out of the water, hears a voice that he initially assumes to be his boss’s.  When his boss denies it, it must be God.

Many scenes are more blunt.  When Joyce is allowed to see John’s body, she starts praying.  Right when she asks for His help, John’s heart starts beating.  Coincidence?  It’s probably not that simple.  Between the fact that John’s mother wrote the book and the fact that Hollywood is known to embellish a little, I would think that there’s more to the story.

I would come down harder on Joyce except that the movie does well in portraying her as a mother in grief.  I get that she’s dealing with the possible loss of her son.  My issue is that religion is the only mechanism that she has to deal with that stress.

When Joyce overhears doctors talking about the reality of John’s condition, she forbids any such talk in his room.  When friends and neighbors are gathered in the waiting room Joyce overhears someone telling their daughter that John’s might not make it.  Again, she forbids any negativity.  (Fortunately, Brian calls her on this.)  Instead of religion being a powerful force, it could easily be seen as a crutch.  It’s like that saying: If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Consider something called survivorship bias.  Dr. Garrett indicates that he’s never seen someone that far gone come back.  How many of those other patients had family members and friends praying for them?  Maybe we’re to believe that Joyce is just better at it.  It’s because of her sheer willpower that God let John live.

One might say that this was all a way to let Joyce shine and show her faith.  She gets to tell everyone that God will take care of it.  Maybe it was to show her to tone it down a bit.  She is at odds with a lot of people, including the pastor.  It’s easier for me to believe that it was all random.  To put that much stock in faith undercuts the work that medical professionals do.  John is lucky to be alive and to have parents that love him.  I just don’t think that God was ever part of it.

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Major League (1989)

There’s something about a comeback/underdog story that everyone can relate to.  We’ve all had situations where we were really bad at something, yet had the desire to be much better.  Maybe you’ve wished you could draw realistic pictures.  Perhaps you’ve wished you had a voice that could win Grammys or thought you could act your way through any movie or commercial they could throw at you.

Major League isn’t about any baseball team.  It’s about the worst baseball team in Major League Baseball which, in the movie’s universe, is the Cleveland Indians.  The team is owned by Rachel Phelps, who inherited it from her husband.  She’d like to move the team to Miami, but there’s that pesky contract with Cleveland.  She can’t just up and move.  I suppose she could sell the team, but that would be too easy.  Instead, she decides to use an escape clause.  If attendance falls below a certain point, she can get out of the contract.

To accomplish this, Phelps decides to rid the team of any player with talent.  She finds all sorts of players that should never see their way onto the field.  Some are good players, but are close to retirement.  Catcher Jake Taylor has knee issues.  Most aren’t good players.  Ricky "Wild Thing" Vaughn, for instance, is actually in prison when they try to recruit him.  He has a great arm, but seems to lack control over where the ball goes.

Managing the team is Lou Brown, who managed a minor league team.  It’s his job to make the bunch of losers and has-beens into a working team, or so Phelps would have him believe.  The better he does better, the worse she makes things for the team.  When they start winning, she takes away things like hot water or replaces a functional jet with a rundown plane.

When it comes to Brown’s attention what Phelps is doing, Brown tells the team.  This gives the team motivation to win as many games as they can so that they might get into the playoffs.  Which they do.  All the while, attendance climbs until The Indians are playing sold out games.  In the end, Phelps is denied her easy exit to the contract.

The Indian’s players are all actors.  (Charlie Sheen and Tom Berenger play Vaughn and Taylor, respectively.)  However, there are a good number of actual baseball players making cameos throughout the game.  Since the movie was released nearly 30 years ago, I’m not sure how recognizable man of the players are.  (I’m not a big baseball fan, so it’s difficult for me to judge how recognizable any of the players are.)

You don’t necessarily have to like baseball to enjoy the movie.  Most of the humor is derived from making the team work.  A lot of the players are at odds with each other.  One worships a deity named Jobu whereas another is Christian.  Several teammates don’t want to discourage offerings to Jobu, but can’t bring themselves to allow the sacrifice of an actual live chicken.

There are certain things you can assume about the movie.  I don’t feel bad mentioning that they do better the further along the movie goes.  It’s a comedy in which a baseball team ended the previous season dead last and the new owner wants them to do worse.  The announcer curses during a broadcast because he knows no one is listening.  Of course, they’re going to make it to the top.  That’s the way these things work.

On that note, you can also assume that it’s not exactly meant for children.  Probably the most objectionable part would be grown men standing around a locker room.  So, yeah.  You might want to hold off on letting your kids watch until they’re teenagers at least.

This is one of those movies that Comedy Central puts in its rotation every now and again.  It does seem to hold up over the years as it’s still relatable.  Many of the jokes are still funny.  I think the only thing that might be dated, aside from the other teams’ players, might be the stadiums’ advertising.  If you can catch it on Netflix, go for it.

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The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

Note:  This review is reposted from Epinions.

Some questions are hard to answer. What is reality? What is life? Why are we here? When a company creates a virtual reality, people have to start asking these questions. They create a rendition of the 1930s that’s a little off in terms of the colors, but otherwise seems real. There are seemingly real people who sleep in seemingly real beds and eat seemingly real food. A user can connect and take the identities of one of the characters.

Hannon Fuller, the man who created the system, figures out something incredibly disturbing. It’s so disturbing that he has to leave a note for Douglas Hall, one of his employees, in the system. The problem is that Hall is suspected of Fuller’s death. There’s a period of a couple of hours that he can’t remember, which puts doubt in his mind.

So, he goes into the system to find the note. Thing is that the guy he gave it to isn’t telling. He also finds out that Fuller had a daughter and that the daughter is here to shut down the project, as per Fuller’s wishes. Thing is that no one knew that Fuller had a daughter or that he wanted to shut down the project. After all the hard work that they put into it, why shut it down?

There are a lot of implications for a machine like that. There are some positives, like using it for training. Tweak the physics a little and you give police a chance to train in situations without risking death. You could also have virtual vacations if you perfected it. You would also have your own virtual playground, which could be a good or bad thing, depending on the user. (Imagine a virtual-reality Grand Theft Auto or interactive adult films.)

It does bring up the question of ‘being’ someone else. In the movie, the people generally assume the identities of people that look like them. However, you could put someone in the body of someone different. Someone could find out what it’s like to be bound to a wheelchair or what it’s like to be a minority. Those questions aren’t really dealt with in the movie. It's primarily a murder mystery. Did Hall really do it? If not, who did? You even get a twist midway through the movie.

Reality isn’t always what it seems. It’s also not all that it’s cracked up to be. The characters in the program go about their lives not knowing that they’re in a simulation. However, when one finds out, they begin to question what reality is. I have to give the movie credit for taking something that other books and movies have done and exploring it a little more. The movie gets four stars.

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