Everybody faces reality, and Auggie’s a true Wonder for so many

Nate and Isabel Pullman know they have something special with their son Auggie. The kid’s a true delight marching around in his NASA astronaut helmet, brandishing his love for space travel, Star Wars, video games, all things science. And, by the way, masking his facial deformities that came at birth, improved some by numerous operations,…

You can’t help but feel bullish for Ferdinand

It’s a good thing when a family movie gets it exactly right. Get the bigs and littles together for a feel-good viewing of Ferdinand, why don’t you? The bull who first made a name for himself in the picture-book world of Munro Leaf turned into an Oscar-winning short by Walt Disney some 80 years ago…

You can’t fix silly, not even on NetFlix

I thought I’d sworn off anything and everything that boasted of Adam Devine in a major role, what after that major turkey he’d turned in with Zac Efron as brothers out of control in the is-that-really-a-comedy Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates. I know, my fault for watching that on Blu-Ray. But then I had…

It’s hard to remain stoic for Only the Brave

Only the Brave was ripped from the news. So anybody who followed the the course of the Yarnell Fire of 2013 or the GQ story No Exit by Sean Flynn from which this screenplay by Ken Nolan and Eric Warren Singer was fashioned would know what’s to come. But still … The drama of that…

Sometimes you’ve gotta be more than Lucky, Logan decides

With the NASCAR drivers going round and round again, it’s a good time to pick Logsn Lucky off the Blu-Ray racks if you haven’t yet given this rollicking comedy/crime-drama a look-see yet. Directed by Steven Soderbergh from a screenplay by Rebecca Blunt, this slice of American southern culture tips its hat to the racing lifestyle…

Tom Cruise grabs ahold of this American Made tale and soars with it

Tom Cruise is cocky as Barry Seal, in all of the pilot’s true or written-for-the-big-screen’s bravado, brillance, cunning and culpability. American Made, as directed by Doug Lyman from a screenplay by Gary Spinelli, is a taken-from-the-1980s adventure that spins fast and furious over the skies that span the U.S. south and foreign fields that yield…

Reese Witherspoon settles comfortably into Home Again

Hollywood life has its bumps for Alice, the busy 40-year-old in the center of Home Again. She’s just separated from her music-industry mogul husband and moved back west with their two kids, into the home she grew up in with her big-shot movie producer dad before he split with her mom, married lots of other…