Bolt

Another surprise. A relatively simple tale that takes some cues from movies such as The Matrix--or is it The Muttrix?--and The Incredible Journey turns out to be an insightful, funny and occasionally even moving story about a girl and her dog...and, oh by the way, Hollywood, which the film both admires and skewers at the same time and with equal amounts of feeling. Anyone who has ever had a pet can’t help but feel the tug of this picture's underlying story of a companion lost, so it’s no wonder the film would hit home with its audience. Add on to that foundation a clever script, strong vocal performances, and a major upgrade to the studio’s digital animation output (by this point Disney finally learned a thing or two from their Pixar cousins) and you wind up with a movie that probably deserves way more love than it seems to have gotten in its day and subsequently. Ironic though it may be, this is one movie about a dog that earns a long, loud PURR.

Bombshell (2019)

I can't resist the hot blonde chicks. Apparently, that was Roger Ailes' premise, too. He and Rupert Murdoch built a media juggernaut--and quite literally changed the world--using mostly the power of the flaxen-haired. This work would have you believe that Ailes was a tremendous creep, and that his media machinations happened at a tremendous cost to the well-formed mannequins employed by FOX News. The former premise seems plausible--though, as this movie itself makes clear, it's easy to cast a guy who was substantially less easy on the eyes than Megyn Kelly as a monster (I'm familiar with that reality myself). The latter premise is questionable, or at least this flick does not do a fully successful job of making that case. For certain, it does not raise the point of the Faustian bargain that these women made. It's hard to imagine that any gal grows up looking that attractive (Kelly and Gretchen Carlson are undeniably good-looking, regardless of their work as political spokesmodels) and doesn't know by the time she's 17 years old that doors open for her that would otherwise be closed to others less endowed by nature with looks (to say nothing of more or less talent). None of these women would have been there--and reaped years of benefits--without their looks, and what those looks meant to others (read: males) who employed or watched them. It also doesn't help that the movie's liberal viewpoint is bluntly apparent throughout (and voiced by Theron's Kelly, which comes across as somewhat false), and thereby distracts from what would otherwise be a more effective (dare one say, fair and balanced) indictment of Ailes and the whole operation. Oh, well--at least most of the scenes feature visuals that are nice to look at.