Movie Review: Pressure

World War II is the most written about and important event in human history. This war caused the deaths of 74-82 million people (military and civilian) and changed the direction of the world, focusing on preventing a tragedy like this from ever happening again.

Now, 81 years after the end of that horrendous war, a new World War II movie, "Pressure", has been released about the decisions regarding weather for the Normandy Invasion, which occurred on June 6, 1945. The Normandy Invasion is the largest military invasion in human history, including 326,000 troops, 5000 ships, and 13,000 aircraft. Without this invasion's success 81 years ago, the Allies would not have won the war, or it would have taken more years and many more lives.

General Dwight Eisenhower, played very well by Brendan Fraser, had the weight of the entire world on his shoulders when he was put in charge of a huge logistical nightmare of an enormous invasion in the hope of ending the worst war in history. One of the most important decisions was to decide when to invade, based on favorable weather conditions. Eisenhower hired Meteorologist James Stagg (Andrew Scott) to use the comparatively low-level science of the time, which included no satellites and computers, while using surface weather stations, weather balloons, radar, air mass (front) theory, and mathematical forecasting.

The current Meteorologist on Eisenhower's staff, Irving Krick, (Chris Messina), was using weather patterns from years or decades ago to try to predict weather that was going to happen in a few days, while Stagg believed in a much more scientific approach that was by far more accurate. The huge arguments between Krick and Stagg are some of the best parts of this movie. The story of this film made it amazing to realize that the success of the most important invasion in history and the lives of 326,000 men was the result of the scientific genius of James Stagg and his refusal to tell Eisenhower and his staff, "what they wanted to hear" about invading on June 5th. More importantly, there was the miracle last-minute discovery of a small window of time that made an invasion on June 6 possible, despite the arrival of two major storms. This discovery was only plausible because of the final agreement and collaboration between Stagg and Krick.

Much like the movie "Hidden Figures", released in 2016, this movie reveals to the world a person we all should have known about for decades. Without the genius of Katherine Johnson, NASA would have never made it into space, and without the genius of James Stagg, the world might have never been able to defeat Germany in World War II.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating for this movie of 85% is night high enough for such an important movie about World War II. My rating is 95%, and a very strong recommendation to see this outstanding film.

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu

As the table below shows, the Star Wars movie franchise that started in 1977 with the groundbreaking "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" is the most lucrative franchise in the history of movies. This amazing science fiction idea has also created another 17 TV series and another five Star Wars Lego series.

The new Star Wars film, the first in seven years, "The Mandalorian and Grogu" stars Pedro Pascal as the Mandalorian and Grogu as baby Yoda. Grogu is such a cute character of Yoda that it has added more life to a series that is now almost 50 years old and seems to be still going strong.

The problem with this new movie is the same as with other movies like this one. "We do not care about creating a great story and screenplay first; we only care about creating great special effects and then retrofitting a story around the effects". This movie is once again about name recognition and not about an entertaining story. This is a decision entirely based on making money and not entertaining the audience. I also found too much of these 2+ hours surprisingly boring, especially towards the end. One of the best reviews says it all, Rachit Gupta "Even the franchise's lesser entries have understood that without real stakes, there is no real story. The Mandalorian and Grogu is the first film in the history of this franchise to forget that entirely."

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are an understandably low 63%, with my rating only 50% and a recommendation only for the most rabid Star Wars fans.

Star Wars Movies

Movie	Year	Critics	Gross	Profit
SW IV – A New Hope	1977	94%	$775M	$350M
SW V – Empire Strikes Back	1980	95%	$549M	$220M
SW VI – Return of Jedi	1983	83%	$482M	$180M
SW I – Phantom Menace	1999	51%	$1.027B	$450M
SW II – Attack of Clones	2002	65%	$653M	$250M
SW III – Revenge of Sith	2005	79%	$868M	$400M
Clone Wars	2008	18%	$68M	$5M
SW VII – Force Awakens	2015	93%	$2.07B	$780M
Rogue One	2016	84%	$1.06B	$320M
SW VIII – Last Jedi	2017	91%	$1.33B	$420M
Solo	2018	69%	$393M	-$75M
SW IX – Rise of Skywalker	2019	51%	$1.07B	$300M
GRAND TOTAL			$10.345B	~$3.6B

Movie Review: The Sheep Detective

One could easily say that the new movie "The Sheep Detectives" could be a movie for kids, with the talking, cute CGI sheep. However, there are scenes of someone being killed and a sheep being attacked by dogs and eventually killed in this movie, so for those reasons, I do not recommend this movie for children.

The Sheep Detectives stars Hugh Jackman and Emma Thompson, with many known celebrities providing the voices of the sheep. Regina Hall, Brett Goldstein, Bryan Cranston, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and Patrick Stewart. After about 20 minutes, this movie turns into a whodunit crime story, with the talking sheep taking over the investigation after it is clear that the ineffective sheriff did not know what he was doing. I thought that the investigation and complex solution to the crime were well done, with some humor with the sheep, also well done.

I am surprised at the very high 97% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, with so many well-known actors agreeing to make this movie, which is only an above-average idea and screenplay. My rating is 80% with a mild recommendation.