Movie: Tony

In July 2021, the documentary film "Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain" was released and was an impressive film with actual film footage about the later life and suicide of Anthony Bourdain, who passed in June 2018 at 61. It was suggested during many of the later scenes that Bourdain might have killed himself over the Italian actress and filmmaker, Asia Argento, after they broke up a year earlier and she was with another man, although this reason for his suicide has never been verified. Perhaps another reason could have been the exhausting demands of his TV show, “Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown”, in which Bourdain travelled the world non-stop for years, visiting some of the world's poorest countries.

The new movie "Tony" is about Bourdain's (Dominic Sessa) extremely unlikely start at 18. He wanted to be a writer and applied for a writers' fellowship at Vassar College, which he did not get. What followed was Bourdain falling into a life-threatening depression and getting a desperate job as a dishwasher at a run-down restaurant in Provincetown, Massachusetts, so he could sleep on a hammock on the restaurant owner's (Antonio Banderas) porch. This one unlikely event, which was caused by a series of insane circumstances in the life of a homeless, depressed, and desperate young man, led to Bourdain becoming one of the most well-known chefs in the world. Bourdain also wrote the book "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly", which sold millions of copies.

This story also has a sub-story about a love interest with Bourdain moving to Provincetown to follow Nancy (Emilia Jones), who he later discovers has a boyfriend. Emilia Jones was the star of the outstanding movie CODA, which won the Academy Award in 2022. There are numerous conflicts and fights mainly stemming from another co-worker, Sal (Leo Woodall), and his drinking and drug use.

The best part of this movie is the scenes where Bourdain slowly starts to appreciate the art that comes with being a great chef with the help of the owner of the restaurant, who becomes his mentor. Eventually, Tony Bourdain gives up his ambitions of becoming a writer to become a great chef, later changing his first name to Anthony.

Tony is a very good biographical movie about life, and how directions can change, based on the most unlikely circumstances. Tony is getting very high 95% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, with my rating at 90% and a solid recommendation.

Movie Review: The End of Oak Street

"The End of Oak Street" is one of the very few movies involving dinosaurs chasing and killing people, aside from the seven Jurassic Park films. When it comes to dinosaurs, with no exception, there will be scenes with people running for their lives and being eaten alive.

This new movie has the interesting idea of a small town in the 1980's that transports through a portal of time back to millions of years ago, where dinosaurs dominate the planet Earth. This is, of course, completely crazy, but it sets the stage for highly unusual scenes of people running for their lives and being attacked and killed by a number of different dinosaurs around a normal lower-class neighborhood.

This film stars Anne Hathaway (Denise Platt) and Ewan McGregor (Greg Platt), who are having relationship problems with hints of a possible divorce. They have two children, Brian Platt (Christian Convery) and Audrey Platt Maisy Stella. In terms of character development and any complex story, understandably, this is not that kind of movie.

The first 20 percent of this film is just setup for the run for your life rest of the story. My main problem with this movie is that there are too many scenes where the characters do things that nobody would ever do in real life. The worst one is Brian leaving the protection of his house to chase after his dog, with giant man-eating dinosaurs running all over the neighborhood. Obviously, nobody would ever do this. There was one shocking scene that seemed way out of place in this film, where two dinosaurs are mating. This scene should have been cut from this movie, including the selfie that Denise takes of her husband standing in front of the mating dinosaurs. What were they thinking with this scene?

The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 84% for this film is mostly correct, with my rating at 80% and a mild recommendation, mainly for some of the impressive special effects.

Movie Review: The Brink of War

This movie, "The Brink of War", much like the recent film, "The Invite," is entirely dialogue. The logline: "As the Cold War threatens to erupt into nuclear catastrophe, President Ronald Reagan meets Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavík for a historic summit, where two deeply distrustful adversaries must overcome political pressure, military hardliners, and their own convictions to decide whether the world moves toward peace—or annihilation" , reminds everybody who is old enough how dire the Cold War was in 1986; we were at the brink of war.

This movie was at times boring; however, the conversations between Ronald Reagan (Jeff Daniels) and Mikhail Gorbachev (Jared Harris) were fascinating as they both tried to negotiate to eliminate half of their nuclear weapons and then tried to destroy all of the nuclear weapons in the world. The major roadblock that caused the most disagreements was Ronald Reagan's ambition to create something called SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative), which would provide a shield in space to completely cover the United States in the event of any Nuclear War. Gorbachev thought that the United States could be in a position to destroy the Soviet Union without worry of any retribution if it had a shield to protect its country. After they had made the decision to eliminate all nuclear weapons, the SDI argument came at the end and ruined the entire negotiation.

One major acting standout in this story is J.K. Simmons, who plays George Shultz, Reagan's Secretary of State. Shultz provides some of the best comments during the negotiations and has some great moments, pointing out the insanity of nuclear war and two countries having so many weapons to kill each other so many times over.

The one miracle that happened at the end of the negotiations, after all the agreements failed, was a very small and subtle agreement between Reagan and Gorbachev that set the stage for future trust between Reagan and Gorbachev. What followed in the next few years changed everything between the United States and the Soviet Union. In December 1987, Reagan and Gorbachev met in Washington and signed the INF treaty that eliminated an entire class of nuclear missiles along with verification procedures.

In May-June 1988, Reagan went to Moscow, and during another meeting with Gorbachev, Reagan stated that he no longer considered the Soviet Union an evil empire. In November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and finally, in December 1989, the Cold War was essentially over. All of this stemmed from the meeting in Reykjavik in 1986, which was at first considered a failure, but in reality was the first step in finally eliminating the Cold War.

The Brink of War is a very well-acted and important history movie, which is a great movie for history buffs. As a history movie, I rank it a solid 85%. As a regular movie, I rank it around 80%, with the Rotten Tomatoes rating of 65% too low.