Movies Merica Van Ebert

It’s a retro review this week for Movies Merica with the political thriller “The Contender” that flew under the radar when it was released in 2000. It’s the story of a political figure that is going to shake things up in Washington D.C. in a way many D.C. power players don’t want. As a result, those power players launch an all-out legal and media assault on them to drive them out of D.C. Sound familiar? Joan Allen plays Laine Hanson who is picked as a replacement for the Vice President to Jef...

It’s been 9 years that we’ve been waiting for director George Miller to make another Mad Max movie. We’ll have to keep waiting because he still hasn’t made a Mad Max movie with the new movie, Furiosa. In the 2015 smash hit Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa was really a co-lead character with Mad Max ironically enough given Mad Max is literally in the movie title. As a result, the assumption by some is that the world was begging for a Furiosa origins movie and now they get it. Furiosa stars Anya Tay...

John Krasinski is most famously known for playing Jim Halpert on “The Office.” However, he’s also a movie director. His last two movies, “A Quiet Place” and “A Quiet Place Part II”, were ones that would give kids nightmares. In his latest movie, “If”, he tries to take them, and their parents, to a happy place instead. “If” is the story of Bea, a 12 year old girl that has gone through a tragedy and is staring a potential one head on. Her Dad is going through surgery for a heart problem. ...

We’ve been getting Planet of the Apes movies for decades now and the latest installment is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. This installment jumps many generations into the future after the events of the last Apes movie, 2017’s War for the Planet of the Apes. We meet the main character of this installment, Noa, and his friends and family. They’re part of a peaceful ape clan who raise eagles as part of their tradition. On the eve of Noa’s bonding ceremony with his eagle, murderous invaders l...

Movie stars are made to look heroic, awesome, tough and gritty in their movies and who makes them look that way? Stunt men and women. The Fall Guy is a love letter to the stunt community within the movie business directed by former stuntman David Leitch. It’s of course also a take on the hit 1980s Lee Majors TV show of the same name. This time it’s Ryan Gosling playing Colt Seaver as a Hollywood stuntman who moonlights as a detective of sorts. Colt is the stuntman for the biggest movie star i...

I go back to 1994 for this week’s review. Specifically the epic, action-packed Arnold Schwarzenegger spy thriller True Lies. This was James Cameron teaming up again with his Terminator for this big budget, eye-popping spectacle. Schwarzenegger plays Harry Tasker who has his wife and daughter convinced that he’s just a dull to the bone computer salesman. In reality he’s a spy for the covert Omega Sector hunting down and stopping threats. Things get dicey when he hears something that makes him ...