"The Marine 3: Homefront" with Mike Mizanin, Ashley Bell, Camille Sullivan, Neal McDonough, Michael
Eklund, Jared Keeso, Aleks Paunovic, Jeffrey Ballard, Paul Lazenby, Darcy Laurie
2013, Rated R for violence and language, 90 minutes
This movie has a good basic plot, and it's quite tense and action packed. "The Marine" (Mizanin) arrives
home on leave and finds his sister has been kidnapped along with her boyfriend and held hostage by a
domestic terrorist (McDonough) and his thugs who want to "send a message about greed" to "rich people"
by blowing some of them up. It would have been great, but it makes the police, the FBI, and a SWAT team
look like a bunch of grade school kids. They approach the terrorist's hideout, and the police and feds are
promptly mowed down nearly to a man, an impossible circumstance, for as Bryan mentioned, they would
have had snipers picking off the shooters in the hideout. For this reason, and despite the excellent acting,
we gave it just ★★★
"Little Otik" with Jan Hartl, Veronika Zilkova, Jaroslava Kretschmerova, Pavel Novy, Kristina Adamcova,
Dagmar Stribrna, Zdenek Kozak
From the Czech Republic, with subtitles, 2001, Not Rated, 126 minutes
This horror fairy tale is worthy of the Brothers Grimm, emphasis on the "grim." A barren couple (both of
them are sterile) go a little mad over their not being able to have children, so the husband digs up a tree root
and carves it into the shape of a baby, sort of. After a few months of the wife's pretending to care for her
"baby," it comes to life and begins to feed. It grows very large and hungry, and it eats the cat, the mailman,
and others. No one knows what happened to the people who disappeared. I won't reveal any more, except
to say that I'm pretty sure this is a bedtime story used to frighten children into obeying their parents. One of
the characters even reads the story aloud from a book as the plot unfolds. It was okay, and we gave it ★★★
Thanks very much. Mediocre movies, huh?
I”m tired tonight, are you?
Long conversation with my birthday son. He’s a happy guy. Praise God.
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Interesting movies, and excellent reviews. Thanks, TOL.