The Ray Pletcher Blog

  It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. A hundred years ago life was exciting and full of romance but it was also a time of horrors. And so from the mind of Taylor Sheridan comes the prequel to the critically acclaimed Kevin Costner drama Yellowstone (a show which I still haven’t seen) entitled 1923 . The series stars Harrison Ford and Helen Mirren and follows them as they lead the Dutton family through a time of hardships including Western Expansion, Prohibition, and the Great Depression, in the vast beautiful yet harsh landscape of Montana. Billed as a two-season only show with each season set to consist of eight episodes, the series premiere or pilot as you call it recently debuted and it didn’t disappoint in the least.      The novelty of having Harrison Ford as the lead star of a TV show is not lost on me. In recent years we have continually seen the lines between film and TV blurred so much that there is practically no line. So the only explanation behind Sheridan

  Avatar: The Way of Water is a beautifully shot and breathtaking Titanic-sized epic that at its core is a family drama. That and a story about the environment. Director James Cameron ( True Lies , Titanic ) saw to that from the lush green forest environments to the depths of the awe-inspiring oceans of Pandora. All of that however is threatened by the formidable Stephen Lang who reprises his role as a U.S. Marine that commands his forces into battle against the Na’vi race with his old nemesis at the top of that kill list: Jake Sully.    Sam Worthington excels here, reprising the role of Sully from the original Avatar alongside Zoe Saldana as his wife Neyitiri as they raise a family on Pandora. At first I wasn’t sure if I was gonna be all that invested in watching mostly “blue people” for an entire three plus hour movie but I quickly found myself engaged by the performers and the dynamics between the Sully family were fun and very relatable to watch play out. And when that family is

   "It's not the years honey, it's the mileage." This is what Indiana Jones said to Marion Ravenwood in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) after she tells him, "You're not the man I knew ten years ago." And this sentiment that age is just a state of mind couldn't ring more true as Harrison Ford, 80 is set to reprise the iconic role next summer in what will truly be Indiana Jones's last crusade. “It’s full of adventure, full of laughs, full of real emotion. And it’s complex and it’s sneaky,” Harrison Ford tells Empire . Stepping back into the world of Indy was no mean feat. “The shooting of it was tough and long and arduous,” he says. “But I’m very happy with the film that we have.” That's the word on the street from Ford who aims to bring back the same level of ambition that he brought to the role in the beginning to service the people who go to see his movies who he sees as "his customers, not fans."   Directed this time by James Mango

  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a powerful and moving experiential event that honors the memory of the late Chadwick Boseman while also moving the story of Wakanda forward. Beautifully crafted by director Ryan Coogler, he tells a story filled with both high emotional and external stakes in a manner that is exciting and grandiose in scale while also deeply heartfelt. Before Boseman’s tragic and sudden death Coogler was all set to make a movie about T’Challa dealing with his own sense of loss in the sense of his loss of time post him returning from the Blip in Avengers: Endgame . And in fact Coogler had been in the middle of writing the sequel with Boseman in mind as he imagined the story when the news broke of the actor’s much too abrupt passing. So when Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige decided that the role of T’Challa would not be recast, Coogler had to find a way forward to explore the world and characters of the first film as a way to honor the legacy that Boeseman helped build.

  The game is afoot as Enola and Sherlock Holmes come stomping back onto the scene in this riveting follow-up to the original Enola Holmes . Millie Bobby Brown and Henry Cavill reprise their respective roles in a tale that follows the two detectives as they join forces after their separate cases turn out to be connected leading them to unravel a dangerous conspiracy that will shake London to its core. I myself just saw the first entry in Netflix’s take on the Sherlock Holmes universe last weekend and was immediately captivated by the characters and the world in which they inhabited. So when I returned to that land yet again, I found myself escaping into that rich story world all over again. Enola Holmes 2 is a film filled to the brim with crackling dialogue, characters that jump off the screen, mystery, visceral action sequences, romance, and intrigue. Thus it is a caper that packs quite a punch and is guaranteed to knock your socks off.    In many ways this film harkens back in tone