Binkconn

For families that grew up living on a farm in California in the forties and fifties this is a beautiful reminder of that simple kind of life with a young girl's devotion to her wild colt. The horse that plays Gypsy has a remarkable intuition for screen acting, and Donna Corcoran is touching as his devoted owner fighting to be reunited with him when that wretch Lee Van Cleef takes him away. A lovely time capsule of a more innocent time and values.

When did I see the first one? Last year or five years ago? Even with a moviegoer just feeling like George Bailey during the alternate reality sequence of "It's A Wonderful Life" just looking for a nice multiplex seat to take a snooze in to avoid his numbing alcoholic neighbors, the movie is such a loosely-connected series of callbacks to events and characters you sort of remember that it really doesn't matter if it exists or not. It's nice Newman from Seinfeld got on Ozempic and I liked Matthew Lillard's familiar yell like when Syd dropped the tv on him in "Scream," but when Skeet Ulrich comes off like Brando in your film you know you've reached the absolute unnecessity of franchise development. Maybe Mogambo is playing on TCM. Please, God, please. Happy new year!

I appreciate the concept of a comedy homage to "Anaconda," and with Jack Black in the cast there's a definite "Be Kind Rewind" sort of meta-conceptualism at work, but dear Lord without a JLo descending ladders, bent over tending to Eric Stoltz and being the only reason to keep one's subscription to the SyFy network and Jon Voight's gonzo German bounty hunter pissing off Kari Wurher and getting elbowed in the face by Ice Cube this just doesn't make the cut in my little book. But it does have Paul Rudd working his cute schtick and not responding to some extra on one of his films who suggests to Steve Coogan when he asks about good local spas with a look that Mike gave to Fredo at the Havana new year's eve party right before he gave him the kiss of death (Paul fakes cute and caring real well), so there's always that til the next failed Ghostbusters reboot. Happy holidays everybody, God bless!