This Weeks New Releases For Home Viewing

Well not a great week for new releases. Two of significance.

PAWN SACRIFICE
Directed by Edward Zwick
Screenplay by Steven Knight; Stephen J Rivele; and Christopher Wilkinson
Starring Tobey McGuire; Live Schreiber; and Peter Saarsgard



Set during the Cold War, American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer (McGuire) finds himself caught between two superpowers and his own struggles as he challenges the Soviet Chess Champion (Schreiber).

Hmmmmmm. A film about playing chess. Okay. Sounds boring. However it puts the chess game right into the middle of a tense time and place. This makes the chess game more stressful and it worked.
Other than the chess match, I really did not care about Bobby Fischer. Yes, he clearly and sadly had mental issues, it seems to be paranoia and over the top obsessive compulsive behavior. Still it went ignored by all around him because he was thrown into, or threw himself into the middle of political situation. This makes it difficult to watch. Fischer is so unlikable it makes the film feel .....trying to find the right word...ugly I guess. Yes Fischer had many a mental issue, and those issues are going unchecked, so I can only go with who he is in the film and that is....a jerk with a huge ego. And again it makes the film very agitating.
Positives? The acting was spot on. Schreiber, as the Russian champ, and Saarsgard as an almost handler of Fischer  were really good in their roles playing off the paranoid McGuire in a real soft calming way.

During the credits, sadly you see the Bobby Fisher never really changed or got help for his many issues. It is just an unlikable film 2 stars out of 5.


PAN
Directed by Joe Wright
Screenplay by Jason Fuchs
Starring Hugh Jackman; Levi Miller; Garret Hedlund; Amanda Seyfried; and Rooney Mara



12-year-old orphan Peter (Miller) is spirited away to the magical world of Neverland, where he finds both fun and danger, and ultimately discovers his destiny -- to become the hero who will be forever known as Peter Pan.

This film is a mess.
It is dark, starting with an orphanage and then an island of kids looking for pixie dust or something.
It is just a mess, dark for kids and boring for adults. The story is awful. Jackman looks like he stepped out of some broadway show singing in a costume that is as ridicules as his character. He even breaks out in Nirvanna song. Yes you read that right, him and children singing Nirvanna music. This is a bad story and a bad look. The director Joe Wright (maybe he was trying to be anotherr Baz Luhrman} who last directed the awful Anna Karenina, seems to have become all style and no story, and here the style is too dark. He should never be given a boatload of money to spend again, maybe he is better, aka when he directed Pride And Predjudice, with films on a smaller scale.
The good:
 Levi Miller as Peter is pretty good.
Rooney Mari as Tiger Lilly is really good. The movie was criticized by a group upset that she, a Caucasian, got the part ahead of a Native American. This is ridiculous on two parts: A Native American does not mean a Native Neverlander. Plus...this group should be happy a Native American is not involved in this mess.
Amanda Seyfried as Wendy is very good in a small part.

1 1/2 out of 5 stars only because of the above three performances. A big budget bomb.

As always thanks for for your time ...from the shadows.