Solo: A Star Wars Story

Have you been searching for answers? Wandering and wondering how Han Solo got his name? How Han met Chewbacca? How they became such tight friends? How and why Han became a pilot? And how he came to possess the Millennium Falcon starship?

If you've answered, "yes" to these questions, then you're in luck. All the answers are in the origin movie Solo, which takes you far away and long ago to a galaxy that's in even more trouble than our own.

Actor Alden Ehrenreich does an admirable job of playing the young man who grew up to be  Harrison Ford. Funny, but at this stage he looks and acts more like a young Jack Nicholson. No bad. Jack was always such great fun.

The movie isn't great fun, but with popcorn it's fun enough with lots of inventive aliens and lovable robots.

Deadpool 2: DOA

In the beginning, aka 2016, there was Deadpool, the action-movie protagonist who proclaimed "I may be super, but I'm no hero."

The movie was a mega box office smash. And in the end we were forewarned when he said, "Till next time." So now we have Deadpool 2, the vastly inferior sequel. It's everything the original movie was, but way, way less. Less funny. Less involving. A lot less interesting.

But It still has Ryan Reynolds as the smart-alecky anti-hero in top-to-toe red spandex. And he's still far more appealing than he was as the lead in a musical (La La Land), who couldn't sing or dance. So don't blame him for this dud. As Deadpool tells us in the remake, "That's just lazy writing."  

The Book Club: The Write Fluff

In 1982, Penelope Russianoff wrote a ground-breaking self-help book titled Why Do I Think I Am Nothing Without A Man?

If only the gals in The Book Club read that book instead of the "50 Shades of Grey" trilogy. Then we could have had a smart, funny flick.

But no, these gals, played by Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candace Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen, who range in age from 65 to 81 in real life (photos appear younger thanks to Photoshop and surgeons' scalpels), choose to revert to giggly teens in search of prom dates.

If you get the idea The Movie Slut wasn't keen on this flick, you're right. Perhaps she could have survived the retrogressive plot if the jokes were funnier. Still many in the audience laughed out loud. Go figure.

Pope Francis: A Man of his Word

Evolution. Science. Fact. Choice. Bridges. Not Walls.
These are words you might be surprised to hear from the holiest man in the Roman Catholic church. But you'll hear them along with more expected ones like love, faith, and kindness, if you buy a tic for this enlightening doc.

You'll find yourself hopscotching around the word with the plain-spoken pontiff as he addresses audiences that dwarf even Obama's inauguration crowd. You'll accompany him to a prison in Philadelphia, a children's hospital in Africa, a shipwreck off the coast of Italy where refugees fleeing war and poverty lose their lives seeking freedom. The Pope plunges himself into places of human suffering, which might make this the saddest movie you'll ever see.

You'll also learn about St. Francis of Assisi, whose name this pope chose because, like the saint, he rejects the trappings of wealth. Economic disparity is high on his list of the most pressing 21st-century problems. As is the ravaging of our planet.

"We are still living on the planet upside down," he says, "as if we were its masters, not its caretakers."

Beast: The Other Jersey Girl

"You're wounded. I can help you," Pascal tells Moll the first time the future lovers meet.
We know he's talking about more than her hand, bloodied when she used it to crush splintered glass.

Soon you're wondering who is the wounded one.

Beast takes place on the British Island of Jersey where it was also filmed. And there's a claustrophobic sensation of being trapped.

Is it that feeling you get when you paid to see a movie and think you have to stick it out no matter what?

Maybe.

 Certainly the couple sitting behind the Movie Slut chuckling and whispering randomly were not into it.

On the other hand, you might be riveted by the sensational actors (Jessie Buckley & Johnny Flynn), and eerie, twisty drama. There's a serial killer on the loose. Could it be one of the lovers?

One thing's for sure. You won't leave the theater whistling, "Hey there Jersey Girl." Or any other tune.

Disobedience: What's Love Got To Do With It?

Love and choice, duty and honor. These are the building blocks of this beautiful movie about three people whose lives become intertwined despite their efforts to keep them apart.

Ronit (Rachel Weisz) returns home to London for the funeral of her father, the Rabbi of an Orthodox Jewish synagogue. She left the religious community years ago and leads a secular life in New York. The obituary in the local newspaper doesn't mention her existence. That stings. She loved her father despite having to abandon his way of life, which she found stifling.

In his last sermon shortly before his death, the Rabbi spoke of freedom and choice. And although these ideas are inherent to this movie, in the end, it's love that makes it possible for them to flourish.

That's all The Movie Slut will say about this movie, which surprised her with its moving message.

Isle of Dogs: Bow Wow WOW!

In Wes Anderson's fictional city of Megasaki, evil, cat-fancying, dog-detesting Mayor Kobayashi  exiled all canines to a hellish heap known as Trash Island. Spots, his 12-year-old ward Atari's beloved pet and trusted guard dog, was the first to go.

And so our hero embarks on a Homeric odyssey to find the loyal Spots and save him from the horrors on Trash Island. Along the way he meets an army of scruffy pups, voiced by the likes of Liev Schreiber, Scarlett Johansson, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, etc., etc., etc.

The manipulative mayor's political rivals are members of the Science Party, who've discovered that he brainwashed and fear-mongered the people into believing their dogs were sick and dangerous.

Full disclosure: The Movie Slut had an epically awesome pup named Spot, who was the love of her life when she was growing up. Could that be why she adored this film? Or was it the clever, fun dialogue, the beautiful painted scenery, or the message, which resonates given our real world dilemma:

"Who are we?" Atari's friend asks. "And what do we want to be?"

RBG: A Supreme flick

"You have to see this movie!" a woman in the lobby shouted into her cell as she was leaving the theater. "It's about the Supreme Court Justice."

Ruth Bader Ginsberg, the soft-spoken, steely-minded gal from Brooklyn, has become The Notorious RBG with mugs, T-shirts, socks, and now, a documentary sporting her image and initials.

How she became the champion of gender equality, both before and after she arrived at the highest court in the land, is only part of this winning doc. Viewers are also invited to meet the love of her life, her husband, who put her career before his. (What a man, what a man...Salt-N-Pepa.)

In appearances, women's rights champion Gloria Steinem calls Ginsberg a superhero and Kate McKinnon parodies her on SNL. There's serious stuff, too: the cases she brought before the Supreme Count as a lawyer and the ones she heard as one of the country's top judges.

As the woman in the lobby said, "You have to see this movie."

Tully: Domestic Dis

You've seen Bad Moms and Bad Moms 2 and Bad Moms, the Christmas Movie.
Now you can see Sad Mom. Or is it Mad Mom, as in she's lost it?

Tully is not a movie for anyone contemplating motherhood. In fact, it might be the best contraceptive since, well, ever.

Still, it's an engrossing movie, beautifully acted by Charlize Theron in a fatsuit.

We meet her on the verge of giving birth to her third child. We experience the birth and chaos that ensues. There's been some push back about this movie from the PC police, something having to do with depiction of mental health problems.

The Movie Slut chooses not to generalize. Instead she sees this as a story about one woman working through a tough time in her life in a rather unique way. As they say, "It's all good."