Hercules

Must Go
A rock solid adventure. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was born to play this role, after ten years in the gym. His performance is electrifying and we are still debating the question: is he a demigod?
The cast is wonderful. Starting with Ian Mc Shane. You remember him from Lovejoy or Deadwood (you motherfxx @!! czx@ sucker). He plays Amphiaraus a soothsayer who keeps predicting his own death. Herc does not let that happen in hilarious ways. Then we have Rufus Sewell from Masterpiece Mysteries “Zen”. How about a little John Hurt, you surely remember Mr. Ollivander the wand maker from Harry Potter. Okay the only thing we are missing is a great girl archer like Katniss Everdeen of the Hunger Games or Tauriel from the Hobbit. May I present, Atalanta (Ingrid Bolso Berdal) an Amazon warrior and a deadly killing machine with bow and arrow. Shooting three arrows at once and hitting three distinct targets. I am still missing several of the great cast members.
The story is solid. I love seeing large battle scenes. The first thing I think about is, “I wish I had the catering concession on this one!” Then I remember CGI and the Oompa Loompas from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – there may be only one.
Go see this movie.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

GO, Possible spoilers
This is much more than an action adventure movie.
I was listening to a review of the book The Third Chimpanzee. It claims that the DNA of humans and chimps is 98.4% alike. The main difference is the location of our voice box that allows us to communicate effectively which led to our writing and storing information for our future selves.
This leads us to the conclusion that if you find a talking chimp in the woods, maybe you better not shoot him! And when we supply them with guns we should not be surprised that they attempt to assassinate their leader. Evidently guns are bad for all of us.
The CGI in this movie is incredible, you will believe a chimp can ride a horse. I love the orangutans and the silverbacks. Andy Serkis (Gollum) as Caesar is tremendous and Koba (Toby Kebbell) is appropriately villainous.
Go, you will not be disappointed.

Begin Again

Go
Keira Knightley without her pirate costume. Totally delightful and she can sing! Not a strong voice but a very sweet voice. This Rom-Com is a pleasant uplifting break from action movies. It is primarily about the music scene and you will like all the characters especially Ceelo Green.

Edge of Tomorrow

Go
A good Tom Cruise movie, not as good as the Last Samurai but highly entertaining. The time loop will remind you of Groundhog Day and Ned the Head. It is pretty funny if you can laugh at Tom continually getting shot in the head to reset his day. I can.
The usual time travel troubles are missing mainly because he doesn’t go back that far in time.
A good Tom Cruise movie, not as good as the Last Samurai but highly entertaining.
A good Tom Cruise movie, not as good as the Last Samurai but highly entertaining. (oh oh!, sorry got caught in a time loop)

Spy Museum Seattle Center

NO GO
Tickets are $27 each really a rip off.
Where was the Sidney Reilly exhibit, the great British spy on whom James Bond was modeled on? Just one of his adventures was his assignment to Germany: He was sent to Essen, Germany in 1909 to monitor the vast growth of the German war machine. He devised a cover as a Baltic shipyard worker named Karl Khan secured a job as a welder in a Krupp armaments plant. His plan was to photograph the plant and its production output, but he realized that the drawing office was heavily guarded during the day. Instead he volunteered for the fire brigade which worked during the night shift. A few nights later, he strangled the head of the night security detail and incapacitated another security officer, thereby gaining access to the drawing room. In true Reilly fashion, rather than bothering with photographing the plans, he simply stole them, hopped a train and then a boat and evaded German agents as he escaped back to England.
He went on try to topple the Russian government and was caught and executed on November 25, 1925.
How can you show an Enigma Machine and not mention Alan Turing? Winston Churchill said that Turing made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in the war against Nazi Germany. Turing’s pivotal role in cracking intercepted coded messages enabled the Allies to defeat the Nazis in several crucial battles. He is also the father of the personal computer and developed the Turing Test an essential concept in the philosophy of artificial intelligence.
Died by suicide, June 7, 1954
There was no mention of Bletchley Park either, Britain’s center for espionage in World War 2. This exhibit should have been labeled “The American Spy Story” and should have included Julie Child!
She helped the OSS Emergency Sea Rescue Equipment Section to develop a shark repellent for underwater bombs, to prevent them from being detonated prematurely before they could hit Nazi vessels.
There was just too much missing from this exhibit to warrant spending $27 on it.