Ricky Miller, Entertainment Editor
| August 4, 2023
The death of Paul Reubens, aka Pee-wee Herman, shocked many in the entertainment world when it was announced July 31. According to various published reports, Reubens waged a private battle with cancer for years.
Pee-wee Herman made me laugh. Everything about Reuben’s iconic child-like character made me smile. Tim Burton’s celebrated movie, “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” made me chuckle and laugh like a little kid. Pee-wee embarked on a wild U.S. adventure to recover his beloved stolen bicycle in that one, even stopping in San Antonio to check out a clue that it was hidden in the Alamo.
Ricky Miller, Entertainment Editor
| July 31, 2023
I liked the comic-fantasy “Barbie” and I had fun. But to me it’s just forgettable fodder. Parents should be warned, it’s a stringent PG-13. There are double entendres. I’d recommend it for kids 13 and older, as the rating states.
Margot Robbie had fun in the role of Stereotypical Barbie. It’s a change of pace for her and far removed from Robbie’s gutter-mouth performances as Harley Quinn in both versions of “The Suicide Squad” in 2016 and 2021.
Ricky Miller, Entertainment Editor
| July 25, 2023
“Oppenheimer” is my event movie of the summer. I couldn’t care less about superhero shenanigans in the fictional world. Part of the reason it’s my event movie is that it’s directed and co-written by Christopher Nolan, a five-time Oscar nominee known for “Tenet,” “Dunkirk” and three recent Batman adventures.
Ricky Miller, Entertainment Editor
| July 18, 2023
It’s amazing that Tom Cruise at 61 can still run around acting like he has no cares in the world like a 30-year-old man. On top of that he insists on doing the majority of his own stunt work. It’s ironic that in “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One” we see Kittridge, played by Henry Czerny, return as one of Ethan Hunt’s (Cruise) adversaries.
Ricky Miller, Entertainment Editor
| July 11, 2023
Veteran actor, director and producer Alan Arkin died June 29 at 89 after a long, varied career. He is probably best known for his Oscar-winning role in the comic-drama “Little Miss Sunshine” in 2006. Arkin portrayed Edwin Hoover, the title character’s profanity-prone grandfather.
Ricky Miller, Entertainment Editor
| June 19, 2023
With certain movies, I’ve become a big dork. I relish the fact that the technology has come along in a certain way so that filmmakers elicit a response of pure joy for me.
I love the color palette of the animated action-adventure “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” because what they did this time around actually duplicates the efforts of the Oscar-winning “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” of 2018.
The story begins in 1719 in the Northern Great Plains (Montana, South Dakota, Wyoming and Canada.) “Prey” opens with Comanche dialogue; viewers actually have the choice of swapping between the Comanche dubbed language and English.
That luxury would work for those wanting to experience the accuracy that the narrator telling the story that happened 300 years ago, this is an original idea the scenery was also a nice touch as it appears to touch base with the realism of the timepiece.
Ricky Miller, Entertainment Editor
| September 23, 2022
“Prey” is part of Predator universe, wherein aliens from another universe hunt for other life forms. At the center of this tale is Naru (Amber Midthunder), a Native American of Comanche descent who wants more out of life.
The directing chores for “Prey” were handled by Dan Trachtenberg, who called the shots on “10 Cloverfield Lane” in 2016.
Ricky Miller, Entertainment Editor
| February 15, 2018
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will honor lesser-known films in the technical categories leading up to the big winners on Sunday, March 4.
Ricky Miller, Entertainment Editor
| February 14, 2017
This year’s Oscar contest is proving to be yet another tight race - with only one winner. In the best actor category, there is Denzel Washington as a brutal father in “Fences,” Andrew Garfield as a soldier with honor in Mel Gibson’s “Hacksaw Ridge,” and Viggo Mortensen’s patriarchal hippie father in “Captain Fantastic.”
