Richard Jewell is a movie based on a true story of the security guard who found the bomb that was planted  in Centennial Park at the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. While the movie endured some criticism regarding its portrayal of reporter Kathy Scruggs (Olivia Wilde), I found it to be an entertaining and enjoyable picture overall. The film starts by providing the audience with some background into the mindset of the movie’s namesake and main character, Richard Jewell (Peter Walter Hauser). Richard’s dream is to join law enforcement in some capacity, but he is unable to just dive into a job as a police officer immediately. The movie takes great care to establish his relationship with Watson Bryant (Sam Rockwell) early on as well, showing that Richard worked in his office at one point and was such a good employee that he went so far as to stock his drawers with Snickers bars. They then show that Richard left his job at Bryant’s office for security work at a university. While working at this university he “overachieved” in a way and ends up getting fired for overstepping the limits of his power. All of this background is included to set up Richard’s character as someone who dreams of being in law enforcement so much that he actually tries too hard to get there. When the 1996 Olympics come to Atlanta, Richard seizes the opportunity to be hired as a security guard. After a run in with some drunk teens, Richard notices a backpack is left under his security bench. He is the only one who considers it suspicious and insists that they call the “bomb guy” to check it out. Unfortunately for everyone at the concert, Richard’s suspicion proved correct; there was a bomb in the backpack. Thankfully, because he was able to alert the other security personnel, they were able to clear the immediately surrounding area and limit the damage to slightly over 100 injuries and 12 or 13 deaths I believe. Unfortunately for Richard, the FBI is not sold on the legitimacy of his heroics and start investigating him as the bomber. The controversy surrounding the movie comes from its depiction of how the story that the FBI was investigating Jewell got out. The movie shows Kathy Scruggs seducing an FBI agent (Jon Hamm) into telling her who the focus of the investigation is. The newspaper she worked for refute the validity of this portrayal, arguing there is no evidence to suggest that this ever happened. Regardless, word of the investigation got out and Richard Jewell went from hero to public enemy number one very quickly. After realizing he might be a suspect, Richard calls “the only lawyer he knows”, Watson Bryant, to represent him. Mr. Bryant prevents Richard from accidentally incriminating himself as he is so eager to help the law enforcement officers whose ranks he aspires to join that he is willing to do just about anything they ask. Because of his eagerness to cooperate, the FBI take full advantage of him until he realizes what is going on. Finally, upon coming to his senses, the movie shows a heated exchange in an interrogation where Richard asks the officers if they have any evidence against him whatsoever and they are unable to answer. As a result, they have to drop the case, but Richard’s public persona is not out of the woods, even to this day. Some people still think he planted that bomb and treat him as a criminal instead of the hero he truly is. Overall, Richard Jewell is really well done and, regardless of whether or not it is 100% accurate, is an entertaining portrayal of a very interesting case in American history. It takes a traditional story of a person being wrongfully accused of a crime and adds the element of them helping their accusers, making for a really interesting twist.

A few days ago in a galaxy far far away, Disney released the 9th installment of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, The Rise of Skywalker, on Disney Plus. After receiving lots of backlash that stemmed from the questionable decisions Rian Johnson made while directing the 8th movie, Disney decided to bring JJ Abrams back in to see if he could salvage what was shaping up to be another failed spin-off series. I think he tried his best, but at the end of the day there was only so much he could do given what had already happened in the newest trilogy. The Rise of Skywalker continues to build on the “force dyad” connection that Kylo Ren and Rey share, including a few more discussions through the force as seen in the 8th movie (but without shirtless Adam Driver this time). This connection was one of the few parts of the 8th movie that was actually interesting in my opinion. As is expected in any JJ Abrams film, the movie also had some of the best action in the entire Star Wars series, featuring thrilling lightsaber battles, epic spacecraft fights, and force lightning. Abrams also did a great job of limiting the roles of annoying characters like Finn and Rose. At first I liked Finn, but after watching the 7th and 8th movies, I started to realize that his character only ever runs and yells. Once I realized that, anytime he did either or both of those things (which was a lot), I couldn’t help but cringe. Rose is an unnecessary character and I’m really not sure why Rian Johnson created her. While these aspects contributed positively to the movie and made it somewhat enjoyable, in my opinion, they were far outweighed by the negatives that accompanied them. While JJ did a good job of limiting Finn’s role, he still left him in enough scenes to have an annoying storyline. While falling through a pit of space quicksand (?) he tells Rey that he needs to tell her something important and then proceeds to never tell her even though they bring it up multiple times later on in the movie. After they fall through the quicksand, they happen to find a dagger with an inscription that tells them where to find the “Sith Wayfinder”. I really dislike the fact that they just luck into the exact information they are looking for. The 6th Star Wars starts with a well thought out plan that Luke and company execute to perfection to save Han. The use of planning as opposed to luck is one of the reasons that the original trilogy is better than all of the prequels and sequels, in my opinion. Another missed opportunity for an impactful moment came with Chewbacca’s fake death. I love Chewy as a character, but in this new sequel series, he is not important . However, because of his role in the earlier films, killing him off would have been a really powerful moment that I think would have been amazing. There were other choices that I didn’t like (such as Rey being a Palpatine, the kiss with Kylo, etc.), but they weren’t as offensive as the ones I discussed above. Overall, I felt like this movie wasn’t as bad as The Last Jedi, but was worse than The Force Awakens. In the grand scheme of Star Wars, I would rank it below the entire original trilogy, the 7th movie, and the 3rd prequel. Hopefully, when Disney tries its next spin off from this universe, a fresh set of characters will inspire them to create some better content.