Top Gun: Maverick

Rated PG-13
2 hours 11 minutes

Starring: Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, Miles Teller, Glen Powell and Jennifer Connelly

Sequels are generally not as good as the first, but this one knocked it out of the park!  If you haven’t seen Top Gun: Maverick, you might be one of the few that haven’t. When the movie came out last year – it blew the lid off of the box office! Top Gun was done in 1986 and 36 years later, Maverick came out.  It was the sequel we didn’t know we needed.

The story is about Tom Cruise's character, Maverick, whose had a rough go through the years.  He ends up back at the academy teaching the new pilots how to prepare for an upcoming dangerous mission.  One of those pilots is Goose's son.  Actor Miles Teller was the perfect fit for this role.  I knew right off who his character was.  He looked just like him. There were so many great things about this movie, but one of them was seeing Val Kilmer, “Iceman,” who is now a 4-star general.  Val Kilmer had been fighting throat cancer in real life, so the acting between these characters was very real and emotional.

This is the kind of movie that you stand up and cheer for!  It’s exactly what we needed to see – a film about the integrity of America and the men and women who fight for our country.  Thank you.

Library Link: Top Gun: Maverick (DVD)

The Beatles: Get Back

The Beatles: Get Back

Rated PG-13

7 hours 48 minutes

Starring: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I decided to watch this one.  The idea is that The Beatles will have their writing and recording sessions filmed in 1969 and used in the 1970 film “Let It Be,” along with deciding whether (and where) to do a live concert for the first time in three years.  The catch is they have to write and learn 14 new songs, and they only have three weeks to complete the project.  Clocking in at almost eight hours, that’s a LOT of Beatles!  It’s broken into three parts, so that was easier than watching it all at once.  There was no commentary or anything like that during the film – it was mostly just cameras set up all around the studio recording everything as it happened.  That being said, I loved every second of this!  There were good and bad times, with things like George leaving the band, Yoko in the studio, Paul playing drums, Ringo on guitar and keyboards, and just seeing how it all came together.  It felt like you were right in the room with them, seeing how they interacted with one another, watching classic songs come to life right before your eyes, and getting to see the culmination of all their work in the classic “rooftop” concert in its entirety – the last time they ever performed together as a band!  

Library Link: The Beatles: Get Back (DVD)

Ghostbusters: Afterlife

Rated PG-13

2 hours 4 minutes

Starring: Carrie Coon, Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace

This movie is a fun new addition to the Ghostbusters franchise!  It was nostalgic.  It was a tribute to Harold Ramis.  It really was fun!  It was all kinds of things!  My favorite was how much it tied into the original Ghostbusters movie and all the references that took me right back to the first one.  The story involves the granddaughter of original ghostbuster Egon Spengler, who is kind of an outcast/science girl with a lot of qualities of her grandfather, finding a connection to him through becoming a ghostbuster herself!  It’s a new story, but with a lot of the same characters and just enough of the original props, gadgets, and ideas from the early years that it should please new and old fans alike.  I don’t know if it quite had the “magic” of the first one, but was still nice just to get away from life for a while and have an enjoyable movie for a little escape!

Library Link: Ghostbusters: Afterlife (DVD)