Johnny Got His Gun (1971)

I suppose you could argue that the story wasn’t what Director James Cameron was aiming for, it was the visuals. The spectacle of it all was the point, and it certainly shows.

The director's latest is a dreamlike exploration of a consciousness torn between two homelands, and the implications of history and memory suspended in limbo.

Eventually, “Hobbs and Shaw” introduces us to a Samoan community. Clearly, Johnson’s Samoan roots are on display. Quite frankly, I found this section of the film very intriguing. The “Fast and Furious” franchise has a solid track record in the diversity department

The Bluff unravels its mystery slowly, opening on the capture of a ship captain named Bodden (Ismael Cruz Córdova) and the swift execution of his entire crew. Then, viewers are treated to a tranquil British settlement in the Cayman Islands in the 1850s, where a mother bakes a coconut birthday cake for her son in a house suspiciously rigged with makeshift tripwires and burglar alarms. As it turns out, that mother is Priyanka Chopra’s quick witted and resourceful ex-pirate Mrs. Ercell Bodden, and her husband’s captors are on the way to the island to hunt her down for abandoning them and stealing their loot. The pirates of the Libertas land on the beaches of Cayman Brac, and the scenes that follow show a Viking-esque slaughter of half the island.

Unfortunately, People We Meet on Vacation didn’t hold up quite as well as I’d hoped.

American Fiction is a genuinely entertaining film with a few lessons.