The Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul movie cast centers on the Heffley family: dad, (Tom Everett Scott); mom, (Alicia Silverstone); Greg, the diary writer himself, (Jason Drucker); older brother, Rodrick (Charlie Wright); and younger brother, Manny (Dylan and Wyatt Walters) take off from their middle class abode to travel to Grandma Meemaw’s 90th birthday celebration. The multi-day journey in the family auto turns into an endurance and even a test of survival.

The key to any successful book, movie or play is conflict. What the characters have to overcome in the story being told. And the screenwriter of Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, Jeff Kinney, and director David Bowers, take every opportunity to place hurdles in the way of the Heffley family trying to make it to Meemaw’s. This is conflict overload.

They start with battles between Greg and his brothers, parents listening to old folks music (in this case it’s The Spice Girl’s wannabe) road rage, vomit, a pig passenger, attacks by birds and so much more. And it all works! Dairy of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, gets a See It! rating.

The cast is solid; however, the older son doesn’t look like he’d be the kid of these parents. If this was real life, I would suggest that the dad book a date on one of Maury Povich’s paternity test shows.

At 91 minutes, it moves at just the right pace and will entertain kids and adults alike.

As to cast diversity, this movie gets a “B” no major roles for people of color but a strong presence in minor slots and background scenes.

Dairy of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, shot in Atlanta, is rated PG for rude humor.

Dairy of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul is a See It!

Paul (Steve Coogan) and his wife, Claire (Laura Linney) are surprised by Paul’s brother, Stan (Richard Gere) and his wife, Katelyn’s (Rebecca Hall) abrupt invitation to have dinner at a posh local restaurant with difficult-to-get reservations. The brothers are not close and Stan, a congressman, is running for governor. Paul knows something is going on for Stan to meet with them at this key time in the campaign. As the couples dine, recollections of past family interactions unfold until the conversations lead to a very troubling story about the couples’ sons.

Based on Herman Koch’s international bestseller with the same title, the film, The Dinner, is not very appetizing. Movies simply cannot capture the nuance, character depth and the complexity of situations the way a book can.

The characters are enigmas but not in a realistic way, but in more of an implausible way. Claire is a strong, well-organized woman; Paul is unstable and angry about real or perceived childhood slights. Claire loves Paul but you’ll find yourself wondering why. He has very little appeal unless her affection is based on sympathy.

Stan tries to indulge his brother’s tantrums, as he goes from sympathetic to patient, but eventually becoming annoyed. Stan initially appears to be a person of character until he shows he can be talked out of his convictions with relatively little effort by his wife.

As the couples discuss past events, the adult characters look the same in the scenes revisiting the past, some taking place as long as a decade earlier. Their children are used as time markers. Their sons at the time of this dinner are 16-years-old but are shown in scenes of the past as six or eight-years-old. Again with the parents looking the same during all of the time periods. This reflects on the director, Oren Moverman’s lack of attention to details.

The Dinner does boast a five-star cast. Veteran performers Gere and Linney, as well as, lesser known actors Coogan and Hall are excellent individually as well as a group. But hard as they try, they cannot give authenticity to the dialogue and poorly developed characters of Moverman who is also the screenwriter.

As to cast diversity, The Dinner gets a B+. Black performers, Adepero Oduye who plays the congressman’s blindly loyal aide, Nina, and Judah Sandridge is Beau, his adopted son, both have very important roles in the film. Additionally, there are many other African-Americans with smaller parts and in background scenes; however, there are few other individuals of color featured.

The Dinner serves up just enough entertainment to get a Rent It rating; it’s two hours long and rated “R” for disturbing violent content, and language throughout.

It’s bad enough that seven-year-old Tim has a new baby brother that completely saps his parents’ attention and energy, but Tim learns that his sibling is actually not at all who or what he appears to be. The infant, or Baby Boss as he is known, is a plant in their home with a scheme to undermine Tim’s parents’ business activities. Baby Boss sees cute pets as a threat to the appeal of kids. The parents’ employer, a pet selling enterprise, is about to introduce a little creature that is so adorable that tots will seem terrible in comparison. Tim and Baby Boss strike up a deal. Tim will help the little imposter get what he wants in exchange for the Boss wiping their parents’ memory of his ever being there and his returning to where babies come from.

Baby Boss is a thought-provoking story about sibling rivalries and how the fact that many people view their pets as their children impacts our society. However, the subject matter of Baby Boss is likely to go over the heads of the very young. But to keep them entertained, there are some bike chase scenes and toddlers engaging in toy-to-toy combat. Good films can and do entertain audiences at different levels of sophistication. Baby Boss does exactly that.

I am not sure what time period this is supposed to be, the vehicles look 20-years-old or more, and Tim records Baby Boss speaking like an adult on a cassette tape player. The film features music from many decades. There’s the classic from 1935 “Cheek to Cheek”; “What the World Needs Now " from 1965; LTD’s 1977 hit “Back in Love Again”, and from 1979, Kool and the Gang’s “Ladies Night”.

Voices for the characters include: Alec Baldwin as Baby Boss; Jimmy Kimmel speaks for Tim’s dad and Lisa Kudrow for his mom. The voices of Tim are Tobey Maguire as an adult and Miles Christopher Bakshi as a child.

Can an animated cartoon get a diversity rating? ABSOLUTELY! Baby Boss earns a “B”. There are a few babies of color in the Baby Boss’s playgroup.

Baby Boss is much more than a story about infants. You’ll enjoy it no matter what your age. Baby Boss earns a See It!

It’s rated PG for mild rude humor and is 97 minutes in length.

Set in the future, Ghost in the Shell follows a recently deceased young woman (Scarlett Johansson) who has her brain placed into the latest and most sophisticated robot. Believing that she was killed by terrorists, she targets a powerful and exceptionally deadly crime syndicate for revenge.

This is another one of those cases where a great movie concept, falls victim to inept execution. There are many creative options with a story about a human brain controlling a cutting-edge machine. But Ghost in the Shell is nothing more than a flat story. The screenwriters try to give shape to the film by using a lot of mindless violence and flashy special effects. Unfortunately, at points when this story is on the edge of being interesting, it reverts back to dullness.

The writers are also lazy in how they portray the future. For example, cars pretty much look and operate the same as they do today. However, self-driving cars are currently just a few years away. With all the advanced weaponry displayed in the film, a villain pulls out a knife to defend himself, which is reminiscent of a 1950 James Dean movie. Additionally, the dialogue offers no new words. The American vocabulary expands constantly, for example, blogs, unfriend, sexting, are all recent additions to the dictionary. Certainly, there will be terms used 20 years from now that are currently unknown.

Scarlett Johannsson does her best to carry this story. She has credibility as the mechanical crime fighter from her fit form down to her, I am going kick ass gait.

This film gets an “A” for cast diversity, featuring a wide range of human types and quite a few nonhumans as well.

Ultimately, it’s only fitting that Ghost in the Shell gets our Dead on Arrival rating. As I have said repeatedly, special effects are simply not enough. You need more than a phantom storyline.

Ghost in the Shell is PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence, suggestive content, and some disturbing scenes. Ghost in the Shell probably should have received an R rating for its violence. It’s just under 2 hours in length.