Spy / ***½ (R)

Susan Cooper: Melissa McCarthy

Rayna Boyanov: Rose Byrne

Rick Ford: Jason Statham

Nancy B. Artingstall: Miranda Hart

Sergio De Luca: Bobby Cannavale

Aldo: Peter Serafinowicz

Karen Walker: Morena Baccarin

Elaine Crocker: Allison Janney

Bradley Fine: Jude Law

20^th Century Fox presents a film written and directed by Paul Feig. Running time: 120 min. Rated R (for language throughout, violence, and some sexual content include brief graphic nudity).

Daniel Craig will have one more movie as James Bond left on his contract after the new Bond film “Spectre” is released this fall. After Bond 25, should Craig or the Bond producers decide to go in different directions, it will be time once again to consider a new Bond. Jude Law might very well be in the running, as I believe he was when Craig was cast in the role. He’s handsome, charming, has a dreamy smile, and yet he can be deftly serious and people are willing to let it slide when he uses a woman or two to get what he wants. These are all traits of his character, Bradley Fine, in the new movie “Spy”. The catch is that although Fine is a successful spy for the CIA, he is not the spy of which the title refers.

No, comedic character actress Melissa McCarthy plays the spy of the film’s title. You see the movie is a send up of a sort of spy flicks like the James Bond series. Even more so the movie is an overt criticism of the ideology and clichés of the spy genre and of Hollywood in general. McCarthy is plump and short and funny and everything that a serious action movie heroine is not. And yet, considering all of that, I would hesitate to call “Spy” a spoof of the super spy genre. The opening credit sequence and song could very well pass for an actual James Bond credit sequence. Director Paul Feig and McCarthy approach the movie with a sincerity that would make it an almost plausible spy action/comedy thriller if it weren’t so openly criticizing its own inspirations.

Criterion Thoughts—The 39 Steps (1935) ***½

UR, 85 min.

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Writers: Charles Bennett, Ian Hay, John Buchan (novel)

Starring: Robert Donat, Madeleine Carroll, Lucie Mannheim, Godfrey Tearle, Peggy Ashcroft, John Laurie, Helen Haye, Frank Cellier, Wylie Watson

Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps” plays as a movie trying to break out of the constraints of its times. It is an example of how Hitchcock needed the power and scope of Hollywood to jump the cinematic art forward in just the way he did after his marriage with Tinsletown. It is a movie that bursts at its cinematic seams for greater production value and a leap forward in storytelling for the format.

As is often the case with Hitch, he unsettles his audience with his opening images. A man buys a ticket at a box office and the next few shots are those of feet. Even the purchase of the ticket fails to show us a face or even a torso of the man we are following into a theater. Without seeing any faces and with a sequence of feet walking this way and that, we are immediately placed into the mindset of a sort of chase going on. And yet, we have no notion of who is being chased, or why, or who is doing the chasing. The inside of the theater is a scene of a degree of chaos.

Television Thoughts ‘15—Agent Carter (2015) ***

TV-PG, 8 43-min. episodes

Creators: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely

Directors: Stephen Cragg, Louis D’Esposito, Peter Leto, Christopher Misiano, Vincent Misiano, Joe Russo, Stephen Williams, Scott Winant

Writers: Stan Lee (characters), Jack Kirby (characters), Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Eric Pearson, Lindsey Allen, Andi Bushell, Tara Butters, Chris Dingess, Brant Englestein, Michele Fazekas, Jose Molina

Starring: Hayley Atwell, James D’Arcy, Chad Michael Murray, Enver Gjokaj, Shea Whigham, Lyndsy Fonseca, Bridget Regan, Ralph Brown, Meagan Fay

Guest starring: Dominic Cooper, Kyle Bornheimer, Lesley Boone, Alexander Carroll, James Frain, James Landry Hébert, Devin Ratray, James Urbaniak, Kevin Cotteleer, Patrick Robert Smith, Neal McDonough, Leonard Roberts, GlennTaranto, Jack Conley, Rick Peters, John Prosky, Pawel Szajda, Ray Wise, Ashley Hinshaw, Toby Jones, John Glover, Andre Royo, Richard Short

So I read an interview with Richard Dreyfuss the other day in which he questioned the interviewer’s use of the term “the new golden age of television”, referring to the current renaissance happening on television today. (Read the Indiewire article here.) Dreyfuss claimed that the only Golden Age of television was in the early 50s when it was the new form of entertainment in everyone’s household. While I agree that perhaps a new term other than “Golden Age” might be in order to describe an era 70 years down the line, I’m not so sure Dreyfuss quite understands what the interviewer was talking about, because he went on to describe the current television market of consisting only of police procedurals, courtroom dramas and family sitcoms. I suddenly realized that Dreyfuss’ television provider only carries CBS, ion and Nick at Nite.

Penny Thoughts ‘15—Black Sunday (1977) ***

R, 143 min.

Director: John Frankenheimer

Writers: Ernest Lehman, Kenneth Ross, Ivan Moffat, Thomas Harris (novel)

Starring: Robert Shaw, Bruce Dern, Marthe Keller, Fritz Weaver, Steven Keats, Bekim Fehmiu, Michael V. Gazzo, William Daniels, Walter Gotell, Victor Campos, Joseph Robbie, Robert Wussler, Pat Summerall, Tom Brookshier

Perhaps the most powerful element of John Frankenheimer’s 1977 thriller “Black Sunday” today is how topical it remains. On this Super Bowl Sunday, I look back at the movie based on Thomas Harris’s novel inspired by the harrowing events of the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, during which members of the Palestinian terrorist group Black September took Israeli athletes hostage in a situation that ended in a confrontation in which all the hostages were killed. Harris’s novel imagined a new plot that saw Black September attacking the U.S. during another sporting event—the Super Bowl—with much a grander massacre plot.

The Imitation Game / **** (PG-13)

Alan Turing: Benedict Cumberbatch

Joan Clarke: Keira Knightley

Hugh Alexander: Matthew Goode

Detective Robert Nock: Rory Kinnear

John Craincross: Allen Leech

Commander Denniston: Charles Dance

Stewart Menzies: Mark Strong

The Weinstein Company presents a film directed by Morten Tyldum. Written by Graham Moore. Based on the book “Alan Turing: The Enigma” by Andrew Hodges. Running time: 114 min. Rated PG-13 (for some sexual references, mature thematic material and historical smoking).

There is a certain type of movie that has historically been a favorite of the voting body of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. The Academy has always liked true stories with historical value about a real person. Movies about World War II and undermining the Nazis get some favor. They also seem to have a soft spot for topical issues, like homosexuality. While the more extravagant—and less typical—films “The Grand Budapest Hotel” and “Birdman: or (The Exquisite Virtue of Ignorance)” were busy racking up 9 nominations each for this year’s Oscars, the Weinstein Brothers quietly brought home 8 nominations for the more typical Oscar fare “The Imitation Game”. Always in the talk of the best movies of the year, but never really stirring up much passion from critics, “The Imitation Game” is a glowing example of the formula for bringing in Oscar nods. It tells an amazing story about a somewhat unknown figure who had a profound impact on the outcome of WWII and modern technology as we know it, and it tells it with layers of commentary more typical of genre films than your standard Oscar drama fare.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Team America: World Police (2004) **

R, 98 min.

Director: Trey Parker

Writers: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Pam Brady

Voices: Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Kristen Miller, Masasa, Daran Norris, Phil Hendrie, Maurice LaMarche

So in light of the critical failure of “The Interview”, many critics have been recalling the feature length puppet movie from “South Park” creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, “Team America: World Police” as a more satisfying skewering of a North Korean leader. While there are certainly aspects of that film that are more successful than “The Interview”, I believe these recollections are more like wishful thinking for what either of the films could’ve been rather than what they actually are.

The Interview / ** (R)

Dave Skylark: James Franco

Aaron Rapaport: Seth Rogen

Kim Jong-un: Randall Park

Sook: Diana Bang

Agent Lacey: Lizzy Caplan

Columbia Pictures presents a film directed by Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen. Written by Dan Sterling and Seth Rogen & Even Goldberg. Running time: 112 min. Rated R (for pervasive language, crude and sexual humor, nudity, some drug use and bloody violence).

I’ll admit that I’ve found the story surrounding the release of the new Seth Rogen/James Franco comedy “The Interview” to be one of the most interesting news stories of the year. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past month, the film’s distribution studio, Sony Pictures, was hacked in late November. Soon sensitive information was leaked to the Internet, including corporate communications and downloadable copies of five of Sony’s big holiday movies. A group calling themselves the GOP (Guardians of Peace)—a curious set of initials considering they were already taken by a well-known political party—claiming responsibility and demanding the cancellation of the planned Christmas Day release of “The Interview” because of its depiction of the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. It was eventually confirmed by the CIA that they felt North Korea was responsible for the hack. More Sony secrets were released to news organizations and violence was threatened at exhibitor venues that chose to screen the movie on Christmas Day. Several major distributors decided not to screen the film and Sony announced that the Christmas Day opening would be canceled with no other plans to distribute the film. There was an outcry—my own included—that expressed how this development was allowing foreign elements to control our freedom of speech in the U.S. After being virtually scolded by President Obama, Sony announced new plans to release the movie as originally scheduled on Christmas Day to select independent exhibitors and through select video on demand outlets.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Force 10 from Navarone (1978) ***

PG, 118 min.

Director: Guy Hamilton

Writers: Robin Chapman, Carl Foreman, Alistair MacLean (novel)

Starring: Robert Shaw, Harrison Ford, Edward Fox, Carl Weathers, Franco Nero, Richard Kiel, Barbara Bach, Alan Badel, Michael Byrne, Angus MacInnes, Philip Latham

My wife and I have always been pretty protective of our children when it comes to exposing them to mature content in movies. I believe it depends on the person as to what they can handle by which age. Some kids will handle things better at an earlier age than others. By this point both of our older boys (13 and 9) have long since been exposed to all sorts of violence through video games and playing with their friends. Seeing “Fury” recently, I was reminded how much war movies helped to form my tastes as a cineaste and I realized that I have never shown my boys a real war movie. So, I decided to start them on the one I believe my father started me on, Alistair MacLean’s follow up the “The Guns of Navarone” and early Harrison Ford flick “Force 10 from Navarone”.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—24, season 2 (2002-2003) ****

TV-14, 24 45-min. episodes

Creators: Joel Surnow, Robert Cochran

Directors: Jon Cassar, James Whitmore Jr., Rodney Charters, Frederick K. Keller, Ian Toynton

Writers: Joel Surnow, Robert Cochran, Michael Loceff, Howard Gordon, Remi Aubuchon, Gil Grant, Elizabeth M. Cosin, Virgil Williams, David Ehrman, Evan Katz, Maurice Hurley, Neil Cohen, Duppy Demetrius

Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Sarah Wynter, Elisha Cuthbert, Xander Berkley, Carlos Bernard, Dennis Haysbert, Reiko Aylesworth, Michelle Forbes, Penny Johnson Jerald, Jude Ciccollela, Laura Harris, John Terry

Guest starring: Billy Burke, Timothy Carhart, Sara Gilbert, Skye Nicole Bartusiak, Tracy Middendorf, Phillip Rhys, Douglas O’Keefe, Jimmi Simpson, Gregory Sporleder, Michael Holden, Tamlyn Tomita, Jim Abele, Jon Gries, Innis Casey, Sarah Clarke, Nicholas Guilak, Bryan Rasmussen, John Eddins, Eric Christian Olsen, Michael Cudlitz, Michael McGrady, Anthony Azizi, Tony Wayne, Al Sapienza, Harris Yulin, Fred Toma, Marc Casabani, Francesco Quinn, Terry Bozeman, Daniel Dae Kim, Bernard White, Steven Culp, Kevin Dillon, Val Lauren, Randle Mell, Maximilian Martini, Lourdes Benedicto, Donnie Keshawarz, Dean Norris, Brent Sexton, Lombardo Boyar, Greg Henry, Alan Dale, Justin Louis, Sterling Macer Jr., Nick Offerman, Paul Schulze, Tobin Bell, Peter Outerbridge, Raymond Cruz, Maurice Compte, Glenn Morshower, Brian Goodman, Jeffery Wincott, Mark Ivanir, Peter Gregory, Alex Daniels, Thomas Kretschmann, Rick D. Wasserman, Scott Paulin, Chuti Tiu, Eugene Robert Glazer

“24” season 2 finds the stakes raised once more, in that seemingly impossible standard of the series where the stakes begin higher than any other thriller situation imagined and then continued to rise from that point throughout the season. With David Palmer now POTUS, what can the writers of this series throw at these characters to totally uproot every expectation they or the audience can imagine? They do it. It’s hard to believe, but they blow our minds again the second time around.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 1 (2013-2014) ***

TV-14, 22 45-min. episodes

Creators: Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, Stan Lee (Marvel Comics), Jack Kirby (Marvel Comics)

Directors: Joss Whedon, David Straiton, Milan Cheylov, Roxann Dawson, Jesse Bochco, Vincent Misiano, Bobby Roth, Jonathan Frakes, Billy Gierhart, Holly Dale, Kevin Hooks, Kenneth Fink, Paul Edwards, John Terlesky

Writers: Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, Maurissa Tancharoen, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Jeffery Bell, Brent Fletcher, Paul Zbyszcewski, Rafe Judkins, Lauren LeFranc, Monica Owusu Breen, Shalisha Francis, DJ Doyle

Starring: Clark Gregg, Ming-Na Wen, Brett Dalton, Chloe Bennet, Iain DeCaestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge

Guest starring: J. August Richards, Shannon Lucio, Ron Glass, Cobie Smulders, Leonor Varela, Carlos Leal, Samuel L. Jackson, David Conrad, Ian Hart, Pascale Armand, Michael Klesic, Ruth Negga, Louis Ozawa Changchien, Cullen Douglas, Vincent Laresca, Titus Welliver, Saffron Burrows, Maximiliano Hernandez, Ilia Volok, Peter MacNicol, Michael Graziadei, Erin Way, Molly McCook, Ajani Wrighster, Paul Lacovara, Rob Huebel, Daniel Zovatto, Christine Adams, Carlo Rota, Bill Paxton, Elena Satine, Robert Belushi, B.J. Britt, Jaimie Alexander, Brad Dourif, Charles Halford, Adrian Pasdar, Patton Oswalt, Patrick Brennan, Amy Acker, Tsai Chin, Austin Lyon, Glenn Morshower, Josh Daugherty

So, my family finally got through season one of “Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Our delay wasn’t because we didn’t enjoy it. A little addition to the family made it difficult to find quite family TV time together. But, I’m glad I’m finally getting my chance at this one.

During the run of the season, it seemed that MAOS was the punching bag for anybody who wanted to see the Marvel/Disney deal falter. Throughout good (but not mind-blowing) ratings, it seemed that every business website that could tried to jump in the ring with Marvel on this one, posting new stories every week about “Why MAOS will fail.” The biggest culprit was a site called the Motley Fool, who based most of their facts on conjecture and seemed to conjure their conjecture from bitter resentment. Their consensus was that MAOS is only still around so they can cross promote all of the Marvel big screen ventures, not with traditional advertising but an expensive 22 episode television show that requires countless more employees and money than producing commercials from footage that has already been produced as part of each movie. Sure, that seems plausible. That’s also probably why ABC also ordered a new Marvel tie-in show, “Agent Carter”, which takes place 50 years ago, since a period piece will offer countless opportunities for tie-ins to movie that are taking place in the present. Or maybe, people liked it.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—24, season 1 (2001-2002) ****

TV-14, 24 42-min. episodes

Creator: Joel Surnow, Robert Cochran

Directors: Stephen Hopkins, Winrich Kolbe, Bryan Spicer, Davis Guggenheim, Jon Cassar, Frederick K. Keller, Paul Shapiro

Writers: Joel Surnow, Robert Cochran, Michael Loceff, Chip Johannessen, Howard Gordon, Andrea Newman, Virgil Williams, Lawrence Herzog, Michael Chernuchin, Maurice Hurley

Starring: Kiefer Sutherland, Leslie Hope, Sarah Clarke, Elisha Cuthbert, Dennis Haysbert, Carlos Bernard, Daniel Bess, Penny Johnson Jerald, Zeljko Ivanek, Michael Massee, Vicellous Shannon

Guest starring: Xander Berkley Mia Kirshner, Michael O’Neill, Rudolf Martin, Matthew Carey, Jacqui Maxwell, Karina Arroyave, , Megalyn Echikunwoke, Zach Grenier, Kim Murphy, John Hawkes, Tanya Wright, Jude Ciccolella, Eric Balfour, Silas Weir Mitchell, Glenn Morshower, Jesse D. Goins, Kathleen Wilhoite, Tamara Tunie, Currie Graham, Richard Burgi, Al Leong, Misha Collins, Paul Schulze, Kara Zediker, Wade Williams, Henri Lubatti, Vincent Angell, Navi Rawat, Edoardo Ballerini, Kirk Baltz, Darin Heames, Christian Hastings, Dennis Hopper

“24” may have been the true birthplace of binge television watching. It’s high-end concept all but demands that every episode be watched in order. I attempted to watch it as it originally aired. I made it to the halfway point, before other appointments started getting in the way. This was back in the day when Tivo was the only digital recorder and only the elite had yet to subscribe.

Penny Thoughts ’14—The Americans, season 2 (2014) ****

TV-MA, 13 50 min. episodes

Creator: Joseph Weisberg

Directors: Thomas Schlamme, Daniel Sackheim, Constantine Makris, Lodge Kerrigan, Dan Attias, Charlotte Sieling, Kevin Dowling, John Dahl, Alik Sakharov, Stefan Schwartz, Gregory Hoblit, Andrew Bernstein

Writers: Joseph Weisberg, Joel Fields, Stu Zicherman, Stephen Schiff, Angelina Burnett, Melissa James Gibson, Joshua Brand, Peter Ackerman, Tracey Scott Wilson, Oliver North

Starring: Keri Russell, Matthew Rhys, Noah Emmerich, Annet Mahendru, Susan Misner, Alison Wright, Holly Taylor, Keidrich Sellati, Richard Thomas, Lev Gorn, Costa Ronin

Guest starring: Jeremy Davidson, Natalie Gold, Tim Hopper, John Carroll Lynch, Aimee Carrero, Erik Jensen, Anthony Arkin, Kathleen Chalfant, Owen Campbell, Michael Aronov, Jefferson White, Cliff Marc Simon, Cotter Smith, John Bedford Lloyd, Wrenn Schmidt, Lee Tergesen, Nick Bailey, Jeffrey Cantor, Reg Rogers, Kelly AuCoin, Gillian Alexy, Rahul Khanna, Zeljko Ivanek, Margo Martindale

FX’s “The Americans” continues to impress in its second season. Gone are the rough patches of trying to hold together a fake marriage while working deep undercover as Russian sleeper agents in the early 80s. The parents of the Jennings household are now a unified front. The trick is becoming keeping that front for their children.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Person of Interest, season 3 (2013-2014) **½

TV-14, 23 45-min. episodes

Creator: Jonathan Nolan

Directors: Chris Fisher, Fredrick E.O. Toye, Omar Madha, Stephen Williams, Kenneth Fink, Helen Shaver, Stephen Surjik, Sylvain White, Richard J. Lewis, Jeffrey Hunt, Jeff T. Thomas, Jeffrey Lee Gibson, Kevin Hooks,

Writers: Jonathan Nolan, Greg Plageman, Denise Thé, Sean Hennen, Nic Van Zeebroeck, Mike Sopczynski, Erik Mountain, Amanda Segel, Melissa Scrivner Love, David Slack, Dan Dietz, Lucas O’Connor, Tony Camerino,

Starring: Jim Caviezel, Michael Emerson, Sarah Shahi, Amy Acker, Kevin Chapman, Taraji P. Henson

Guest starring: Ray Valentin, Max Martini, Bruce Altman, Alano Miller, David Valcin, Enrico Colantoni, David Alan Basch, Clarke Peters, Leslie Odom Jr., Gary Basaraba, Paige Turco, Warren Kole, Boris McGiver, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Paul Ben-Victor, Annika Boras, Al Sapienza, Brian Wiles, Daniel Cosgrove, Treach, Danielle Kotch, Morgan Spector, Robert John Burke, Kirk Acevedo, Michael Esper, Donnie Keshawarz, Aaron Staton, Jennifer Ferrin, Laz Alonso, Ben Livingston, Lee Tergesen, Khalil Kain, Richard Brooks, Brian Tarantina, Saul Rubinek, Tuck Milligan, Camryn Manheim, Jennifer Lim, Chris Bert, Jennifer Serralles, Sally Pressman, Samm Levine, Elaine Tan, Henri Lubatti, Gene Farber, Melissa Sagemiller, Gavin Stenhouse, Kathleen McNanny, David Andrew Macdonald, Anthony Mangano, Tyler Evans, Neil Jackson, Jay O. Sanders, John Nolan, Joseph Mazzello, Julian Ovenden, Casey Siemaszko, Annie Parrise, Dillon Arrick, Yul Vazquez, Colin Donnell, Nazneen Contractor, Haaz Sleiman, Michel Gil, Nestor Carbonell, John Doman, John Heard, Carrie Preston, Joseph Melendez, Peter Scanavino, Diane Davis

I’ve never been totally on board with CBS’s Jonathan Nolan created cyber-thriller series “Person of Interest”, although it’s third season has certainly proved its most interesting to date. I watch it because my wife does, and I’ve seen enough to be invested, but if we stopped watching tomorrow, it wouldn’t break my heart. Still, the show is finally beginning to go in direction I would’ve expected from Jonathan Nolan, brother of Christopher Nolan and writer of the original story upon which Christopher Nolan’s breakout film “Memento” was based.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Archer, season 4 (2013) ***½

TV-MA, 13 20-min. episodes

Creator: Adam Reed

Directors: Adam Reed, Brian Fordney

Writers: Adam Reed, Chris Provenzano, Tesha Condrat, Mike Arnold, Rick Cleveland

Voices: H. Jon Benjamin, Aisha Tyler, Jessica Walter, Chris Parnell, Judy Greer, Amber Nash, Adam Reed, Lucky Yates

Guest voices: Dave Willis, Ron Leibman, John Roberts, Timothy Olyphant, George Coe, Andrew Donnelly, Bobby Ford, Neal Holman, Ona Grauer, Peter Serafinowicz, Anthony Bourdain, Dayton Callie, Carla Jiminez, Nick Searcy, Casey Willis, Chi Duong, Rene Auberjonois, Jon Hamm, Eugene Mirman, Kriten Schaal

Season 4 of FX’s animated spy spoof “Archer” is the best since season 1. During seasons 2 and 3 the very adult comedy seemed to be trying almost too hard replicate what had come before and to build some sort of mythology to the series. Season 4 seems to relax a bit and just tell some silly spy stories involving the most perverse and incompetent group of spies ever seen.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier / *** (PG-13)

Steve Rogers/Captain America: Chris Evans

Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow: Scarlett Johansson

Sam Wilson/Falcon: Anthony Mackie

The Winter Soldier: Sebastian Stan

Brock Rumlow: Frank Grillo

Kate/Agent 13: Emily VanCamp

Jasper Sitwell: Maximiliano Hernández

Maria Hill: Cobie Smulders

Alexander Pierce: Robert Redford

Nick Fury: Samuel L. Jackson

Marvel Studios presents a film directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. Written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely. Based on a concept and story by Ed Brubaker and characters created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby. Running time: 136 min. Rated PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence, gun play and action throughout).

The best comic book storylines, and movie storylines for that matter, are those that don’t hold to what is “sacred” in any particular mythology. “Batman: Year One”, “The Dark Knight Returns”, “The Death of Superman”, “The Death of Captain America”, “The Saga of the Swamp Thing”, even the recent “Superior Spider-Man” developments and numerous other great comic book storylines have rewritten all that had come before them. This is what made “The Winter Soldier” storyline in the Captain America comic books so substantial. Now, for the first Captain America movie sequel, the filmmakers have adapted parts of that storyline to send a considerable shake up through the Marvel cinematic universe. They do it by pulling the carpet out from under everything they spent so much time developing over the course of the first phase of the Marvel movies that culminated in “The Avengers”.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) ***½

PG-13, 124 min.

Director: Joe Johnston

Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Joe Simon (comic book), Jack Kirby (comic book)

Starring: Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, Toby Jones, Sebastian Stan, Dominic Cooper, Stanley Tucci, Richard Armitage, Bruno Ricci, Neal McDonough, Derek Luke, Kenneth Choi, JJ Field, Samuel L. Jackson

This marks the third time I’ve watched “Captain America: The First Avenger”, and it doesn’t lose its effectiveness. In the promotion for the new “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” the writers have made a point to express how they wished to reflect different cinematic action subgenres in their construction of the two screenplays. The new Cap is supposed to be a modern espionage type of picture inspired by such classics as “3 Days of the Condor” and other 70s politically critical spy flicks. The first was more inspired by adventure serials of the 40s and 50s depicting the American heroism of World War II, although my guess is it was most influenced by Steven Spielberg’s 1981 movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) ***

PG-13, 89 min.

Director: Jay Roach

Writer: Mike Myers

Starring: Mike Myers, Elizabeth Hurley, Michael York, Mimi Rogers, Robert Wagner, Seth Green, Fabianna Udenio, Mindy Sterling, Paul Dillon, Charles Napier, Will Farrell

It has been over ten years since I’ve seen any of the “Austin Powers” movies. At the time of their release, they were phenomena. Today, they’re interesting enough. They’re still funny, but the low budget of the first one really shows through its seams. Of course, at the time the first movie was made, the producers had no idea it would catch on quite as well as it did, so what Mike Myers and company achieve with it is fairly impressive, if not all that impactful in the long run.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Munich (2005) ****

R, 164 min.

Director: Steven Spielberg

Writers: Tony Kushner, Eric Roth, George Jonas (book “Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team”)

Starring: Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciarán Hinds, Mathieu Kassovitz, Hanns Zischler, Ayelet Zurer, Geoffrey Rush, Gila Almagor, Michael Lonsdale, Mathieu Amalric, Marie-Josée Croze, Lynn Cohen

Well, this is kind of a sober note on which to exit the Winter Olympics in Sochi, but it isn’t really about the Olympics, is it? Steven Spielberg’s 2005 film “Munich” examines the aftermath of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich during which 11 Israeli athletes were killed after being taken hostage by the political terrorist group Black September. In the days following the internationally televised incident, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Mier makes the decision to retaliate with a group of Mossad assassins tasked with killing 11 Arabs linked with the Munich Games massacre.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Firefox (1982) ***

PG, 136 min.

Director: Clint Eastwood

Writers: Alex Lasker, Wendell Wellman, Craig Thomas (novel)

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Freddie Jones, David Huffman, Warren Clarke, Ronald Lacey, Kenneth Colley, Klaus Lowitsch, Nigel Hawthorne, Stefan Schnabel, Thomas Hill, Clive Merrison, Kai Wulff, Dimitra Arliss

I’ve loved “Firefox” from the first time I saw it. Much of that has to do with the fact that my father was a fighter pilot and he loved it. He pointed out almost immediately to me that the Firefox wasn’t really a Russian MiG, but looked like a suped up North American XB-70 Valkyrie, although it was described as looking like a MiG-25 in the book. My father read many military based novels, so I’m guessing he had read Craig Thomas’s 1977 book before seeing the movie.

Penny Thoughts ‘14—Octopussy (1983) **

PG, 131 min.

Director: John Glen

Writers: George MacDonald Fraser, Richard Maibaum, Micheal G. Wilson, Ian Fleming (stories “Octopussy” and “The Property of a Lady”)

Starring: Roger Moore, Maud Adams, Louis Jourdan, Krystina Wayborn, Kabir Bedi, Steven Berkoff, David Meyer, Anthony Meyer, Desmond Llewelyn, Robert Brown, Lois Maxwell, Michaela Clavell, Walter Gotell, Vijay Amritraj, Albert Moses

Sochi has inspired me to watch some Russian themed movies. First up, “Octopussy”. Huh? Yes, one of the least impressive James Bond movies sees the end of The Cold War coming and invents a plot where a Russian general bent on keeping up the image of Soviet strength is caught up in a counterfeiting ring to raise money for and implement a war by detonating a nuclear devise on an American military base located in Germany. It’s all done under the cover of a Circus run by the mysterious Octopussy, who is apparently a pawn in the game.