The Mountain between Us:

This is an awkward film that struggles to find its way between being a survival film and a love story.  Idris Elba is a doctor named Ben who needs to get from Idaho to Denver in order to perform delicate surgery on a child whose life depends on his showing up the next morning.  The airlines aren't flying because of a January snowstorm blowing into the region.  Alex (Kate Winslet) is a photojournalist who faces a similar predicament.  After overhearing his plight, she approaches Ben in the airport, a total stranger, and suggests that there might be a way that they can get out, flying across the mountains of Colorado and still make their respective commitments.  Next we see them in the hanger of a very low-end charter company run by Walter (Beau Bridges) who is the owner, pilot, mechanic, and everything else.  He agrees to fly them to their destination for $800 each, and along with his dog, a golden Labrador with no name, they are off into the not-so-friendly skies.  This is the first major plot hole.  If the commercial airlines are not flying because of the weather, what makes two intelligent people think that a rinky-dink two-engine Piper Apache is going to get them up above the storm and across the frozen terrain?  They also notice that Walter doesn't file a flight plan, and they seem okay with that too.  Well, poor Walter isn't with us long ... he has cardiac event while over the most rugged part of the mountain system, the plane goes down, Ben and Alex survive the crash, as does the dog, but Walter is all done.  After three days it's clear that no one is looking for them, perched near the top of a snow-and-ice-covered mountain peak, and they decide to try to walk out.  As arduous as is the hiking, watching it all is equally arduous for the audience.  It feels as if there is a string of life-threatening events lined up just outside our sight line that director Hany-Abou Assad just can't wait to get throw at us: encounter with a mountain lion; check; nearly falling off the mountain: check; crashing through the ice on a snow-covered lake; check ... and so it goes.  Easily too long by nearly a half-hour, the romance, if that's what it is trying to be, falls mostly flat, and the outcome is predictable.  Rated 14A. 

Flatliners:

A remake of the 1990 that has a group of med students, played by Ellen Page, Nina Dobrev, Diego Luna, Kiersey Clemons, and James Norton, flirting with death.  It is Page's character, Courtney, who starts things off, convincing her peers that having her heart stopped for a minute, and then being revived, while monitoring brain activity, would offer some insight into the secrets of both life and death.  The deed is done, in a sub-basement of the hospital where unused equipment seems to beckon them to help themselves.  There are some anxious moments in reviving Courtney, but success finally occurs, and she is elated.  As the days progress, it seems that her abilities as a doctor, as well as a pianist, are enhanced well beyond where they were pre-death, and now everyone wants in on the act ... two minutes, three minutes, four minutes .... all return to the land of the living, but what Courtney hasn't told them is that something has changed.  Something seems to have followed her out of the land of the dead, and now haunts her waking moments.  It's a serviceable horror movie, well-paced, well-acted, and with some good make-you-jump moments.  Rated 14A. 

The Recall:

 This direct-to-video movie stars Wesley Snipes as a hunter who encounters a group of five friends that have chosen a wilderness weekend in a remote lake house.  What none of them know initially, is that things are about to change when earth is invaded by aliens.  Can the fate of the world actually be in the hands of this small group of people?  Shot near Vernon, BC, with some scary looking aliens and some cheesy special effects.  Not a bad diversion if you are either as sci-fi fan or a Wesley Snipes fan.  Rated 14A.

State of Play (2009):

Russell Crowe is Cal McCaffrey,  a hard-boiled Washington, DC journalist who sees a conspiracy behind every tree.  When a small-time thief is gunned down in an alley, and when a Congressional aid is pushed in front of a train, McCaffrey connects these apparently unrelated events and finds a tie between them that leads to corporate and government cover-ups, murder, and worse.  A good cast shows up for this mystery thriller including Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, Jason Bateman, Viola Davis, and Jeff Daniels.  Will keep you on edge right to the end.  Rated 14A. 

The Girl From the Song (2017):

Burning Man is a psychedelic festival, and a celebration of the arts that takes place each year in the Nevada desert.  It has been going on for 31 years now, and people come from all over the world to bring their own unique talents and share them selflessly.  Eric (Lewis Rainer) is a musician who has fallen for a girl that he hardly knows, and follows her to Burning Man to let her know how he feels.  This was actually a student film, a film school project, which, when completed, achieved some distribution.  It's very odd, but if you are a Burning Man follower, you'll want to see what happens.  Rated 14A.