Driven

There’s something inherently dishonest about films that are “based on a true story.” Phony. Not so with films that are “inspired by real events,” however. Inspired. That’s what you need to make a good movie, so you might as well admit right up front that you’re full of shit. That’s what “Driven” (2019) does. It’s a story of a poorly built automobile, a hastily arranged coke deal, and two men who are incredibly skilled at being full of shit. Lee Pace is John DeLorean, Jason Sudeikis is an FBI informant and the rest is fabricated for maximum entertainment value. Successfully.

The 15:17 to Paris

It’s a mediocre film, but in a larger sense, it’s good that Clint Eastwood made “The 15:17 to Paris” (2018). It’s good to tell this story to a wide audience. Most young people don’t sit around on porches or at barbershops or the local diner and listen to older, wiser folk pass along wisdom, so if it takes a movie about three young adult American tourists who stepped into the breach and helped thwart a terrorist attack on a train to teach kids it takes more than snarky Twitter comments to make the world a better place, so be it.

Wilson

You know the annoying guy who sits next to you on the airplane/bus/subway and won’t shut up, and then gets all weird when you try to end the one-way conversation? Woody Harrelson made an entire movie about him. “Wilson” (2017) is fascinatingly entertaining, in that I was fascinated that I found it entertaining. I have always held that it’s impossible to cure America of mass murderers because there are so many weird, middle-aged-loner white guys that don’t become mass murderers. They just stay weird. And lonely. And (mostly) harmless. And possibly misunderstood. And now they have movies made about them.