May Movie Reviews

OH! May movie watching wasn't as intense perhaps because it's gardening season. Here are my movie reviews for May:

Captain Phillips is about the American freighter that was captured by Somalian pirates starring Tom Hanks as the captain. Excellent role for Hanks. It was very suspenseful, stressful, with wonderful performances and excellent rhythm and timing. Very entertaining. I really hope they have armed guards on freighters now. It's kind of ridiculous to sail through a dangerous area with no weapons of any kind on board. ****

The Imitation Game with Benedict Cumberbatch, Keira Knightley and an all-star cast is about Alan Turing, a British war hero who cracked a Nazi code leading to the end of World War II by creating the first computer prototype. The story is very interesting and Cumberbatch's portrayal of this complex individual is excellent. However, the torment he suffered for being different, for being extremely smart to the point of social ineptness, and the constant persecution for being homosexual was disturbing. It is so heartbreaking. I'm so glad society is finally evolving even if it is at a painfully slow pace. The ending is incredibly sad. This movie received many Oscar nominations and one award for script writing. ****

Last Vegas starring Michael Douglas, Kevin Kline, Morgan Freeman, and Robert De Niro, is about four childhood best friends from Brooklyn, miserable in retirement or maybe just not enjoying life as much as they could. They get together for a bachelor party in Las Vegas. Excellent all-star cast, great jokes about aging, fun, light-hearted. ****

Night Has Settled was a movie about a teenage boy growing up in New York City with his mother, sister and live-in housekeeper/nanny(?) and the bond he has with her. It was interesting. Do young teenagers really roam NYC at night like that playing around on the streets? Hmmm. ***

The Other Woman is a comedy about a philandering jerk. His pathological adultery is discovered and his wife and two mistresses get together for revenge. It stars Cameron Diaz who usually plays characters who are silly, ditzy, and incredibly stupid just for the sake of humor. This was funny bordering on stupid, but her character wasn't so stupid which was a relief. Instead, Leslie Mann was the ditzy one and she played the wife. She was hilarious. It was fun, but nothing special. ***

Under Our Skin is a documentary film on Lyme disease. Very scary. It illustrates how incompetent and money-hungry the medical system is and clearly suggests how health care is in the hands of the chemical and insurance companies. It's disgusting the control medical boards and medical associations have over everything and how little they care about real people and their health. But we knew that already. Excellent movie and beautifully filmed, but depressing. It was so heart breaking to watch when the little boy start crying and I'll never look at grass in quite the same way again. YouTube has it online for free. ****