***** Spectacular
**** Good
*** OK
** Blah
* Ghastly
Black Sea
I kept seeing previews for this movie and I have to admit, death
by submarine seems like the worst way to die.
I figured just the feeling of claustrophobia would give me nightmares, but
I ran out of movies while waiting for my library holds to come in and there the
DVD was on the shelf waiting for me. Jude Law plays a submarine captain who
works for a fancy, corporate salvage company. They fire him after 15 years.
He's bitter. He is hired by some anonymous rich guy to rescue Nazi gold off a
WWII sunken submarine. His crew is half English and half Russian which makes
for very bad cultural relations. Then there is the greed and the stupidity.
What were those crew members thinking hundreds of feet underwater? Jude Law was
great. I don't think he's Irish but that was one awesome Irish accent. A little
too tense and testosterone-ish for me, but it was good. ***
The Cake Eaters was about small-town
strange people. It was painfully slow and lacking in interest. I lasted about
20 minutes before the pain was too intolerable. *
Front of the Class is a story about
a boy with Tourette Syndrome and how he learns to live with it later becoming
an award winning teacher. It's got to be a horrible way to grow up with kids
bullying him constantly, or laughing at his outbursts, being told to leave
movie theaters or performances because he's too disruptive. I do find the boy's
constant positive attitude difficult to believe in light of all the negativity
he faced daily. I think it was some kind of Hallmark after school film where
even in bad situations everyone keeps smiling. James Wolk (who is absolutely
adorable!) played the adult Brad Cohen on who's story the film is based. It was
good. Perhaps a little unrealistic when he leaves a classroom of second graders
unattended or stays alone with a student during recess. I think even a first year
teacher would know better. At the same time, I remember the joy of getting my
first classroom and walking into it for the first time. They captured that
wonderfully. ****
The Ghost Writer features Ewan
McGregor as a ghost writer hired to finish the memoirs of a British Prime
Minister. Lots of conspiracy, political confusion and a plot that made me
constantly question, "What the hell is going on?" I didn't have a
clue and in the end I wasn't sure I cared. I do like Ewan McGregor. **
I Smile Back is a film about mental
illness and addiction. A housewife (Sarah Silverman) is a mess. Cocaine,
alcohol, extramarital affairs and in one scene she masturbates with her
daughter's teddy bear in case there was any doubt of how low she can go or how degenerate
she is. She goes to rehab and as soon as she's out, starts it all over
again. I have never seen Sarah Silverman
in anything but loud-mouth comedy so I was pleasantly surprised at her
performance, but the whole time I kept looking at this woman and her perfect
husband (Will Gardner from The Good Wife),
perfect kids, perfect house and wondering why she couldn't pull it together.
And that's the whole theme of the movie: mental illness is a bitch. ***
Last Chance Harvey is about a jingle
composer (Dustin Hoffman) who travels to England for his daughter's wedding.
Nothing goes right for him. He's being pushed out of his job by younger
employees, he feels out of place and unwelcomed at the rehearsal dinner, his
daughter tells him she wants her step-father to walk her down the aisle, and
then in hopes of getting home in time for an important meeting so he can save
his career, he misses his flight and loses the job. There is something very
discombobulating about him, like a dark cloud hanging over every aspect of his
life. Throughout the story he continuously almost encounters an airport
employee (Emma Thompson) who's life is very much the same. She seems very
lonely and isolated going through the motions of life one mundane minute at a
time. Again, very depressing and discombobulating as well, but the anticipation
of them finally meeting is wonderful. It
was a charming love story that confirmed love is not just for the young and it
will appear when it's least expected, sans the cliché predictability of a
Hollywood plot. It left me thinking about missed opportunities and how to live
life to the fullest. I like that feeling. ****
Labyrinth of Lies is a German movie
with English subtitles about the attempt to bring the everyday Nazi war criminals
to trial in the 1960s. After WWII, the Nuremburg Trials convicted a handful of
Nazi generals and higher ranking officers, but what about the lower-ranking
guards who worked at the concentration camps who were responsible for so many
deaths? Those who carried out the orders and perpetuated the torture and
violence without any thought or remorse? In the 1950s they became teachers, bakers,
or anyone allowed to walk the streets living normal lives pretending nothing
they did was wrong. It's also a story
about how after the war Germany tried to sweep the Holocaust experience under
the rug in order to forget. Citizens ignored what went on or conveniently
remained ignorant. But the issue and legal conflict is in the 1940s nearly
everyone belonged to the "Party". Some were passionate supporters and others
were forced to join, but the government can't arrest a whole country. And are
soldiers who obey orders during war time liable for their own crimes against
humanity? If that's the case, there is a whole world of people walking the
streets who should be on trial for murder but instead they are called heroes
fighting for their patriotic cause. It was very thought provoking. When I've
seen Holocaust movies and at the end the Jewish protagonist is still living
amongst his Nazi tormentors, I wonder how could that have been? I found the movie
personally interesting because we do have a former WWII Nazi living in my
little town. I've heard he worked at a concentration camp and he still
professes Nazi beliefs to his neighbors.
I've always thought it was weird he's allowed to just live his life
after that. He spends most of his time now as a Jehovah's Witness religious nut
walking from door to door which is how I met him. You'd think maybe he found
God and has paid some kind of personal retribution, but I was told he had an
affair with a young girl at his church so he is still morally questionable to
the bone. The public prosecutor in this movie was after the notorious Dr.
Mengele who performed all kinds of sadistic experiments on Jews. He fled
Germany in 1945, lived rather comfortably in Buenos Aires, and freely came back
to Germany to visit family constantly knowing no one would do anything. He was never
brought to justice and died in 1979. In our "modern" society, how
does this happen? Crimes against humanity should not go unpunished. The performances
were outstanding, the costumes and sets were superb, and the story was
fascinating. The subtitles were
obnoxious since I can never read fast enough to keep up with them so I'm pretty
sure I get only half the dialogue most of the time. ***
Life is about photographer Dennis
Stock's time with James Dean and the photo spread he did for Life magazine just before Dean's death. You
know, that classic photo of Dean walking down NYC in the long black coat? I
don't know if I liked the casting. The guy who plays Dean is very strange
bordering on retarded. Was Dean that strange and quirky? I've heard he was, but
to that extreme? Robert Pattison of Twilight
fame plays the photographer. He's always moody bordering on brain dead.
Together they created a very slow, moody, brain dead film. **
May I Be Frank is about the transformation
of Frank Ferrante an Italian New Yorker and former drug addict who was
diagnosed with Hepatitis C a few years back and has been on chemotherapy-type
drugs that create joint pain, depression, and a number other chemically-induced
side effects of misery. To counteract these symptoms he must take five more
prescriptions which cause more misery. What a mess. He's overweight, suicidal,
and hates himself, but hides most of his misery with his outstanding sense of
humor. He walks into Cafe Gratitude in San Francisco and answers their question
of the day, "What do you want to do before you die?" They adopt him,
have him sign a program/coaching agreement, clean out his refrigerator, put him
on a vegan, raw food diet with daily doses of wheat grass, pump out his
intestines with regular colonics, and film the 42 day transformation. It's
pretty amazing. Not only does he drop the weight, but he ends up going off all
his prescription medications, reconnects with alienated family members,
apologizes to those he's wronged, gives his expensive clothes to the homeless,
and discovers energy he hasn't had for years. Very inspiring. ****
Me, and Earl, and the Dying Girl is
about a high school boy who makes bizarre, yet hilarious re-made films of movie
classics with his "co-worker" sidekick, Earl. His mother forces him
to spend time with her friend's daughter, a girl he barely knows from his high school, who
was recently diagnosed with cancer. Excellent writing that is often LOL. Superb
performances. ****
Odd Thomas is a movie based on the
novel of the same name by Dean Koontz about a clairvoyant who can see dead
people and dreams of things to come. He
also sees these weird evil demonic things called "bodachs" that hang
around to sniff the blood of a person destined to die soon. Those things are
really creepy and the special effects are outstanding. In all the creepy, evil,
bloody impending violence, there is this strange humor thorough out the movie
that is ODD to say the least. Some of the dialogue is like a 1950s B-rated
horror movie which is kind of fun. The movie was definitely entertaining and
although I had my doubts at first, I actually really liked it. ****
Max is about a military dog who's owner
is killed in combat. He has PTSD which renders him combat useless so they give
him to the soldier's family. He's a mess, crazy and as evil as a big dog can be,
but he still has super powers from all that good training. He's fond of the
soldier's little brother. Now, I hate dog movies. They are right up there with
religious football movies, tugging at your heart strings and manipulating your
emotions to the point of nausea, but this one was surprisingly good. It helped
it had a death theme. If I didn't know for a fact dogs are stinky, noisy,
high-maintenance and expensive, this movie would make me want to get one.
Especially one that would chew up bad guys on command or just growl on instinct.
In addition, I do have a weakness for German Shepherds since my first dog was a
German Shepherd. I confess, I liked the movie, dog and all. ****
Paradise: Hope is the third movie in
a German trilogy. This one is about an overweight teenage girl going to a diet camp
where she falls in love with the camp doctor. The camp doctor is weird. He's
old enough to be her grandfather and spends his spare moments in his office
smoking and drinking (and probably masturbating but they don't show that!). He's a bit creepy and pedophile-ish. At one point when
they are on a hiking field trip, he follows her into the dark woods and another
scene after she sneaks out, gets drunk and passes out, he picks her up drives
her into the woods, lays her passed-out body under some trees and he LICKS her
from head to toe. OH MY!!! I think that's what he was doing. So strange
although the forest photography was beautiful. The story never really goes
anywhere and the acting is bad. Lots of overweight children marching back and
forth. I didn't turn it off although I was tempted several times. I really
thought it would take a turn or something would progress to the point where I
would think there was a point or even a plot. It had no point or maybe there
was a secret artsy meaning that went right over my head. No, I'm not going to
see the other movies in the trilogy. *
Prime is about a 37 year old woman
(Uma Thurman) falling for a 23 year old boychild. Her therapist (Meryl Streep)
is his Jewish mother who disapproves of her son's non-Jewish girlfriend not
knowing how much older she is. When she figures out her patient's new love is
her son during a counseling session, she doesn't want to lose her long-standing
patient who she believes needs support and help so she doesn't say anything
about the conflict of interest. Uma, who is happy for the first time in a long
time, constantly confesses very private details about their sex life and Meryl
has to figure out how to negotiate the discomfort of knowing what she knows.
His immaturity was a bit irritating, but his utter devotion was sweet and
enviable. Having had a similar relationship many, many years ago, it brought
back a whole deluge of not-so-good memories. It was interesting on a personal
level, but nothing special. Nice New
York City story with excellent city life scenes and sets. ***
The Railway Man is about an English
veteran/engineer (Colin Firth) with a fetish for trains who was tortured during
WWII in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp. He's haunted by memories and unable to
forget the cruelty forty years later. He meets and marries Nicole Kidman who
wants to help and understand him. One of his POW comrades finds a newspaper
article that features the representative of their torture. They will finally
get their revenge. The Japanese soldier, a former wartime English interpreter,
is giving tours of the prisoner-of-war camp. Our POW veteran travels back to
the scene of the crime to kill him. It's about suffering, guilt, redemption, revenge,
reconciliation and forgiveness. ****
Spotlight received the Oscar for
Best Picture in 2016. It's about the Boston Globe's investigation and
subsequent article on the child sexual molestation in the Catholic Church that
was ignored and covered up by Church officials. Priests were being transferred
from one church to the next enabling them to continue their abuse. So
frightening and such a horrible abuse of power. Even after the article was
published the bishop who ignored the problem for years was transferred to a
foreign country and allowed to maintain his position. Sound more like a reward
than justice. Excellent performances. I love Mark Ruffalo and come to find out he's a supporter of Bernie Sanders. He's my idol...****
That's What I Am is a coming-of-age
movie set in the 1960s about bullying and intolerance. I loved that it kept me
wondering how it was going to play out. The anticipation was delicious. There
was only one aspect of the ending I didn't like and I felt it defeated the
theme's purpose, but it's a minor point. The narration is hilarious and
extremely well-written. Many LOL moments. ****
Tomorrowland is a Disney movie about
the future. The first part featuring the 1964 World's Fair in New York was
really fascinating and I had high hopes for the rest of it, but then it got a
little too sci-fi with too much conspiracy theory that was way over my head.
Lots of violence for a kid's movie, even if they were just killing robots and vaporizing
humans. I came really close to turning it off near the end as I thought going
to bed and sleeping might be more entertaining. The message was good: we are killing
the planet and no one really gives a shit. It stars George Clooney who has aged
quickly in the last year. That was a little discombobulating and unacceptable.
I think marriage does that to a man.... A lot of people are seeing this DVD as
it had over 200 holds on it in my library. Blah. **
Upside Down is a fantasy about two
worlds somewhere in the galaxy that exist next to each other with opposite
gravities. The bottom world is dark, poverty-stricken, and cold because the
other world that exists above steals their resources through a corporation
called Trans World . Trans World has a huge tower that connects the two worlds
but it's against the law for people from the worlds to intermingle. Two kids
meet at the peak of mountains in their respective worlds, learn how to balance
and work with the opposing gravities to be together. They are soon discovered
and separated when the police shoot him and she falls to her world with blood
gushing from her head. Ten years later (after prison?) the boy is an inventor
and he finds out she is alive and working at Trans World. He gets a job in
"the tower" so he can see her, but finds out the accident caused her
to lose all memory. Yeah, I know that
sounds confusing, but actually it wasn't. The plot is very creative and the
sets, especially for the dark world, are awesome although depressing. It's
profoundly memorable - I thought about it for days. I think they could have
come up with a better title for the movie. It stars Kirsten Dunst. *****
