***** Excellent
**** Great
*** OK
** So So
* Blah
Aloha with Bradley Cooper, Emma
Stone and Rachel McAdams was about people on Hawaii, military stuff and
corporate private stuff and old love and new love. I don't know. Performances
were good but the story made me crazy trying to follow the storyline and who is
in who's pocket. I thought the very, very end was wrong, totally unrealistic. Cooper is
gorgeous.**
Beyond the Reach is about a young
tracker who is hired to take a filthy rich, incredibly entitled business man
(Michael Douglas) big-game hunting in the desert. By accident, or just
stupidity, the rich guy kills an old timer who lives in the hills. He thinks
this social faux pas would ruin his reputation so he tries to bribe the
tracker. When that doesn't work he makes him strip to his undies and walk while
he follows with his high tech waiting for him to collapse and die in the heat. It's
gruesome, but this kid knows the desert. He knows where all the caves and
hideouts are. It's very tense and suspenseful. Great role for Douglas who is
really good at portraying sleazy and arrogant. I think I would have liked a
different ending, but I enjoy vengeful payback and the tracker is just too
saintly. Great photography and performances. ****
Carol is about lesbian love in the
1950s. Carol (Cate Blanchett) is going through a divorce and her husband isn't
a happy man. He files for sole custody of their little girl on moral grounds
unless she comes back to him. In the meantime Carol falls in love with Teresse
(Rooney Mara). The costumes, cars, music, and sets are magnificent. Excellent
performances. The photography is beautiful, but the story is a little
melodramatic and slow. ***
Courageous was about a group of men
who get together and make a resolution to be outstanding fathers and role
models after one in their group loses his nine year old daughter in a car
accident. It was a great story. If all dads signed and lived by such a
resolution to be honest, loving, caring, respectful, and protective just think
how much society would improve. Some of the performances were really good,
others really bad and there was way, way, way too much superstitious God talk
for me, lots of praying to God and expecting God to change everything which I
find ridiculous. It was still a good story with a great message. I think men
could step up to the plate without relying on a religious crutch. ***
Drive was about a movie stunt
driver/mechanic/race car driver by day/get-away car driver by night (Ryan
Gosling) who falls in love with the neighbor lady. When her husband gets out of
prison and he owes bad guys protection money, Ryan offers to help get him out
of the mess by driving the get-away car. It all goes wrong because he was
bamboozled. He's kind of a superhero in a sociopathic kind of way, but I liked
the character. There was something honorable in all that revenge. An honorable
sociopath. HA! What will Hollywood think of next? ***
50 First Dates is about a guy (Adam
Sandler) who meets a girl (Drew Barrymore) who has a brain injury from a car
accident. She wakes up every morning with no short term memory and no memory of
the previous day so he has to start over every day, meeting her, and getting
her to like him. It's very sweet and made me want to move to Hawaii, but you
really need to like Adam Sandler's stupid humor, which I don't. However, this
story has less stupid and more sweetness which made it tolerable. ***
The Forger John Travolta plays an
art forger who gets out of prison early by hitting up the bad guy to bribe a
judge so he can spend time with his dying fifteen year old son. (Art and
cancer...what is not to like about this????)
As payment for the $50K debt owed for the bribe, he must forge a Monet
and steal the original out of the museum so the sleazebag can pay his debt to
some mafia boss. It was good, very complex with lots of human relations mixed
with crime and intrigue. ***
From Time to Time is about a boy in England
just as World War II is ending. His father is missing in action and his mother is
in London trying to find his father. He
is sent to live with his formerly rich grandmother (Maggie Smith) who lives in
this SPECTACULAR old estate with all kinds of antiques and dust and towers
overgrown with weeds. Such a dream. Unfortunately, she is about to lose it all.
He spends a lot of time searching the rooms, spiral staircases, listening to
old family stories, and seeing GHOSTS! It's an outstanding story with outstanding
photography with misty atmosphere and beautiful color. Awesome. *****
The Girl on the Train was dark and
strange and too much philosophical babble about love and relationships. The
babble, although beautifully written, made my head hurt. For some reason I kept with
it even when the video had technical problems. So frustrating. **
Hello, My Name is Doris I love Sally Field and this is a
great role for her. Who said there are no roles for older women in Hollywood?
We are seeing lots of baby boomer movies featuring older quirky female
characters. This one is about an older woman who lives with her mother in a
huge house filled with hoarded junk. She's odd to say the least: crazy
mismatched clothes, drenched in jewelry, lots of make-up and just slightly left to normally in
terms of personality and socialization. After her mother dies, she meets a
younger coworker (Max Greenfield) and fantasizes about him all the time. She
stalks him which is creepy. She misinterprets his friendship as something more
and he misinterprets their friendship as...well, friendship. It was weird, and sad, and at times
uncomfortable. The commentary on how older people are perceived was interesting
and the message was if you are a little strange, alternative rock is where you
belong. Performances were great, but there was something melancholy and depressing that made it not as
entertaining as it could have been. **
The Ides of March is a movie about a
presidential primary with Ryan Gosling as an ambitious, idealistic campaign
worker and George Clooney as the presidential hopeful. The politician, of course, looks really
honorable in the media as if he's the perfect candidate, but there's lots of
sleazy behavior going on behind the scenes. Ryan tries to prevent a scandal
from breaking and everything takes a turn for the worst with the poor guy
getting backstabbed by his own people. Great performances. ***
Into the Storm is an action movie
about tornadoes - not just one tornado but six at once and then the next front
comes in and two GINORMOUS tornadoes converge into the monster of tornadoes.
The special effects were outstanding. The performances weren't so good, in fact
at times rather awful, but it was still fun. ****
I Remember You was about a man who
goes for a midnight swim, gets slapped around by a wave and crashes his head
against a pier. A woman jumps off the pier and saves him. He comes out of it
with some kind of brain injury which makes him sensitive to light and sound and
gets the weird impression he knows her somehow. She develops a really serious
fear of water. It was interesting, but the overkill artsy effects were a bit
irritating. The characters were odd too, kind of brain dead but I think that
was for effect. **
Jane Got a Gun That is the most
idiotic title I could ever imagine for this movie. It rings of sexism and it
trivializes an outstanding Western-themed story. The very complicated plot is about
a Southern woman (Natalie Portman) during the Civil War who escapes to the Wild
West. That's the summary. I'll try not to give too much away. It begins with
Jane living in the middle of New Mexico nowhere with her husband who stumbles
home after being shot multiple times. Who shot him? Why? Why are they coming
after the couple? Lots of mystery keeps
viewers intrigued throughout the movie. I like a movie that engages your brain
by constantly slipping in hints that make you question what you don't know.
There is a LOT of background the viewer doesn't know that is funneled into the
story one tiny detail at time. Love it. Even
with the flashbacks. Time travel is so often disruptive and confusing but in
this case it's used perfectly. Natalie is an exceptional weeper - gut-wrenching
tears of misery that had me sobbing right along with her. Lots of human
relationship and survival themes. Outstanding performances. Natalie's costumes
are exceptional. I want that coat! And the hat! Her character is KICK ASS. The
New Mexican Wild West dirt and dust are outstanding especially all over her
outfits. Outstanding movie. God, I love a good Western! Stupid title. It sounds
like a title for a first-grader primer and the fact she already had a gun makes
it even more nonsensical. I mean with a title like that you'd think the whole
plot was about getting her a gun and figuring out how to use it! *****
King Jack was about one week in the
summer of a fifteen-year old boy who keeps having run-ins with an older bully
and his side kicks. The bully used to be bullied by the kid's older brother who
is an abusive ass. His twelve year old cousin stays with him over the weekend
and they get into all kinds of mess. The performances were really good. You'd
think this would be a silly coming-of-age story, but it was a rather dark and
serious expose on teenage boys. I think they should have named it "The
Secret Life of Bullied Teenage Boys Who Have Lousy Parents and Abusive Brothers".
***
Laggies is about an almost thirty
year old directionless woman (Keira Knightley) who has the same group of
friends from high school, the same high school boyfriend, hangs out at her
parents' house, and works for her dad. She never grew up. She meets some
teenagers and starts hanging out with one of the girls, even moving in with her
and her dad to escape her life. It was a little slow, almost boring, but not
very realistic. What thirty year old woman would be allowed to move in with a
teenager. That screams PEDOPHILE. I kept
getting up to do things without pausing the DVD. That's a sign. **
Life after Beth is a comedy zombie
movie. I think you have to be stoned to really appreciate it, but the
performances were outstanding. In this
rendition, zombies are soothed with smooth jazz. LOL **
Life of Crime I don't get the title.
I wish people would take the time to select better titles for movies. This one
takes place in the 1970s (great costumes) and is about two guys and a Nazi
pervert who kidnap a wealthy man's (Tim Robbins) wife (Jennifer Aniston). The husband is a
sleazeball who has a secret bank account from all his sleazy real estate
dealings and he treats his wife like garbage. She just puts up with it. He
leaves for the Bahamas (?) to meet with his mistress but before he leaves he sends
his wife divorce papers. The bumbling kidnappers demand a million bucks if he
wants to see his wife again...well, he doesn't want to see her again. I thought
this sounded like a comedy in the previews, but it wasn't. Fortunately, it was
a great story with great performances. ***
Man Up was a romantic comedy with
Simon Pegg (I love him) who you'd never think of as a romantic lead but he's so
charming and sweet and funny it makes him irresistible. It was a great love
story, boy meets girl accidentally, they are perfect for each other then
everything goes wrong. It could have been another love story cliche, but it was
a refreshing twist on a typical theme. ****
The Mighty Macs was a feel-good
story about women's college basketball at a Catholic college. I thought it would
be more interesting than the typical feel-good men's sports stories, but it was
very predictable. Close to boring. **
Obvious Child is about a stand-up
comic who's boyfriend dumps her and confesses he has been sleeping with her
friend. Lots of drinking, and whiny babbling, and boredom. *
The Perfect Family was about an
exceptionally religious housewife who is nominated to be the Catholic Woman of
the Year and needs to go through a vetting process to confirm she is worthy. It
had the makings of a great comedy. One soon discovers her so-called perfect family
includes an alcoholic husband, a cheating son, and a lesbian daughter, and even
that had comedic potential. Unfortunately, it failed miserably as a comedy and
was so incredibly boring it even failed as a drama. Most of the movie is about
her lack of acceptance for her lesbian daughter very much like the other movie
I watched a few months ago Jennie's Wedding.
Lesbians are very popular movie themes these days. The very, very, very bad
performances made it painful to watch. Kathleen Turner looks, acts and speaks
like she's uncomfortable in her own body. She slurs her words, hesitates before
every line as if she doesn't quite know what she should be doing, and her
movements are unstable. Is she drunk????
The whole movie was painfully uncomfortable. *
Shadowland with Nicole Kidman and
Joseph Fiennes is about an Australia couple living in the outback. Their two rebellious,
unhappy kids disappear one night. Neither of them liked living there, and I'm
not sure why everyone thought they'd be stupid enough to just walk across a
desert, but kids aren't always smart so I guess it's not so unreasonable. Lots
of family dysfunction and drama. Such bleak landscape with hellish
temperatures. I don't know how anyone could actually live in such a community. It
looks like Snowflake, AZ. Strange story. Great photography and performances,
but didn't have much entertainment value. ***
She's Funny That Way was a very
bizarre, slapstick-ish-like 1930s comedy about a group of people in New York
who all intertwine through each other's lives. It was so weird at first I
thought it was a Woody Allen movie. I hate Woody Allen. Some of the characters
were really original - like Jennifer Aniston as an incredibly messed up
psychiatrist. She kept screaming at her patients and saying what she wanted to
them which I'm sure is every psychiatrist's dream. Or she'd talk at length
about her clients' personal problems and saying "But I can't talk about my
clients." It was a great role for
her. ***
The Shunning was about a young Amish
girl who's childhood love left the community (although they don't make it clear
how until later), and at twenty years old she's being married off to the
community bishop so he'll have a wife and mother for his two children. She
still has her boyfriend's guitar and in secret she plays it, but when she's
caught she has to confess her sin and promise not to divulge in the "English
ways" ever again. Then a woman shows up in the community and she finds out
she was adopted. It was actually really good, but I think they ended it too soon.
I suppose that was a creative decision, but I'd prefer some heart-felt closure.
Heck, it was a Hallmark movie so that should have been expected. ****
The Skeleton Twins starred Kristen
Wiig and Bill Hader as messed up twins who's father killed himself when they
were 14 years old. It's 15 years later and as she's standing in the bathroom
ready to take a handful of pills she gets a call from a hospital the other side
of the country that her brother just tried to kill himself. They haven't seen
each other in ten years and he moves in with his sister and her husband. Great
human drama with some really outstanding lines. When I see the names Kristen
Wiig and Bill Hader I can't help but expect stupid comedy. I'm glad they are
doing drama. They are both surprisingly talented. I think it's going to take a
long, long time to stop humming the song "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us
Now." That was a great scene. ***
Some Kind of Beautiful was
a weird, predictable Hollywood-driven love story about a college professor
(Pierce Brosnan) who gets his student-girl friend (Jessica Alba) pregnant, she
leaves him for another man, he falls in love with her sister (Selma Hayek), and
gets deported. Hmmm...it was OK. Nothing special. Oh, how nice it would to be
live on the beach in Los Angeles in that gorgeous house. ***
Soul Surfer is the story of Bethany
Hamilton, professional surfer, who was attacked by a shark, lost her arm, and
continued surfing. It was a great story. Just when I started thinking here's a girl with a perfect family, who
lives on a perfect beach in Hawaii, spends every perfect day lounging on beaches
and surfing, is perfectly beautiful, perfectly healthy even without an arm, has
lots of perfect friends, perfect, perfect, perfect...Yeah, this horrible
thing happens to her, but she still has a life most people in the whole world
dream of so it's kind of hard to feel sorry for her. Then she goes to Thailand
after the tsunami and she realizes everything I've been thinking! Great
redemption. Lots of God talk, but I guess I should expect this if I watch a
religious-themed movie. Carrie Underwood needs to stop trying to act. Stick
with singing, honey. ***
Tammy features a character who is
the quintessential all-American white trailer trash woman (Melissa McCarthy) who
is shockingly stupid. She loses her job, finds her husband cheating on her,
runs away with her alcoholic grandmother, robs a fast food restaurant to get
her grandmother out of jail, and goes to jail for robbing the restaurant.
Amazingly enough, it has an all-star cast: Susan Sarandon, Kathy Bates, Dan
Aykroyd, Gary Cole, Allison Janey, Toni Collette, and Sandra Oh. It is just
slightly better than stupid humor so I'm a little perplexed why all these
celebrities are in it. Lots of commentary on growing old, as in "I can do
that [even though it's illegal]! I'm
old, so it doesn't matter!" I'm not quite sure how the main character got
so trailer-trashy with such middle-class, competent parents, but it's not for
me to question Hollywood. Melissa
McCarthy sure is making a lot of money these days for not being the typical
actress. ***
What We Did on Our Holiday I had no
idea what this movie was about. I saw the preview and it looked like a typical
comedy about an English family with adorable yet pretentious kids on vacation
and some good punch lines. It has much more depth than the snippet suggests. It is about a couple with three children and
in the middle of a nasty divorce they drive to Scotland to visit the husband's
dysfunctional family for the grandfather's 75th birthday bash. They fight the
whole time. The neurotic oldest child is convinced her parents are compulsive
liars (they are) and needs to write everything down so she can keep the lies
straight. The grandfather is a charming Scottish sage-like Viking who imparts
his wisdom on the youngsters while he himself contemplates the value of a life
well lived. Of course, kids will be kids and it's impossible for them to keep secrets no matter how hard
they try even after they've been sternly instructed not to tell anyone divorce
details. At one point while the couple is overheard fighting the little boy
says as a matter of fact, "They are fine. And they don't live in different
houses, by the way." And that's
only the beginning of the movie. With every turn it gets better and better. I
don't want to divulge too much. It takes such a delicious and unexpected turn I
was thankful the preview made me think it might be tolerable. The dialogue is
awesome with some outstanding LOL moments and perfect comedic timing, but it's
less comedy and more human relations. Very sweet. I LOVED it, and then I
watched it again. Can I move to Scotland now? *****
While We're Young is about a
40-something couple (Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts) who's friends are all having
kids so they have nothing in common with them. They seem to be in a rut until
they meet a young, 20-something couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) and
all of life's possibilities have returned for the taking. It's definitely an
interesting perspective on aging. Spot on about the younger generation. ***
Zookeeper was a goofy movie about a
geeky zookeeper in love with the wrong woman and the talking zoo animals who
help him snag her. The first half was kind of sweet and seemed to have
potential (aside from the immature humor), but the second half was incredibly
lame with the talking gorilla. And unfortunately I kept thinking about that
little boy who dropped himself into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo
a few months ago. Watching the video of this tiny little boy stare up at a
gorilla that's about to kill him was horrifying. Then the gorilla was killed to
save him which was just as horrifying. Did the little boy see this movie before
his visit to the zoo and thought that would be a good idea? Hmmm...even though
children would love the story and the goofy humor, I think it gives them an
unrealistic concept of wild animals. No, animals can't talk even in secret.
They won't ride around in cars with you nor go out drinking and be your best
friend. And if you fall into their cage, they will probably eat you and cause
you a lot of pain while they do the deed. Besides zoos are inhumane and shouldn't
be in existence. What was with the late 1970s soundtrack? Hmmm...*
Good god, I watch a lot of DVDs!
