August Movie Reviews

*****  Exceptional

****    Great

***      OK

**        So So

*          Blah

Before I Disappear is about this totally messed up guy. In the bathroom at work he finds a woman dead from a drug overdose and his boss, the nightclub owner, doesn't want the publicity so they get rid of the body. Later he finds out it was the rival nightclub owner's girlfriend and he's wondering why she isn't calling him afraid she dumped him. Our screwed up protagonist can't say anything. He tries all night to commit suicide, but the phone keeps ringing. His estranged sister is in lock up and she begs him to pick up the niece and watch her. It was a strange movie with lots of odd characters. It made me thankful my life is not so dramatic. I like my boredom. My review makes it sound like some kind of comedy, but it definitely wasn't. ***

Bird People starts with an American business man (Josh Charles the dead lawyer from The Good Wife) in Paris. For some reason he snaps and decides he doesn't like his life. He quits his job, quits his wife and kids. It seems very self-centered and we get to watch long scenes of him smoking. Everyone in this film smokes. Every now and then there is a bird in the scene. Then there is the hotel housekeeper who is working at the hotel where he is staying. She turns into a bird. Yep, you read that right. She turns into a bird and flies around looking at people. So weird. I turned it off. *

Camp X-Ray is about a "detainee" (Payman Maadi) and a guard (Kristen Stewart) and the hell that is Guantanamo Bay. It was really good. Sad. ****

Decoding Annie Parker is about one woman's experience with cancer after her mother, father, and sister died from it. Convinced there must be a genetic link she passionately searches for answers while geneticist Mary-Claire King  researches to discover genetic markers and mutations that cause cancer. Excellent performances. Cancer baffles me. I'm still perplexed why I'm still alive when my mother died when she was thirty-four years old. My friends are always giving me shit about how their parents lived to be elderly and because of genes, they will, too. Sorry. I don't buy it. If our longevity is all about genes based on our family history, I should have died ions ago. Someday I think someone will figure it out. Until then we are all in the dark. ***

The Girl on a Train is about an alcoholic woman who rides the train to Manhattan every day. She sees the houses on the way, her old neighborhood where her now ex-husband lives with his new wife/former mistress. The woman down the street is having an affair with her psychiatrist and disappears later to be found murdered. The alcoholic blacked out the night of the murder and can't remember where she was and what she did, but she awakens the next morning dirty and covered in blood. Great murder mystery. Excellent performances. ****

Hungry Hearts is about a couple (Adam Driver and Alba Rohrwacher) who have a baby. When she's pregnant she stops eating. The doctors keep telling her she has to eat so the baby will develop, but she ignores them. She becomes very weird and neurotic. Then when the baby is born she refuses to feed him meat (protein) and has him exist on avocados and weird herbal potions designed so he will not digest nutrients. The baby is underdeveloped and not gaining weight. She's starving the baby and herself. She also refuses to take him outside for fear of environmental toxins. It had a very slow start, way too much introduction. I've always liked Adam Driver and he's just starting to do a lot of dramatic roles. ***

Inferno is part of the Davinci Code series starring Tom Hanks. This one is about the release of a virus to cull half the population so the other half can live and the human race won't be obliterated through overpopulation. Through various clues they try to figure out where the virus is located before the bad guys release it. Lots of high drama, intrigue, chase scenes, never a dull moment in an exhausting kind of way. I do like a movie about the risks of overpopulation. ***

Jane Wants a Boyfriend was about the relationship between an autistic woman and her overprotective sister. Hate the title. I couldn't tell if the actress playing the autistic woman was overacting or if that was just the way autistic people are. It didn't feel natural, but I don't know. ***

Kelly and Cal Stupid, uninspired, lacking in creativity title. It's about two people who have lost their former selves and really don't know how to go on with their lives. Kelly is a former bass player in a rock band who got married and is now living the suburban life with  a new baby. Cal is an ex-artist teenager in a wheelchair after an accident that left him without fine motor skills. They develop an odd friendship that satisfies each other's need for companionship, but Cal starts crushing on Kelly and well, Kelly is married. Interesting human relations.***

Last Cab to Darwin is an Australian film about an elderly cab driver who has been given three months to live. He doesn't have family and refuses to be hospitalized. He sees an article about a new euthanasia law and starts driving 3000 kilometers to Darwin to end his life. Along the way he meets some interesting people. Great photography, excellent performances. I had a difficult time understanding the dialogue with their strong Australian accents. ***

Last Weekend is about this incredibly wealthy family, with an incredibly beautiful lake house, and their incredibly spoiled kids and their last weekend before they sell the place. I had a hard time relating to people whose greatest drama is selling a house. Patricia Clarkson always plays quirky characters. I wonder if she's like that in real life. ***

The Lobster was the second weirdest film I've ever seen. The first most absolute weirdest movie, Swiss Army Man, is featured below. August must be the weird movie month. The Lobster was about an alternate universe where everyone lives happily as a couple. If for some reason, you are dumped or lose your couple status and become single, you are sent to a hotel where you have 45 days to find your new partner based on your distinguishing characteristic (good hair, nose bleeds, limps, stutters...) If you do not find a new and suitable partner, you are turned into an animal of your choice. Our star (Colin Farrell) chooses to be a lobster. His wife left him. He is accompanied by his brother, a dog, a previous hotel tenant who "didn't make it". Every now and then the group takes their dart guns and hunts for loners. If they shoot one the loner is brought back to the hotel and transformed into an animal. Nearing  the end of his stay, Farrell becomes desperate and decides to find himself a partner come hell or high water and fakes his distinguishing characteristic, but his lies are found out. He runs away to join the loners and there he meets his true partner (Rachel Weisz - they are both near sighted). Unfortunately in this community they are not allowed relationships. The whole movie was SO INCREDIBLY WEIRD. Are people that bored with filmmaking they resort to making up this kind of shit? LOL. I was recently asked if I could be any animal what would I be. I didn't have time to really think it through but finally came to the conclusion being a bird would be cool. But then I thought some kid would probably take his bb gun and shoot me or one of those horrid crows would fly me into a fence or eat my babies. So I settle on being an eagle. No one really messes with an eagle and they are protected by law. That's the best I could come up with in a short amount of time. **

Manglehorn is about a man (Al Pacino) who is obsessed with the woman who got away. Or who actually left him because he was so emotionally unavailable. Obsession and regret makes him even more emotionally unavailable. Great performances. ***

Mr. Pig is about an elderly pig farmer-alcoholic (Danny Glover) who has lost his family farm and takes off with his prize pig "Howie" to sell him for big bucks to a Mexican factory farmer who was the son of his dad's old pig farming friend for $50,000. With money in hand he asks to see his pig one more time and unexpectedly gets a tour of the factory farm. He goes berserk and refuses to sell the pig to such a horrible fate. He needs to find a home for him, but his daughter begins to worry he's gone crazy and joins him only to find out he is dying from cancer which is why he's settling all his accounts. ***

The Salvation was about a Danish settler in the Wild West who waited seven years before sending for his wife and young son only to have ruffians murder them both on the stagecoach. He catches up to the stagecoach and shoots them dead. One of those ruffians was the brother of the bad guy (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) who has been terrorizing the town for profit. Now he's really pissed off. Classic Western plot. It was a great revenge movie, although sad. Too many good people died. ****

Sing Street is about an Irish boy in the 1980s who writes music and forms a band to impress a girl. Outstanding music. Excellent performances. Great hair. Loved it. ****

Swiss Army Man had to be the absolutely weirdest movie I've ever seen! It's about a man (Paul Dano) stranded on an island somewhere in the Pacific. Just as he's about to kill himself because his solitude is driving him nuts, a dead body (Daniel Radcliff) washes up on shore in front of him. The corpse farts. A lot. And Dano uses the body like a jet ski propelled by the gas. Yeah, I have no idea. The weirdness was shocking. When the farting stops and therefore, along with the jet skiing, they are washed ashore on land somewhere. Eventually the dead body starts talking and their relationship begins as Dano figures out all kind of ways to use a dead body (like a multi-purpose Swiss Army knife). SO. INCREDIBLY. WEIRD. Performances were outstanding, but SO. INCREDIBLY. WEIRD.  The writers were crazy. I ended up fast forwarding through it just because I was curious where it might go although it was still too weird to watch. *

Table 19 is about wedding reception seating and the farther away you are seated from the wedding couple the more undesirable you are. Table 19 is next to the bathroom, barely within sound of the band, and eventually they realize they are the guests that should have "regretfully declined" the invitation but didn't. The story centers on the ex-girlfriend (Anna Kendrick) of the best man who was the maid of honor since it was her best friend's wedding but after being unceremoniously dumped opted out. Of course, he is there with his new girlfriend who was promoted to maid of honor. The ex-girlfriend is placed at the table with a group of misfits. At first it felt like a typical rom-com wedding plot with the jilted girlfriend who doesn't want to go to the wedding, goes anyway, meets a gorgeous guest who sweeps her off her feet and gets carried off into the sunset. However, shortly after she meets and dances with the gorgeous guest, the plot goes sideways. The idea had a lot of potential. I really like Anna Kendrick so that gave it more potential. Unfortunately, the story wasn't that interesting and the characters weren't that interesting. The antics of Table 19 guests became a little meaningless and didn't pack the punch they should have. Most of the time they are sitting somewhere feeling sorry for themselves and bonding over their pathetic states of misfit-ness.  It was borderline stupid comedy but the comedy wasn't outlandish enough to fit. **

Tokyo Fiancee is about this young, sweet Belgian girl who was born in Japan but left with her family when she was five years old. She has dreamed for 15 years of become Japanese and heads to Tokyo. She offers French classes and a handsome young Japanese man hires her. It blossoms into romance and he asks her to marry him...but she is unsure. Do they love each other just because they are fascinated with each other's culture? She tells him of the Belgian tradition of engagement thinking she can put him off for a long time. Then a few natural disasters occur and she is forced to leave. Sweet film. Pauline Etienne is absolutely adorable. It has English subtitles. ***

The Trip to Italy with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. The previews showed scenes from The Trip which I assume was the first movie, but my library system doesn't have it. I constantly felt like I was coming in at the middle of a story. These two comedic actors spent the time eating the most heavenly looking food, driving the beautiful countryside (while listening to Alanis Morrissette) and babbling hilarious banter back and forth while quoting movie lines and doing impressions. It would be fun to travel with people so funny but at the same time it might get old and irritating for a whole week. I think it was fictional, but they used their own names so I wasn't quite sure although the extramarital affairs wouldn't be something they'd publicly admit. ***

The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet was about a little boy born with a highly developed scientific mind who's adventurous twin brother dies in a shooting accident as they are researching shooting velocity. He feels like his family blames him. After he invents a perpetual motion machine and wins a prestigious award from the Smithsonian Institute, he decides to run away from home via freight train to accept the award in Washington DC. Strange story. Not realistic at all. How does a little kid travel across country without being caught or worse? Then he gets to the Smithsonian and no one questions where his guardians are? He just shows up and that's fine? Lots of potential and I think it was supposed to be about grief from a child's point of view, but it was trying too hard to be a comedy or a fantasy or both. Too bizarre (theme of the month) It failed every step of the way. American landscape was lovely.  **