July Movie Reviews

*****  Exceptional

****    Great

***      OK

**        So So

*          Blah

Anesthesia was about this mix of people questioning the meaning of life. It was a little too abstract for me and even the lectures of the college professor went way over my head. I normally don't like Kristen Stewart but she was really outstanding in this movie and had some great lines on the futility of life. **

Arrival is a sci-fi with a whole lot of human emotion thrown in to make it less science-y. It's about this linguistics expert (Amy Adams) who is called to help the government try to translate alien language when twelve extra-terrestrial ships land all over the world and no one knows who they are nor what they want. The octopus-like creatures make strange whale-like sounds and when Louise starts showing them words they spray black ink-like substance on the glass partition creating abstract shapes. Because Earth is divided into various countries all with different leaders, many with their own alien ship to deal with, we humans can't quite get it together and sharing information on each of the ships becomes problematic. Naturally China and Russia decide to do their own thing and plan to attack their ships (idiots) based on misinterpretation of the alien communication. It was long, drawn out, somewhat boring, and Adams was unemotional through most of it. It was like she was in a trance. which might have been appropriate, but still irritating. The music was obnoxiously irritating although fitting in a weird way. There was time jumping, too, although you don't realize what is going on until the end. Actually I'm still not real clear what was going on...and that's how I know it's sci-fi! **

A Ballerina's Tale is about the rise of Misty Copeland, first African-American principal dancer in a major ballet company. Lots of history on other African-American dancers. Just watching her exercise exhausted me. It was fascinating especially the part where she talks about the pain tolerance of dancers and we find out for two long she was dancing with fractured bones! Eeeew. Excellent documentary. ****

The BFG is based on Roald Dahl's book of the same name about a little orphan girl with insomnia and one night she sees a giant roaming the streets of London. Afraid she will tell other humans about giants, he snatches her and carries her to Giant Land to live with him in his very cool cave. The other less friendly giants want to eat her so they have to figure out a plan. Outstanding!! Good lord! Talk about bringing this book to life and with such wonderful special effects. *****

Blood Relative was about a young woman who ran away from her broken home and multiple step-fathers when she was a teen. She contacts her ex-con, ex-biker father (Mel Gibson) while on the run after shooting her drug-cartel boyfriend. It doesn't take long before they find her. He taps into his connections with various gangs, prison inmate friends, and biker clubs for assistance all the while trying to not violate his parole. It was really good. I don't normally like shoot-em-up movies with lots of violence, but this one wasn't so mindlessly bloody and the plot was excellent. Great role for Gibson. ****

Born to Be Blue was based on a true story about trumpet player/heroin addict Chet Baker and his rise then fall then rise again. Outstanding performance by Ethan Hawke. The time travel and flashbacks were a little discombobulating, color to black and white, but that's just me. Depressing story due to the drug addiction. ***

Denial is about the libel trial between a Holocaust professor (Rachel Weisz) and a Holocaust denier who claims the Holocaust never happened and the very strange English legal system where the defense has to prove the accuser is wrong. It was good. Weisz fake Queens accent was irritating, but maybe it was supposed to be. ***

Effie Gray is the true-ish story of art historian John Ruskin's wife (Dakota Fanning) who he ignored and treated like garbage. This story line was featured in the movie I saw about the Pre-Raphaelite artists a while back. Most of the plot deals with her marital situation which was very depressing. In the end she falls in love with artist Everett Millais and gets a divorce which is unheard of in the 1800s.  Most of the performances were excellent, but the plot was slow and not very interesting. Dakota Fanning rocked a great English accent, but if the character was supposed to be Scottish...hmmm? Her character was very stoic which might have been appropriate, but Fanning tends to be unemotional no matter what character she's attempting and that's not a compliment. **

Every Thing Will Be Fine was about a writer (James Franco) who when driving in blizzard conditions on a country detour hits a boy on a sled. He gets out and the boy is sitting in front of the car in a stupor. He sighs and thanks God. He walks the boy up to the house, carries him on his shoulder, makes conversation, and when he reaches the door the mother asks where her other son is. The driver didn't realize the older brother he hit was under his car. A really memorable scene! The movie is about how this man and the dead boy's family deal with such a trauma. Interesting. Maybe a little slow. The music was really melodramatic like a ghost story which was a little unsettling. ***

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them the latest J.K. Rowling film about a British wizard / magical creature advocate (Eddie Redmayne) who travels to America carrying a suitcase full of magical creatures. When bad things start happening, it's all blamed on the few innocent creatures who had escaped. Redmayne's character, Newt, was such a quirky, nerdy guy with so much bizarreness he was just another creature. The story was incredibly convoluted with way too much going on, way too many theories and rules and weird names of things it lacked connection. Even the never-ending special effects were so bombarding the exhaustion of it inspired...apathy. Oh, another building falling apart, another explosion, another poof of smoke, ho hum. The thing that makes Harry Potter is so lovable is it is all about humanity: relationship bonding between friends, family, community, and situation. Lots of human emotion. This was like a bad sci-fi trying to be clever through fantasy with individual players either for or against society lacking connection. Even the protagonists were antagonistic toward each other. Destruction rebuilding effects were cool and the ecological/animal protection themes were excellent although I think they could have added much more emotion through these fantastic beasts. Colin Farrell plays the bad guy and then he changes into Johnny Depp! I wonder how much Depp got paid for his five second cameo? **

Fences is about a former baseball player for the Negro League in the 1950s. Now he's a garbage man supporting his family. Lots of long-winded speeches about life. It was written as a play and it feels like that. Even though the performances were outstanding, especially Denzel Washington, I didn't care for it as a movie. I wanted it to get to the point of the plot but it just rambled on. *

The Founder is about how Ray Kroc (Michael Keeton) built the McDonalds empire. Fascinating. He teamed up with the McDonalds brothers to franchise their fast food restaurant based on speed, quality control and product reputation, signed a contract giving them ultimate control of the product and as he was losing money he found the "back door" and bought all the land out from under them!  They threatened to sue him but realized they already lost and were forced to sell the whole franchise corporation and their namesake to him. Kroc was a great businessman, but the story was pretty sleazy. The imitation milkshakes said it all! Great story. ****

Hell or High Water What a stupid title. I guess it could be worse, but I know it could be better. This movie is about two Texan brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) who go on a modern day bank robbing spree. The bank recently foreclosed on their family ranch, wheeling and dealing their mother before she died in the sleaziest way possible after oil was discovered on the property. Jeff Bridges plays the almost-retired Texas Ranger who goes after them. Excellent performances, excellent sets (the dirt and dust of Texas), and excellent thought-provoking story. I enjoyed the intrigue as it wasn't clear why they were robbing banks (sorry for disclosing too much) and I love a corporate greed revenge theme. Great ending. ****

Hey, Hey It's Esther Blueburger is a strange coming-of-age story out of Australia about a weird little girl who goes to a very pompous, mundane private school where no one gets her and everyone teases her. She has no friends, spends her lunches alone in a room, and befriends a duckling from the science department until it ends up dead for a dissecting project.  She does have a brother who is just a bizarre as she is. She meets a girl from the local public school and begins skipping her school so she can go to school with this other girl where she blossoms in the misfit group and proceeds to find notoriety as the school bully. I hate the title. **

Jungle Book (2016) Outstanding. I loved, loved, loved the cartoon version as a kid. This one featured a human boy and a whole lot of digitally enhanced animals, some looked very real except they were talking, some didn't. Great voices by Bill Murray, Ben Kingsley, Scarlett Johansson and Christopher Walken. I was surprised they included the songs although I think it was easier to add the music to the cartoon movie. Beautiful sets. Loved it. Kids would absolutely love it although it does get a little violent and scary. ****

A Monster Calls Good lord, I had no idea what this movie was about. I had just watched The BFG and the previews for this movie looked similar:  kid, companion giant, special effects.  I had no clue. It's was about  kid who is dealing with his mother who is dying from cancer. Yeah, he's also dealing with bullies, an absent father, and a witch of a grandmother, but it was more about the fear, anger, guilt from anger, denial, isolation, and the fantasy world created to avoid the reality.  Spot on. I sobbed. With the exception of the bullies, it was my story, same age and same evil grandmother and absent father. It hit a little too close to home. Outstanding performances, awesome special effects, beautiful settings and scenery.  The watercolor/ink illustrations were beautiful. Great themes. ****

Moonlight is about the evolution of a gay black man from boyhood growing up in the hood with a drug addict for a mother, bullied constantly through school, and coming to terms with who he is as an adult. Very sad on so many levels. Great performances, but it was a little slow. I had no idea what was going on the first half hour. ***

Pelé was the story of the famous soccer player from childhood to the World Cup. Excellent story. Excellent performances. The kids were adorable. ****

A Perfect Day is about a group of humanitarian aid workers during the war in the Balkans in 1995. A man, or as they constantly refer to him "the fat fuck," from one of the villages fell or was thrown down the local well and his dead body has contaminated the water supply. Due to a number of conflicting bureaucratic regulations with various peace agreements, it's forbidden to get him out even though the village desperately needs water, but even if they could they can't find a rope and spend much of the day searching for one while encountered dead cows laying across roads which is known to be a trap for mines. The characters are hilarious (Tim Robbins and Benicio del Toro), but the war themes are heartbreaking. It was good. Loved the dog. Vicious animal on a rope. They decided to slip him some tranquilizers, but in the end, as they say the tranquilizers only made him worse. Then they zoom into the dog. Hilarious shot of the dog. LOL.  ***

Pete's Dragon  I've got a theme going on here - kids with friendly, giant companions. There seem to be a lot of children's films based on books produced just in the last couple years. Every time I come across one I think hasn't this been out for a long time??, but I think I'm just remembering it from my days as a children's librarian.  This movie started out the total opposite of a children's movie: car accident with dead parents, tiny boy alone lost in the woods with wolves chasing him. Jeez. Enough to give kids nightmares. Then the dragon saves him and the dragon is like a big playful kitten that chases its tail, sleeps on its back, jumps, rolls, plays with anything that moves, sneezes, and flies. And very protective. The dragon didn't look as realistic as I would have liked BUT it was lovable and friendly and after the horror that was the beginning of this story, the dragon needed to be like a big, friendly, cuddly, green furry stuffed  animal. Adorable story. Great performances. It's a North American  Jungle Book only without the singing...oh, there is one song, but animals don't sing. Great role for Robert Redford with his animal rights advocacy. *****

Snowden Is he a traitor or a patriot? This is the story of Edward Snowden, his background, his government experience and pretty much his disgust with the sleazy way the American intelligence operates.  Clearly he's a patriot. ****

Time Out of Mind is about a homeless man (Richard Gere) as he exists in the city, negotiates the bureaucracy of shelters, keeps safe on the streets, sells his clothes for alcohol, and deals with his demons. Most of the framing is filmed through windows, from the building out to the street or vice versa, however, what was exceptionally striking was the soundtrack. Lots of noise. There is never silence and usually three to four different sounds intermixed on top of each other - people yelling, people talking, pigeon wings flapping, traffic, sirens, coughing, singing, tapping, horns honking, music, utensils clanging, laundromat dryers banging, new voices screaming, different voices laughing, both the inside building and outside street noise simultaneously.  And it's all amplified over the dialogue between the main characters. Really ingenious. Then Ben Vereen shows up half way through playing another homeless man who talks loudly non-stop and follows Gere around. All this clatter was incredibly irritating to me as someone with a hearing sensitivity, but added so much to the experience of being homeless and mentally ill "lost" in a large city. There was an unsafe element to the noise and I just wanted peace. STOP THE FUCKING NOISE!  At one point near the end of the movie Gere's character explains to someone when his life fell apart, he couldn't stop the noise in his head. Ah ha! It was very depressing and a little slow, but I think even the speed of the movie was purposeful as well. Really brilliant filmmaking which is why it gets such a high rating. ****