***** Exceptional
**** Great
*** OK
** So So
* Blah
Baywatch Brainless
entertainment. It had some funny moments. I liked it when the Rock told the
perpetually shirtless Zac Efron he had a man-gina and kept referring to him as
a boy band. The story started out fun
introducing some of the more interesting beach characters and showing what
superhero-lifeguards do, but then it took a dive into a drug ring plot with
these lifeguards playing detective in order to save the world. Not very realistic.
Most of the stunts were not very realistic either but used to increase the
entertainment factor. This is a movie I might not have selected had there was
anything else available. The very sweet librarian had it in her stack to take
home and felt sorry for me for having nothing to watch so she gave it to me.
She said it might be good eye-candy. She
loves The Rock. I couldn't get through it. I just got bored. I think it would
have been more interesting had they focused on the lives of the lifeguards and the
people they save, but obviously someone thought that wasn't superhero-ish
enough. *
Ben-Hur Ooooh! The 2016 remake! The star (Jack Huston) is gorgeous. The
chariot races were gruesome and thrilling, but the violence tolerable with not
too much gore. Jesus was handsome. Those white horses were magnificent.
Performances excellent. Morgan Freeman was awesome. It was delicious. ****
The Big Sick was about a Pakistani stand-up comedian (Kumail
Nanjiani) who meets and falls in love with a quirky American girl (Zoe Kazan)
while his parents keep trying to fix him up in an arranged marriage with
Pakistani women. He can't tell them he's in love and he can't commit to the
girl because his parents would disown him for rejecting his traditions. I
didn't quite see where this was going so at the break-up fight I put it on
pause and did some other things. I came very close to turning it off. It wasn't
funny, or romantic, but the cultural aspect was interesting. Then I returned to
it and after they break up she ends up in the ICU with a life-threatening
infection and he goes to be by her side bonding with her parents. This added some intrigue, but only enough to
keep it turned on. **
Cleveland
Abduction is the story of
Michelle Knight who with Amanda Berry and Gina DeJesus were kidnapped and held
captive for eleven, ten, and nine years, respectively. Very disturbing. Besides
the daily rape, violence and mental abuse these women endured, how is it that
his neighbors didn't notice anything or become suspicious? How is it when the
police were called because a neighbor heard screams coming from the house they
just drove away after saying, "Well, if you hear screams again call
us." Or the police lack of involvement when the mother reports her missing,
"Maybe she just ran away [because we are too lazy to get off our asses and
make an effort]." I was absolutely
horrified this woman who survived only because she wanted desperately to see
her son again was denied seeing him because he had been adopted! Yes, I
understand it might have been disrupted to his new life, but he was 16 years
old and deserved at the very least to know his mother didn't abandon him. Such
a horror story. And that lunatic committed suicide...was no one watching a
prisoner? He should have been in chains doing hard labor 20 hours a day. Eye
for an eye. It makes me so angry this
happen so easily and went on for so long. Are we just blind and apathetic to
people around us? Excellent movie, although very disturbing. ****
Eat Drink Man
Woman is a Taiwanese movie with
English subtitles about a chef and his three adult daughters who still live at
home. Their lives are a mix of tradition and modernity with relationship
challenges. Every Sunday they gather for a family dinner. The food looked amazing, but I kept wondering
how much of it was gluten-free. LOL. ***
The Edge of
Seventeen is about a
seventeen-year old (Hailee Steinfeld) who is going through those teen years.
Woody Harrelson plays one of her teachers and he's hilarious. Kyra Sedgwick
plays her neurotic mother. Outstanding writing. I've never been a fan of
Steinfeld as I find her skills to be substandard, but in this movie she was
exceptional. ****
Eyewitness was an incredibly low-budget film with second-rate actors
who were embarrassingly bad. It might have been made for television. It was about
a mother-daughter pair who go river rafting and come across escaped convicts
looking for their loot. Typical plot, cliché in every way, really pathetic, but
I lasted through the whole thing. Beautiful California scenery and lots of
running up and down river banks, through fields, up hills. **
Get Out was fascinating in a really bizarre, frightening way!
It's about an African American man who goes with his white girlfriend to stay
with her parents for the weekend.
Unfortunately, that's all I can say without giving away the plot.
Outstanding performances. Excellent story, but it is truly creepy and gets
creepier as the movie progresses. Great ending. Just saying...I was so afraid
it was going to end badly. The "alternative ending" in the bonus
wasn't so good. Very creepy. Then I watched it again to see what I missed. *****
How to Be a
Latin Lover is about a Latin
gigolo who decides when he is a boy he doesn't want to work for a living. The
black humor at the beginning sets the stage. As a gorgeous young man he woos
older, filthy rich widows and marries one which enables him to live a life of
luxury for twenty-five years - until she dumps him for a younger man. He
decides he needs another woman, preferably older and richer than the last one
and goes on the hunt while moving in with his sister (Selma Hayek) and her
10-year old son who has a crush on a girl at school. He begins teaching his
nephew lessons in how to romance women. Rob Lowe plays his best friend who is
also living off an older rich widow and Kristen Bell plays a cat woman working
in a yogurt shop. It has some funny moments, but most of it was goofy. **
Jackie was Natalie Portman as Jackie Kennedy during the
assassination and the days that followed. Portman was great except the voice
was a little weird, but I think Jackie kind of talked with that weird wispy
breathy sound. Loved the costumes. Was Jackie really that crazy with grief? I
always felt sorry for her being kicked out of the White House so soon after and
it's hard to imagine how anyone would deal with watching your husband get
assassinated. ***
Manchester by
the Sea was about a strange,
anti-social man (Casey Affleck) who's brother dies leaving in his will custody
of his sixteen-year old son. Unfortunately custody involves moving back to this
hometown which would force him to confront his demons, demons which made him
strange and anti-social. It was a little slow. Michelle Williams was excellent,
as always. **
Office
Christmas Party I thought this
would be really stupid, but it was actually tolerable and with an all-star
cast: Jason Bateman, Olivia Munn, Kate McKinnon, and Jennifer Anniston. About
an internet company that's about to be shut down if they don't get an account
so they go against the CEO's orders not to spend money on a Christmas party in
order to impress the account representative into thinking they have an
outstanding office culture with happy employees. Wild party, crazy with some
funny bits. I love McKinnon. ***
The Ottoman
Lieutenant was a love story about
a young Christian American nurse tired of the racist, sexist agenda of the
United States heads to Turkey at the outbreak of World War I to help in an
American hospital. She falls in love with a dashing Turkish Muslim officer.
Rare are the movies that address World War I in Turkey. It was OK. The plot was
too much like a romance novel complete with a love triangle for some extra
drama: the good Christian doctor is her perfect match, yet she falls for the
bad boy who's too gorgeous to really be that bad. The lead actress was a little
bland in her emotional interpretations. Even the narration she did was lacking
luster as if she didn't get enough read aloud practice in grade school. ***
Sleight is about this young guy who was supposed to go to
college on a scholarship but needed to
take care of his little sister after his parents die so he becomes a
drug dealer. He also does magic tricks on the side and appears to have
telekinetic powers of some kind. His situation escalates when his boss starts
expecting him to carry a gun and go after the competition, chop off their
hands, etc. He gets into real trouble and has to come up with $45K as payback,
but doesn't have it. Interesting movie, but a little unrealistic. I think it
would have been a better movie if he really had telekinetic powers and could
smack the bad guys down with a flip of a finger...or something. **
Snatched is stupid humor as only Amy Schumer can do. It's about
a woman who is incredibly useless in typical Schumer style: drinks too much,
acts like an air head, repeat, repeat. The opening scenes are unusual, cleverly
written and humorous, but after that it becomes cliché. The alcoholic imbecile takes her mother
(Goldie Hawn) to Ecuador on a non-refundable vacation after her boyfriend dumps
her. Schumer meets a handsome man and she gets drunk, again, of course. Why do
people think drunken behavior is funny? Eventually the girls get kidnapped by
Ecuadorian terrorists and run barefoot through the jungle. Not sure why
terrorists are funny either. It has a great cast. Wanda Sykes and Joan Cusack
are hilarious. Goldie Hawn has had too
much cosmetic surgery which is very wrong. Her face was like a plastic mask.
What happened to her smile? I struggled to find some resemblance to a woman who
used to be one of my favorite actresses. We really need Hollywood to age
gracefully so there are role models. It's very disappointing. The movie was
tolerable. Had some funny moments, but still stupid. **
Steve Jobs Creepy movie about a very creepy guy. Was he that much
of an ass? I couldn't get through it. *
These Final
Hours is an Australian
apocalyptic movie about the final 12 hours of the world with a play by play of
which continents have been annihilated. Our hero leaves his pregnant girlfriend
to head to some end-of-the-world party at his best friend's house. His best
friend's sister is his other non-pregnant skanky girlfriend. Along the way he
comes across two ugly men hauling off a ten-year old girl who is screaming for
her father. He can't turn away and
rescues her, continuing on his journey with her in tow hoping to find her
father. He stops along the way to check
on relatives. It's was an interesting story about priorities and the crazy
things people might do when the world is about to end. A little unrealistic at
times and some of the scenes were a little irritating like when he shows up at
this wild, orgy-, drug-fest of a party leaves the little girl alone with crazy
people and decides to follow this idiot girlfriend for some mindless sex?
Really? He doesn't have better things to think about? I guess that was the
point...the end is coming in a matter of hours why not be mindless? Or at the
beginning when he takes off in his 1965 (?) attention-getting bright orange
Chevy (?) with people wandering the streets carrying guns and looting, cars in
the middle of the street on fire, and he doesn't for a minute think driving the
only car that is working maybe he should lock the car door or carry a weapon? He
runs for too long from a guy attacking him with a machete...a machete? Why not
bash the guy over the head and take it from him? And who the hell is on the
radio giving an update? Nothing else is functioning but some guy on a radio
knows what is happening in the rest of the world? The last scene with the
little girl was written poorly and the writers were confusing her with an
adult. She wouldn't have behaved that way. A little melodramatic, unrealistic,
some of the performances were good with moments of not-so-good, but it kept me watching
and wondering what I would do if I knew I only had 12 hours to live. ***
Why Him? James Franco plays an incredibly immature,
dysfunctional, wealthy tech developer who is in love with a much younger
Stanford college student. The girlfriend invites her family (Bryan Cranston,
Megan Mullally) to his estate to meet him over Christmas. He wants to ask her
to marry him, but only with her father's permission. It was very stupid humor,
but I think James Franco must have had a lot of fun playing that part. Wouldn't
it be nice to be that rich and carefree? **
Yes, Ben Hur was nice.
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