February Movie Reviews

*****  Exceptional

****    Great

***      OK

**        So So

*          Blah

Alpha is basically the story of the origins of domesticated dogs. Twenty thousand years ago, a young man goes on his first hunt of the Great Beasts (giant buffalo things) when one of them charges him and throws him off a cliff. His tribal companions leave him for dead and he survives all kinds of harrowing experiences and fends off all manner of wild animals to try to get home. A pack of wolves attacks him, but he wounds one, nurses it back to health, and they continue as companions. Nice story. Great special effects. Great wolves. ***

Blackway is a psycho thriller about this sleazy ex-cop-drug-lord-pimp-all-around-bad-guy (Ray Liotta) who is violent and abusive. He's absolutely crazy in the worse way. He assaults then starts harassing the new woman in town (Julia Stiles), but she refuses to be bullied. The police are useless. She goes to find someone who might help her but everyone is afraid of him...except Anthony Hopkins who thinks he's a low life POS that needs to be taken care of. Great story. Very straight forward with no weird twists. Excellent performances. Liotta was an outstanding psychopath. ****

Bohemian Rhapsody I was number 245 on the library holds list for this movie. I decided to treat myself on my birthday and go rent it. It was outstanding and well-worth the $1.35 rental fee with a half price birthday discount!! LOL! Rami Malek was amazing. He mastered Freddie Mercury perfectly although I think he's better looking.  How did they film the Live Aid concert? Did they have all those extras or did they just have a bit and made it look like a lot? There were no bonus features on how the movie was made, unfortunately. What a loss the death of Freddie Mercury was...is.... This aspect of the movie was very sad. I would have watched it a second time if I didn't have to return it to the video store. *****

Book Club It's Sex and the City with old women only poorly written with the clear message that sex is the only thing that is important to a woman's identity. It features a whole group of great actresses: Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, Diane Keeton and Mary Steenburgen, but this movie was beneath them. In the movie, these women are in various stages of sexual potential. One is single and loose, incapable of true emotion while the other three haven't had sex for a long time, one is married, another is divorce and the last is widowed . Their book club is reading Fifty Shades of Grey, a book I hated as much as I hated this movie and of course, the sex-starved characters LOVE the book! The dialogue was cheesy and loaded with unimaginative sexual humor written for a teen movie. The clothes were so ugly!! Well, Jane Fonda looked hot and had great clothes, but she was the sex maniac and you know, only sluts dress well. The cliches and stereotypes were pathetic. It was clearly written for stupid people who are incapable of thinking. Performances were horrible. Most of them didn't deliver lines well, but I think they probably had a lot of fun making the movie. Don Johnson was yummy even for an old guy. It was strange they paired him up with someone so much older, but Fonda looks good for her age! *

Breathe is about Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield) who shortly after his marriage to his wife (Claire Foy) was paralyzed by polio during a time when severely disabled patients were forced to live in institutions, confined to hospital beds, and didn't have much longevity. He figured out a way to live at home with modified breathing equipment and a very dedicated wife (Claire Foy), then later invented a wheelchair with a breathing machine attached so he could move about and even travel. It was a very inspirational story. ***

Charlie Bartlett was adorable. It's about an incredibly rich but smart kid who has been kicked out of every private school for breaking the rules when all he wants to do is make friends. He ends up in public school and realizes if he gives his psychiatrist a set of symptoms he gets easy drugs he can sell to his fellow classmates. He opens up a pharmacy in the boy's bathroom and kids start coming to him for advice on all their problems since they don't feel comfortable confiding in adults. Robert Downey Jr., who is looking gorgeous these days, is the principal and his daughter is Charlie's love interest. It was great. ****

The Children Act is about a judge (Emma Thompson) who's marriage is falling apart because she's a work-a-holic. She tries cases having to do with children, and one in particular involves a seventeen-year old boy with leukemia who is refusing blood transfusion due to his religion. She rules against him, forcing him to get the transfusion, and he lives. Then he starts stalking her. He doesn't understand why his parents were willing to let him die, he's questioning his religion, and he wants to live but doesn't seem to know how to go about it. Great performances. Strange story. Lofty themes. I think I missed a few points - over my head. ***

The Cobbler was about a fourth generation cobbler who's father left the family without a word. He is  questioning his career and his life and when one of his machines breaks, he uses the family's old, foot-powered shoe repair contraption in the basement. It has magical powers. He discovers if he wears the newly-repaired shoe, he becomes that person. He gets into all kinds of trouble as other people, but is now enjoying his work. "You don't know people until you walk in their shoes". It was cute and thankfully not stupid humor even though Adam Sandler stars. Great all-star cast with Ellen Barkin, Dan Stevens, Dustin Hoffman, Steve Buscemi. ****

The Darkest Minds is a futuristic story about children dying from a mysterious disease. Those who don't die are left with superpowers and are categorized by the government as green, blue, yellow, orange and red depending on their danger levels. The government gathers them into concentration camps, puts the less dangerous to work and exterminates those deemed dangerous: the orange and red. The story follows Ruby who is an orange but has the capability of not only reading people's thoughts but changing them so she survives. Eventually she is rescued by a group that doesn't seem any safer than the government, escapes from them, and meets up with three other children who are trying to find the mysterious camp where kids are going to be safe. Excellent story! Love it. Except the story didn't end. I guess it's based on a book series that goes on for a long, long time so I expect there may be sequels. ****

Eighth Grade is about Kayla, an incredibly shy, awkward, insecure girl who tries so hard at being confident and liked by others. It's horribly uncomfortable and reminds me of my own horrible years when everything seemed to go wrong at every turn. EXCEPT she has all that technology at her disposal and has her nose in her phone 24/7. How obnoxious. I'm not sure if that would have made my eighth grade better or worse. After getting the courage to approach the boy she has a crush on, pretending she has dirty pictures of herself, and he asking her if she gives blow jobs, she goes home looks it up on the internet and attempts to practice on a banana. Knowing how naive and easily manipulated teenage girls are, it was horrifying. I'm glad she had sense enough to stop when she knew she was getting in too deep with the high school boy. Her father adores her and tries so hard to connect, but he's is so shockingly inept at knowing how to communicate with her it's frightening. This is a common theme in movies about kids these days. I'm unclear how parents fail so miserably at parenting. ***

Hot Summer Nights takes place in 1991 about a kid (Timothee Chalamet) who is sent away for the summer after his father dies to stay with a relative in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Feeling isolated, out of place and bored, he becomes a drug dealer, falls in love, loses his virginity, and then gets on the wrong side of his drug supplier. Chalamet reeks sexuality. Every movie I see him in he's vulnerable and sweet, but dangerously enticing. Watching him is very intriguing and mesmerizing which is probably why he's been in a lot of movies lately. Great actor. Interesting story. ***

I am Elizabeth Smart is the story of the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart told by Elizabeth Smart. What a nightmare. It shocks me the woman who helped keep her captive was released from prison recently. Justice fails once again. They both should have gotten the electric chair. What I found sad about this film, besides the story itself, is throughout her commentary she feels the need to justify continuously why she didn't take more opportunities to escape. She was fourteen years old and her captor kept threatening to kill her and her family. Granted, there were many scenes when I kept thinking, JUST RUN, SCREAM especially when she's in public and law enforcement are coming right up to them to ask questions so I guess I'm a perfect example of her naysayers. Still, she had to be in constant fear of his wrath. ****

I Kill Giants is like that other movie I saw not too long ago with the boy and his make-believe world of giants to avoid dealing with the stress in his life. This one was about a girl  who has this elaborate fantasy world of giants and her need to protect the town she lives in. She also has bullies. I think bullies are a common theme in kid's movies these days. Near the end of the movie we find out what she's dealing with. Great special effects. ***

I Still See You is about an apocalyptic-type explosion that wiped out a large chunk of the population. The survivors can see the "remnants" of these dead people, just walking around, hanging around their house, walking down the street. In order to make the public feels safe as they are surrounded by these ghosts, science (or the government) has promoted theories regarding the "rems" laws on their behavior...they don't change, they don't communicate or interact with the living. But that isn't really true or so Roni, a high school student, finds out when she is confronted with one in her own home who leaves her messages and acts confrontational. It was a really compelling ghost story. Not gross or frightening although some weird scenes and some of it didn't make sense. ***

Jungle is based on a true story about Yossi Ghinsberg (Daniel Radcliffe) who traveled through South American in 1981. He met two other backpackers and they naively trust a German who offers them a backpacking adventure into the uncharted parts of the jungle. When one of the hiker's feet get so blistered and painful he is slowing their progress, they decide to cut the trip short, build a raft and take the river. Their guide disagrees and he along with the one with the bad feet continues hiking. (I'm confused here...if they were taking the river to cut the trip short because this guy wasn't able to hike, why does he decide to keep hiking? I must have missed something.) The two on the river hit some bad rapids, get thrown into the river, separated, and the story follows Yossi's survival alone through the jungle. Fascinating. I especially loved the part where he digs a long worm out of the swelling in his forehead. Lovely. Outstanding performances, especially from Radcliffe who is always good and has the most gorgeous blue eyes. I think I say that every time I see one of his movies. ****

Kin This was a sci-fi-ish movie with a whole lot of heart which makes it my kind of sci-fi. It's about an adopted boy, Eli, who's adopted mother has died. His adopted father (Dennis Quaid) is raising him to be a good person and punishes him for stealing. His older adopted brother gets out of prison and gets into a whole lot of mess which gets the father killed. In the meantime, Eli who has been scrapping to make some extra money is searching in an old warehouse and comes across a bunch of dead alien soldiers (or something) with a high powered weapon that gets dumped down a shaft. When he goes back to look for it, everything has been cleaned up except they missed the weapon. The brother takes off with Eli knowing the bad guys are after him. When things get scary, Eli pulls the weapon out and annihilates the side of a building. It was good. The kid was outstanding. Loved the ending. I'm pretty sure I just watched the prequel to Black Panther... ****

The Last King of Scotland is about a Scottish doctor who goes to Uganda to help people and is befriended by the psychopathic leader Idi Amin. It was scary. Outstanding performances. Did Forest Whitaker win any awards for that role? He was amazing. ****

The Last Word is about a writer who writes suicide notes for people. He meets the sister of one of his clients (Winona Ryder) and maintains a relationship with her built on lies until she finds out and goes ballistic. It was interesting. It's supposed to be a romantic comedy but the themes were so dark I didn't see any comedy in it. I loved the ending. **

The Last Word is about a bossy, impatient, elderly woman (Shirley MacLaine) who is lonely and bored as she bounces off the walls in her huge house all alone. She's alienated everyone in her life with her obnoxious behavior, constant insults, and demanding, controlling personality. She kind of reminds me of...ME! After seeing an obituary written about one of her acquaintances, a woman who was also not well liked, she decides she needs to take control of her legacy and hires the obituary writer (Amanda Seyfried) to write an obituary for her. Unfortunately, the list of names she gives to the writer are not helpful because everyone hates her, so she goes about having to create a legacy so she has something to show for her life. It was cute, great story. At times it was a little overacted, but in the end heartwarming. ***

Lean on Pete is a heartbreaking film about Charlie, a fifteen-year old boy, who is moved from Spokane, WA  to Portland, Oregon living with his loser dad who can't even afford food. He gets a job at a racetrack working with a guy (Steve Buscemi) who races his horses into the ground, cheats, electrocutes them and follows the fair circuit. Charlie grows attached to an aging racehorse, Lean on Pete. Then his philandering father gets beat up by some woman's husband, ends up in the hospital, dies, and Charlie has nowhere to live. Pete loses too many races and his owner decides to sell him to a slaughter house in Mexico. Charlie steal Pete with plans to drive to Wyoming to find an aunt he remembers from his childhood. Then the truck with horse trailer breaks down in the middle of the desert. He ends up hiking across the desert, homeless, with no money or food. It gets very sad. This is the second movie I've recently seen on homeless children who are abandoned after the death of their guardian. Heartbreaking with an unexpected twist. Excellent performances, outstanding story. I love a good horse story. ****

The Little Stranger is a British movie set after WWII about a doctor who becomes involved with an aristocratic family who's house is in ruins and seems to be haunted. The doctor is very...weird. He has had a fascination with the house since he was a small boy, he wiggles his way into their lives, then he starts bullying the woman who lives at the mansion to marry him even going as far as having her wedding dress made for her.  I felt really confused. I had no idea what was really going on and chalked it up to my own lack of brain function. Is the house haunted or is the doctor diabolical? Then I watched the bonus where the director says right away, "The challenge of making a movie like this is to never completely answer the questions." Good god! If you don't answer any questions then the viewers are CONFUSED! I love the old mansion with all that period furniture, loved the British countryside, great costumes, good performances, interesting, but by the end of the movie I just felt frustrated and lost in confusion and that is not a good way to be. I still have no idea what was going on. In conclusion, I want a movie with at least some answers to ground it! **

Madame is about rich people living in Paris who have a dinner party with an extra guest making thirteen. The lady of the house, "Madame" (Toni Collette) thinks it's bad luck to have thirteen and has the maid sit in. She tells her to just keep her mouth shut but she does just the opposite. Unfortunately one of her other guests falls for the maid and begins dating her thinking she's royalty from another country. Madame become very jealous and sabotages it. It was interesting. Makes me want to move to Paris and be rich. Totally not the typical Hollywood ending which was weird and sad. ***

Mary Shelley was about the author of Frankenstein. Beautiful sets, costumes, performances and excellent story. ****

Namesake is great movie about Indian culture and a man who survives a trauma, gets married, has a son and names him after the author of the book he was reading when the trauma occurred. The son grows up being teased for his name (Gogol) and ends up changing it back to his other name (they get two names when they are born), Nikolai, then later finds out the real origins of his name. Great story. Lots of culture. ****

Notes on a Scandal is about a woman (Judy Dench) who has been teaching too long. She's cynical, critical, impatient, clearly hates everyone around her and teaches history at a low-income type public school. The contempt she has for everyone around her is borderline evil. She seems very reclusive and lonely which contribute to her negativity and she narrates the story so you know what she's thinking which is delightfully wicked. In comes the new art teacher (Cate Blanchett), pure as the driven snow, naive, energetic, beautiful, and incapable of classroom management. The older teacher becomes oddly obsessed with her new, young, bohemian friend and come to find out she has a history of obsession with young women. Then she catches her having sex with one of her fifteen-year old students and devises ways to manipulating her into being her best friend. The soundtrack is like a murder-mystery . Outstanding performances. ****

Searching The whole movie is filmed on a computer screen! It's absolutely amazing. It's about a family and we see the evolution of this family with photos, videos, emails, social networking. The mother dies and we watch how utterly incapable the father and daughter are at relating to each other in order to grieve. Then the seventeen year old daughter goes missing leaving her laptop behind for the father to search her every move in hopes of tracing her. He has to figure out how to reset passwords to get into accounts and figure out how to work some of the accounts. I'm not sure if I could have done that. He realizes he doesn't know her at all.  He discovers she doesn't have any friends even though her Facebook shows hundreds. Everyone confesses they don't really know her and she usually sits alone for lunch. Parents don't know their kids anymore, who they are, what they are doing, and who their real friends are. Sad. The story gets a little twisted with the detective (Debra Messing). When it's announced the girl is dead, with a sex pervert who confesses to her murder with an online video (of course), EVERYONE, except the father, buys into it as fact without even questioning whether it's true or not. So typical! They don't even have a body and they are holding online vigils and memorials! All her non-friends are posting videos crying about how she was their best friend and how much they will miss her. It's a cautionary tale about the internet and how it is screwing up the way we think, the way we related to each other, and the way we live in general. ****

Six Below is about an ex-hockey star/drug addict Eric LeMarque who snorts a bunch of cocaine and heads up the mountain to snowboard. With no brain function, he decides to take the unsanctioned route during a snow storm, gets lost and spends the next eight days in 6 below weather, harassed by wolves, braving the elements, and both his legs freeze off. It was a really COLD movie. I love it when the ice cracks and he falls into the lake, and while struggling to get out loses his baggie of cocaine  while underwater. Instead of thinking "I better get out of this water fast" he desperately dives deeper in order to retrieve it. Wow. Pretty crazy. But the real highlight of the movie is when he eats his own scabs. I can't imagine there is much nutritional value in infected, rotting flesh. Maybe eating tree bark would have served him better, but this is a lesson on the evils of drugs and how stupid they make you so there is some educational value in scab-eating. I also don't get these movies where the star swims in freezing cold water and is able to get out, crawl around in the snow and they don't die from hypothermia? Hmmm... ***

Sweet Country is about an Aboriginal man, Sam, in the 1800s Australia, who takes his family and goes to work for a couple days for a mean, crazy white guy who rapes his wife then kicks them off his property. The white guy finds other Aboriginals to mistreat. He chains one to a rock who picks the lock and runs away to hide in the outhouse at the house where Sam is staying. Crazy white guy is drunk, screaming, shooting into the house where Sam and his wife are hiding. Sam takes the gun off the mantle and when crazy white guy knocks the door down, he shoots the white guy before the white guy shoots him. This is a problem in a racist country and Sam runs. He finds out his wife is pregnant with the dead rapist's child and gives himself up hoping his friend's God will protect him. The racism was disturbing. Weird flash forwards and flash backs that were confusing although I think they were supposed to be creative. **

Voice from the Stone is a beautiful movie set in the 1950s at an Italian countryside estate. It stars Kalisi from Game of Thrones as a nanny who comes to take care of a boy who hasn't spoken for seven months since the death of his mother. I lost interest about half way through but she has an affair with the father and then believes, as the boy does, that she can hear the dead woman's voice in the stone telling her to take her place. Hmmm...not sure about that. Performances were a little overacted and melodramatic. **

Woman Walks Ahead is about Catherine Weldon (Jessica Chastain) who traveled to North Dakota in the 1890s to paint Sitting Bull's portrait at a time when the US government was trying to get the tribes to sign another treaty to give up their land. Yet another reminder of how the USA has annihilated and destroyed the Native American culture. So disgusting and sad. Great movie. ****