January Movie Reviews

***** Loved it, watching it a second time or will watch it a second time
****   Excellent
***     OK
**       Tolerable, but blah
*         Horrible, probably turned it off before the end it was so bad

Cinderella is the latest rendition of the classic fairy tale with Lily James in the lead role. It's pretty much Disney's cartoon come to life with a few modern tweaks. There is even a rat named Gus-Gus, a weird digital rendition of a real animal. The writers did a movie mash-up attempting to re-create the perfect fake fairy tale extracting the best bits from Cinderellas past (sans music). The computer-generated landscapes are beautiful and the unnatural Jane Austen dialogue with the over-the-top performances promise lots of tragic swooning and throwing oneself on the fountain to cry. I do like that everyone had an authentic English accent. Cate Blanchett is an outstanding evil stepmother and the stepsisters are priceless. The best bit of modernization is when Cinderella looks at her new shoes and asks, "They're made of glass?" The platinum blonde Helena Bonham-Carter looking like a psychotic fallen angel says, "Yeah. And you'll find them really comfortable." LOL. The dance choreography was ATROCIOUS and every time Cinderella threw her head back I thought she was having a seizure. I did like the new ending. Although the theme was "courage and kindness" instead of kindly inviting the evil steps to live in the palace, they end up running away with the scheming duke never to return again. "You have never been and never will be my mother." Awesome. Kids would love it especially the little girls with all that dress swishing (borrowed from the Rogers & Hammerstein's adaptation). ***

Departures is a Japanese film about a cellist. When the orchestra dissolves, he becomes unemployed, directionless, and moves with his wife back to his dead mother's house in his hometown. Needing work, he answers an ad for a mysterious job that pays a lot of money and doesn't require any experience. He assumes it's in the travel industry since the job description briefly states the applicant would be assisting in "departures." Misspelled, it should have read "departed". It's for a funeral "professional." Japanese families traditionally would wash and prepare the body of their loved one for burial in preparation for the next life. When modern families stopped this practice, businesses developed to provide these services. The ritual is very beautiful and spiritual. The movie is at times very sweet and sentimental with a bit of slapstick-like comedy thrown in for fun especially when he's being trained and he's scared to death of dead people. LOL! Great photography and scenery. I don't like reading subtitles, but it was a great story. I like movies about death.****

Dog Day Afternoon is a 1975 movie based on a true story about two dimwits who rob a bank. They aren't the only numbskulls in the story - the police and FBI show up and it becomes more like a scene from a Keystone Cops movie. I kept screaming, "AH! NO WAY!" as in no one could be that stupid! Everything goes wrong for the bank robbers and they end up inside a bank with hostages trying to figure out how to make a clean, but impossible escape. Al Pacino is SO YOUNG and he does an outstanding job playing an incredibly stupid person from Brooklyn. The movie was nominated for a bundle of Academy Awards and Golden Globes, but received only one for writing. I've never really had any interest in seeing this movie before and had I trusted my instincts, I wouldn't have missed much. **

Indefinitely Polar Bear is about a father of two little girls who is bipolar. He can't quite keep a job and after a nervous breakdown can't quite function at all so the family becomes destitute while he's institutionalized and then transferred to a half-way house. His wife decides she needs to go to New York for a business degree so she can get a better job and has him move in with the girls. He's unmistakably crazy, sometimes it's not so good, but most of the time he excels at fatherhood if only by accident. The bipolar is a little stressful to watch as is the nonstop smoking, but Mark Ruffalo is one of my favorite actors. ***

Joe stars Nicholas Cage as a trailer-trash nonstop smoking/drinking redneck who cavorts with prostitutes, poisons trees for a living, has a bad temper, has encounters with other bad tempered rednecks, and owns something that looks like a pitbull. In fact, everyone in the whole movie has a vicious, barking dog which is indicative of the neighborhood's social class. There is one dog in the movie Joe doesn't like, ""THAT DOG IS AN ASSHOLE!!" LOL. He goes home, gets his pitbull and releases it on the other dog. Jeez. Lots of child abuse, poverty, and general tragedy. I must be really bored, but I have to admit the performances were exceptional. ***

Jurassic World  Well! That was thrilling!!  Twenty years after the tragedy at Jurassic Park and humans haven't learned a thing. With lots of commentary on corporate greed, it is clear bigger, better and scarier is what the American public NEEDS. Too much is never enough and we've been desensitized. If money is to be made (and yes, it must be made) we need to be very afraid. With advances in science and newer technology the owners of this new, improved dinosaur theme park feel all is safe enough for 20,000 visitors to wander around freely among killing machines. Naturally, everything goes very wrong when one of their latest "assets" escapes and goes on a murderous rampage. The special effects were outstanding. Those dinos looked and acted real especially the one in the lake-sized tank. Not as much blood as one would expect since dinos swallow humans whole. Nice. But it still seemed too violent for a PG-13 rating. I didn't like the Hollywood love story. Poorly written, cheesy, horribly cliche and a little goofy. Perhaps it was written for the violent-hungry but humor-addicted kids in the audience? They could have done without it. The performances weren't always good with too much overacting and melodrama. What really bothered me was Bryce Dallas Howard's brilliant white outfit. I would think the blaze of white would have made her a tasty morsel right off the bat. She ran through the whole movie in matching heels. In the last scene, she was still wearing those heels?! There is no way she wouldn't have lost one or both in the muck. Maybe she was supposed to be a King Kong damsel flashback? Still, it was fun. Definitely not boring. *****

Madame Bovary is the 2014 version of the classic cautionary tale of excess. Poor Emma, living in the most beautiful countryside you've ever seen (I so love France! The scenery didn't disappoint!), in an adorable stone cottage, surrounded by a beautiful autumn-colored forest, wearing the most gorgeous dresses imaginable, with a kind, loving and cute husband at her side, and men who constantly tell her she's beautiful....but bored out of her mind. I would love her life! She's so ungrateful. The performance of the main character (Mia Wasikowska) was lacking. She just wasn't believable. At least they should have cast someone who could do an accent. Although I normally really like Ezra Miller in anything, this period piece just didn't suit him, but the dashing Logan Marshall-Green as the Marquis was scrumptious. Yum. Yes, I would also have thrown myself at his feet and begged him to take me in his arms. It was the anticipation of raunchy sex and her ultimate suicide that kept me watching. I expected a really spectacular death. Not so much. She did run through some really spectacular scenery and then die in a really spectacular dress, but that was it. And the sex wasn't that raunchy. It gets  *** for costuming, gorgeous scenery, and that sexy man.

Mona Lisa Smile is about a subversive art history professor (Julia Roberts) at the very traditional Wesley College who challenges the archaic roles of women in the 1950s. Great cast and performances. Wonderful costumes, and outstanding soundtrack. I grew up with the music and I majored in art history in college so it made my heart sing. Superb chick flick. *****

Serena stars Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper as Smoky Mountain timber owners in 1929. The sets were realistic and gorgeous, costuming perfect, and wonderful performances. Lots of interpersonal drama and beautiful scenery. However, I didn't see the point of the story. I'm still trying to wrap my head around some of the symbolism and Lawrence running around in her underwear in a logging camp in the 1920s was anything but realistic. The pace was a little slow with scenes drawn out too long. ***

Stepmom  The mother (Susan Sarandon) does everything to sabotage the relationship between her children and her ex-husband's girlfriend (Julia Roberts), the stepmother-to-be. The spoiled kids are encouraged to be rude, and the stepmother is trying but inexperienced in the ways of evil children. Then the mother gets cancer. I haven't seen this movie for about twenty years, but I cried all the way through both times especially at the end. I've always had a love/hate relationship with the story. First, my mother found out she was dying right about the time my father married a nasty, evil, self-centered woman half his age. My mother didn't really like the stepmother which was clear, but unlike Julia Roberts, I think my stepmother deserved her wrath. I also resent the little girl in the movie who was constantly belligerent and when her mother tells her she's going to die, the little girl starts screaming at her and accusing her of lying to her because she didn't tell her immediately. I'm thinking, You nasty little brat...at least your mother told you at all! So although I cry all the way through it being a little too close to home, the movie is a contradictory challenge. *****

Stone is about an almost retired parole officer (Robert De Niro) dealing with an arsonist inmate (Edward Norton) who is clearly sociopathic, conniving, manipulative, and doing everything in his power to get out of prison early. Every time I see Edward Norton in a movie I am amazed. What an outstanding, mesmerizing actor who becomes totally possessed by his character. This time he is a despicable who murdered his grandparents and he's as scary as they get. Great movie about the psychological demons of people. ****

When the Game Stands Tall. I absolutely HATE football movies anyway, but there was a bit of death in it so I thought maybe it would be interesting. Then they mix it up with praying football coaches who are teaching bible study in a high school class, God this, God that. Good God! Sorry, God doesn't give a rat's ass if you win a football game. I've never understood the football culture. What a total waste of energy. *

Winter's Bones stars Jennifer Lawrence as the seventeen-year old sister of two small children and the daughter of a crank cooker who disappears before his court date. Unfortunately he put the family home up as bail and if he doesn't show, his mentally ill wife and three children will be homeless. As it is they can't afford to eat and live in squalor. His daughter searches the hillbilly hills for him, but people don't like the questions she's asking. It's a dark, cold and depressing movie about lowlifes, but the performances are outstanding. ****

A Year and Change is about a family of dysfunctional people who drink too much, do stupid things, getting in fights continuously, and go to jail. The main character is trying to change, but fails miserably every step of the way. The acting wasn't great and a story about ignorant, degenerate, low class people too stupid to do anything right is always irritating. I think watching movies about lowlifes is my theme this month. *