March Movie Reviews

***** Spectacular

****   Great

***     Good

**       Tolerable

*         Really Horrible

A Brilliant Young Mind is about an autistic boy who has a difficult time with relationships and expressing himself, but is a wiz at math. He sees everything in light and pattern. He has an opportunity to compete in an international math competition with other teenage math geniuses. Asa Butterfield who plays the lead has such shockingly beautiful eyes. It was a little slow. ***

The Chambermaid is a German movie with English subtitles about a woman who is a hotel maid. Other than a few innocent therapy sessions scattered though out the first few scenes, there is no indication she just got out of a mental institution until it's mentioned later. We watch her phone her mother, follow her boss home and give him a blow job while he tells her it's over, and then she goes back to her work. She has an obsessive, compulsive need to clean, but while she's cleaning the hotel rooms, she tries on customer's clothing and enjoys lying under their beds while they are in the room. !!! Sometimes she stays all night sleeping while they are sleeping. !!! I guarantee anyone who sees this movie will be checking under the bed before any hotel stay! The photography is beautiful. The story is extremely bizarre. Very German. ***

The Day After Tomorrow is a disaster movie with a global warming theme starring Dennis Quaid as a climatologist who hangs out on ice flows in the Antartica and a very young Jake Gyllenhaal as his son. The special effects with a tidal wave hitting New York City was spectacular, followed by fifteen feet of snow fall, and then everything flash-freezes. A group of people (including Jake Gyllenhaal and his friends) hibernate inside the New York City Library and burn books to keep warm until dad arrives to rescue them. Great message on our self-centered, consumer-driven apathy toward conservation. I loved the commentary on immigration - the whole southern United States is being evacuated and Mexico won't let us cross the border! HA! Exactly. It was, of course, a little over the top with melodramatic moments. Quaid is really good at expressing horror with just his eyes. ****

The Diary of a Teenage Girl is a 1970s coming-of-age story set in San Francisco about a  fifteen-year old girl typically lacking in self-esteem, desperate to be loved, and way too eager to experiment. She's definitely more self-assured and courageous than I ever was at that age. She's being raised by a single mother (Kristen Wiig) who spends most of her time drinking and doing drugs often with her daughter. She begins an affair with her mother's thirty-five year old boyfriend and the story opens with her very proud announcement, "I had sex today for the first time." The movie is narrated via cassette recorder and she spends a lot of time talking to herself or to imaginary cartoon characters. My favorite scene is when she while holding her cat asks it, "Do I look different today?" The cat hisses. Too funny. Well-written and filled with cartoons and drawings illustrating her feelings. It's filmed like a vintage 1970s discolored polaroid photograph and the period costumes and music were wonderful. I prefer a dramatic Kristen Wiig more so than her babbly comedies (see below). Very entertaining. ****

Girl Most Likely is a babbly Kristen Wiig movie about a strange woman who lives in New York pretending to be someone she isn't until her boyfriend dumps her and she fakes her suicide for attention leaving her directionless and identity impaired. It was bizarre and random as expected with too many distractions. Annette Bening was great as her flaky mother. Darren Criss was adorable. **

Mr. Holmes was about a senile Sherlock Holmes who desires to write his final case - but he can't remember what happened! He vaguely recollects something went very wrong which forced him to quit his job as a detective and move to the country. He needs to make things right before he dies. Each passing day he forgets more and more. Good god it was depressing!! If it wasn't for the outstanding costumes and spectacular English countryside, it would have been too depressing to watch. Lots of movies designed to entertain the aging baby boomers, some uplifting, some not so much. This one definitely not so much. ***

Hysteria is about the invention of the electric vibrator as a cure for the common women's affliction known as hysteria. In this movie women are lined up for "treatment". Too funny! Excellent performances with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce and Rupert Evert. *****

Killer with Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher and Tom Selleck is a comedy about a hit man who wants a normal, wholesome, quiet, non-violent existence surrounded by neighbors he knows. He meets a mild-mannered woman who never takes chances and nests happily into his new mundane life. Predictably, people start trying to kill him. Cute comedy. Nothing special. ***

I Love You Phillip Morris is about an adopted boy turned religious heterosexual turned gay con artist (Jim Carrey) who suffers constantly from an identity problem. He's sent to prison for fraud and  falls in love with an inmate (Ewan McGregor) and continues his fraudulent behavior so they can be together. It's silly, funny and light-hearted. Jim Carrey can irritate the hell out of me, but I thought he was less hyperactive and more realistic in this movie. Love Ewan McGregor who I think grounded him. ***

The Old Curiosity Shop is a story about Nell and her grandfather and the retched, dishonest people in her life. Charles Dickens writes great stories of human torment. This was a little melodramatic but the settings were great. ***

The Paperboy takes place in Florida in the 1960s and is about a newspaper reporter (Matthew McConaughy) who believes alligator-skinner-swamp-man (John Cusack) didn't get a fair trial in the murder of a police officer. With the help of the murderer's penpal-slut-girlfriend (Nicole Kidman) and the letters he has written to her, he hopes to get him released by exposing the poor judicial system in the newspapers. I hardly even recognized Nicole Kidman. I forget what a great actress she is. However, the real story is about the reporter's younger brother (Zach Efron) and the coming-of-age crush he has on the slut. Appropriately, he spends most of the film walking around sweaty in his underwear. Outstanding. Who cares about the story.... Wasn't he half naked in the last movie I saw him in? Too much half-nakedness and people will start thinking he can't act and he's actually a really great actor. Obviously, casting recognizes his box office potential and writes him half naked as much as possible. John Cusack was brilliant as a low-life psycho which is very unusual since we normally see him in comedies. It was a strange movie, but excellent performances. Especially the underwear scenes. ****

Ricki and the Flash I had high hopes this was going to be a menopausal power movie with an uplifting message about how even older women can do anything and live out their dreams. Women are not limited because of gender or age. My alter ego Yatna knows this, but I am still grasping for reasons to look forward to my golden years. I was wrong! Instead it is about a mother (Meryl Streep) who deserted her husband (Kevin Klein) when her kids were young and moved to California to become a rock star. Selfish. Selfish. Selfish. She is now in her 60s, is still the not-so-good lead singer in a band who plays at a dumpy bar and has a small following of misfit fans. Although she doesn't seem to have any money, she works at a grocery store with a demeaning, demanding boss who doesn't think she is capable nor mature enough to work (because she's not). She dresses like she is a teen biker chick decked out in leather, too much makeup, long braids and a whole lot of jewelry. OK, I admire people who feel comfortable looking like they live on the edge, but perhaps I'm just narrow minded into thinking it's attractive on older women. What's worse is she reminded me of my loser drug-addicted step-sister who failed so miserably at life and like the Meryl Streep character, still dresses like she is a teenager, is perpetually poor because she has never worked a day in her life, and is etiquette impaired on every level. Blah. I did like Rick Springfield as the guitarist boyfriend. I saw a documentary on him not too long ago. He still tours and has a huge fan base. Meryl Streep's daughter, Mamie Gummer, who I think should have changed her name, plays her suicidal daughter. I've seen her in a lot of movies lately. She's really good. As is her sister, Grace Gummer, who looks just like her so they are difficult to tell apart. ***

Room is about a woman who is kidnapped when she is seventeen and kept captive in a shed for seven years by a psychopath. Her five year old son doesn't understand the concept of outside Room. As she plans ways for them to escape she must teach him about the world beyond the wall. Such a moving story about survival. I nearly had a nervous breakdown watching the escape scene. Excellent performances, especially the little boy. *****

Thanks for Sharing is a dramatic comedy about sex addiction recovery. It never ceases to amaze me how many ways people can be screwed up. Other than a couple vague hints here and there, it never addresses clearly WHY people are sex addicts nor does it show any scenes of therapy addressing the root problems. Lots of struggling for control and tormented. Sounds like a torturous way to live. It has an outstanding cast: Mark Ruffalo (love him), Tim Robbins, Josh Gad, Gwyneth Paltrow, Carol Kane (remember her?) and Pink. Funny, yet at times touching (pun intended).****