May Movie Reviews

*****   Outstanding

****     Great

***       OK

**         So-so

*           Blah

Abandoned was Brittany Murphy's last movie. She died way too young from pneumonia, but I've read articles that claim her home had a dangerous mold infestation that brought about the pneumonia.  The movie is about a woman who takes her new boyfriend to the hospital for outpatient orthopedic surgery and he disappears. The hospital staff think she's crazy and hallucinating. Oh look, she has a history of depression and is possibly mentally ill, or is it loneliness and desperation? Although they had been together for four months, she never introduced him to friends or family. There is no boyfriend and no record of any boyfriend to be found anywhere so she must have made him up.  It was a low-quality copy of the movie Flightplan but with too much unrealistic staging and dialogue. "Oh, look, I just happened to find your clothes."  LOL! How convenient.  I wish they hadn't started the movie with a scene from the end which gave away the whole plot. (Idiots.) I would have preferred the suspense. I also HATED her make-up. She had lipstick smeared all over her mouth, crazy black smudged eyes with metallic eye shadow, and messy hair that looked like a wig -  probably to make her look crazy, but it only made her look like a hooker. Since she was some kind of bank official or accounts manager, it was an unrealistic contradiction that only served to confuse. And if they wanted her to look and act crazy at the beginning of the plot, they should not have opened with a scene from the ending. (Idiots.)  I hate it when movies time travel back and forth as if the director didn't have confidence the story would be interesting. Still, it definitely wasn't boring, just irritating. ***

Begin Again  Where did this movie come from and how did I miss it? It stars Mark Ruffalo (I love him!)  as a alcoholic has-been music producer, Keira Knightley as a jilted song writer/girlfriend, and Adam Levine as her cheating song writer new rock star ex-boyfriend. Mark hears Keira sing a song in a bar and wants to record an album. Great human relationship themes, outstanding music, and wonderful performances. ****

Burning Bodhi was promoted as the modern remake of The Big Chill. Well, it shares the basic theme: guy dies and all his friends meet for his funeral. That's where the similarities end. It fails so miserably with content, dialogue, plot, performance and a total lack of any music let alone really good music, I'm not sure why there was ever a connection to the classic. Lots of overacting and underacting and a poorly written script with too much push/pull drama featuring a bunch of screwed up characters who are having a difficult time trying to relate to each other. I made it half way through before I turned it off. It gets one star for featuring the very cool multi-colored fence in Albuquerque. I want one of those! *

The Danish Girl was one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. The scenery and the photography were outstanding. The performances were exceptional and Alicia Vikander certainly earned the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Not sure why she's considered "supporting" as the movie was as much about her. I also loved the art history aspect. ****

D Train is about a cool guy (James Marsden) and a socially inept guy (Jack Black) and their impending 20th high school reunion. Now, with Jack Black in the starring role, was I wrong to assume it was a comedy?? It's not a comedy. I didn't even smile once. I don't know if it's a drama either. It wasn't really anything. **

The Education of Charlie Banks is about a kid (Jesse Eisenberg) growing up in New York City in awe of the neighborhood bully (Jason Ritter). Later in high school he watches the bully nearly beat to death two boys at a party and reports him to the police only to change his mind for fear of not being liked. Then in college the bully shows up in his dorm room unexpectedly. The tension and the anticipation of this guy losing his temper was a bit nerve wracking especially with Jesse Eisenberg in the lead role who always plays social inept insecure geeks and acts like he's expecting to be punched. ***

Grandma with Lily Tomlin. Her teenage granddaughter needs an abortion so she runs all over town trying to find people from her past who will loan her money. She's kind of cranky, not shy about expressing herself, and during the movie she's accused of being "misanthropic". I liked the character. The story was mediocre, but it made me question life. I like movies that make me think about one's existence in society and how the situation all came to be. ***

The Intern was about a retired widower (Robert DeNiro) who needs something to do. At the very beginning of the movie he summarizes what it's like to be a retired: "a relentless effort in creativity". LOL. The character is awesome, totally old-school, with really values and manners. He gets a position in a e-commerce business as a "senior intern", a program that hires the elderly and is assigned as the intern/assistant to the company's owner (Anne Hathaway) who isn't comfortable with "old people". It's a very sweet movie about the generation gap and the eventual relationship between DeNiro and Hathaway is adorable. ****

The Martian  I think I was number 250 on the library hold list! Matt Damon is absolutely ripped in this movie, either that or he used a body double which is what he must have done at the end. It's about a Mars mission that loses a man during a storm. They think he's dead and to avoid sacrificing their own lives and the mission, they are forced to abandon him/his body. He's not dead. He's the mission's botanist so he figures out how to grow food on Mars in order to survive. It was exhausting just watching him come up with brilliant ideas and I kept thinking he's very lucky he doesn't have Hashimoto's or any number of diseases that might seriously affect his energy! LOL! He's supported by an all-star cast of people. Science movies usually overload my brain as they try unsuccessfully to make the movie seem realistic while sacrificing the humanity. The Martian was all about the human experience and thankfully they kept the science stuff low key and tolerable. It was very good. ****

Miss You Already is a best friend story about two women, one (Toni Collette) with breast cancer the other (Drew Barrymore) pregnant. It wasn't horrible and I didn't turn it off, but for a movie with a death theme which should have rocked my world, it didn't. I'm not sure why. I didn't like the music, Drew's character grew up in England and she didn't even have an English accent, I didn't care for the characters, and the story was just barely adequate. I thought it was going to be a great girl-bonding theme, but it somehow fell short. **

Mistress America was about a college freshman in New York feeling like a fish out of water until she contacts the daughter of her mother's fiancé who inspires her creative writing by giving her a social life. It was written like a short story or play. Some of the dialogue was contrived and the staging...it was like watching a high school play of amateur actors trying too hard. **

My Other Mother is about a spoiled, self-centered, mean-spirited, demanding celebrity anchor woman who decides it's time to find her biological mother. It was very contrived and staged with excessively unrealistic dialogue and emotion. I found the random excerpts of praying and God talk out of place, but this is a film produced by a company that focuses on black culture and Christianity so perhaps the inserts were obligatory in order to get funding? A nasty, despicable, entitled woman praying. The hypocrisy is classic Christianity. I loved the "He was such an honorable man...even if he cheated on his wife." Very, very Christian. Any sin can be forgiven, ignored and  twisted to look like honor if you pray hard enough. **

Nanny McPhee is promoted as "The New Mary Poppins" except of course the incredibly evil children are yelling "FART" and "BOSOM" and "BUM" and are rude and belligerent as often as possible. Times have changed. This nanny (Emma Thompson) is a little scary, ugly with warts and a bulbous nose. She grunts all the time which is delightful. The father (Colin Firth) is adorably sweet although clueless. The sets are outstanding. The Victorian mansion reminds me of Katwise's house with lime green and bright blue walls edged in electric red. Can I live in that little village? Kids would love this movie. ***

Regression is about group hysteria and "satanic ritual abuse" imaginings brought about by regression therapy. It was creepy.  I kept wondering if everyone was part of the cult and like a typical classic horror movie plot, Ethan Hawke would realize he's the last man standing and has to submit . Nope. It was based on true events. ***

The Revenant takes place during a very violent period of American history. Soldiers slaughtering whole villages, tribes massacring white men, French trappers kidnapping and raping Native American women, wildlife maulings with death and dying around every corner. This movie isn't for those with a weak constitution. I just read a book on Native Americans and the horror they faced while watching their families murdered by the US government/army and information that Custer took Indian women as captives to be used as sex slaves by his whole troop. It makes one embarrassed to be American. This movie was disturbingly brutal, heart-wrenching, and emotional. And cold! Good lord it was a cold movie with all that snow and ice water. I do question the realism. Leonardo di Caprio could not have lived through all that. Fifteen minutes in winterized ice water should have killed him then he crawls out of the water and lays in the snow for a couple hours. Really? Besides the bear and the cliff. Outstanding performances. Tom Hardy should have won the Oscar for Actor in a Supporting Role. Amazing music. So strange yet haunting. Beautiful photography, but I was chilled to the bone the whole time. Loved the tree theme. And then I watched it again. And I thought about it for days. That qualifies as exceptional - a rating I rarely give. *****

Run Boy Run is a Polish film with English subtitles based on a true story about a young boy who at the urging of his father runs away from the Warsaw Ghetto during Nazi occupation and lives until the end of WWII going from farm to farm to work for food or by hiding in the forests. So heart-breaking. Another horrible period of history. Great story with lots of adventure. Adorable boy. ****

Secret in Their Eyes Am I the only one who hates the jumping around? God, it was confusing. If it wasn't for the different lengths of Nicole Kidman's hair, I would have had no idea what year it was. Even then, I couldn't keep it straight. I WANT A LINEAR PLOT! DAMN IT!  Why make it difficult to follow the story? The performances from Julia Roberts and Chiwetel Ejiofor were outstanding. Julia is always really awesome at raw emotion and there is one scene where someone says she looks like she's aged one hundred years - yep, she had that down. I like an actress that doesn't have to be beautiful all the time.  Anyway, it's about the murder of a counter-terrorism agent's daughter and because the murderer is a department informant they brush the whole investigation under the rug in hopes of the more important goal of catching terrorists. So this guy goes free and disappears. For 13 years everyone is tormented by the injustice until one of them finds the murderer and attempts to capture him. It definitely reinforces how dishonest and agenda-driven law enforcement is. As if incompetence isn't enough. It has a great twist at the end even though they made sure to support it with a whole lot of high-speed, incredibly-irritating, scene-flashing, year-jumping time travel just in case you don't have a brain and couldn't remember the other parts of the movie you JUST SAW.  I still have no idea how the film got its title. ***

Suffragette was about the militant suffrage movement in England with Meryl Streep and Helena Bonham-Carter. It's so amazing what we women take for granted now, although there are still countries that don't allow women basic human rights including voting. It's hard to believe men had so much power in the past even though they still more privilege today. The photography was excellent. Be sure to catch the very, very beginning when they are showing scenes in the laundry with the water on the floor. Very nice photographic effects. I don't think I've ever seen that before. Outstanding performances and awesome sets. ****

Yentl with Barbra Streisand. I've seen this movie multiple times although it's been decades since the last viewing. I have worn out the CD as well. The music is outstanding, the theme excellent, the photography and scenery beautiful, and performances superb. Great movie. I always thought the story a little weird when Yentl marries a woman and no one seems to notice. Hmmm. ****