October Movie Reviews

*****   Exceptional

****     Great

***       OK

**         So So

*           Blah

All Roads Lead to Rome The plot description had all kinds of potential. Single mother takes teenage daughter to Italy to get her away from her druggie boyfriend, runs into old flame, daughter escapes heads to airport in a sports car with flame's mother and the chase begins. It wasn't funny and it wasn't dramatic. It was nothing and less than interesting. I think my issue with it was the star: Sarah Jessica Parker. I think she needs to do something with her hair so it doesn't looks so ratty and witchy. Maybe a style so she's not constantly having to toss it out of her face or play with it. I think some acting classes would be nice, maybe some voice lessons so she doesn't sound so whiny, and I would like it if she'd look less like my step-mother. I'd like a better, less contrived script as well. So bad. One star for Italian landscape. *

Because of Winn Dixie was a sweet, feel-good movie based on the young adult novel of the same name. It's about a smelly, ill-mannered dog that whines out of control when left alone, tears up the whole house if left inside, shits all over the neighbor's yard, goes ballistic during thunder storms, and barks way too much. A perfect example of the dog-god mentality of ignorant bad dog owners who are incapable of training a dog because they are too stupid or lazy yet everyone thinks bad-behaving dogs are cute. They aren't. They are obnoxious. At one point the dog is in church (yeah, really) and he tears off after a rat. They call it a mouse (really?) and think the dog is a saint for not eating it. Dog-god mentality is SO weird. It had an all-star cast, and a cute leading actress. There were a few times I considered turning it off (every time that little girl stuck her nose in the dog's wet, dirty fur - blah) and a few times I got up and did other things leaving it on. Kids would love it. *

The Benefactor is about this incredibly rich man (Richard Gere) who is very close with his best friend, best friend's wife, and their teenage daughter. Especially the daughter (Dakota Fanning). His relationship with the girl is kind of strange and pediphile-ish. While the dad and mom are driving and the rich friend is in the back seat smoking pot, they are hit by a truck and killed. Rich guy survives and blames himself. The story continues five years later and rich guy is still filthy rich, reclusive, guilt stricken, and a morphine addict. The girl, now married and pregnant returns with her new husband. I am unclear how this teenager snagged a doctor. Interesting human relationships. Gere is a great drug addict, but the other performances felt lacking, like they weren't comfortable in their roles. ***

A Bigger Splash is about a rock star (Tilda Swinton) who just had vocal surgery and she's recovering on an Italian island with her boyfriend (Matthias Schoenaerts). Her ex-boyfriend record producer (Ralph Fiennes) and his newly-discovered teenage daughter (Dakota Johnson) show up disrupting the peace and serenity. Very interesting human relations. I think this is the most interesting role I've ever seen for Fiennes. ***

The Boss with Melissa McCarthy is about a former foster child-turned Fortune 500 CEO who ends up going to jail for insider trading and when she gets out she has nowhere to go because she has failed her whole life to cultivate lasting, meaningful relationships. She ends up on the doorstep of her ex-secretary and the woman's young daughter. After weeks of laying on the couch, she takes the girl to her Dandelion club meeting (like Camp Fire or Girl Scouts) and is inspired by their business model. She begins a new brownie making business based on the sales of little girls. It's a lot of stupid humor with incredibly raunchy moments. I don't think I've ever seen a movie that said the F-word so many times especially since half the cast are under twelve. Melissa McCarthy is interesting though and fascinating to watch. ***

Charlotte's Web I've never seen this movie! It stars Dakota Fanning when she was a little tyke. I love talking pig movies. Julia Roberts was Charlotte's voice. Such a lovely voice. All star cast of celebrity voices. Beautiful imaginative sets and scenery. ****

A Civil Action was about the chemical contamination of water killing the children of a small town and the small personal injury law firm that takes on the big corporate companies. It was really good. John Travolta, Robert Duvall, William H. Macy, Kathleen Quinlan, John Lithgow, James Gandolfini to name a few in this all-star cast. Great performances. I was a little disappointed with the ending, but it wasn't a typical Hollywood outcome where the good guys win and the bad guys pay...it was realistic with lots of legal and corporate sleaze. I like the commentary...Travolta's character narrates how the legal system really works and during the trial Duvall's character is shown in flashback lecturing to his Harvard law students how NOT to win a case which is how Travolta's character is proceeding. Interesting.****

Enemy with Jake Gyllenhaal was a very strange movie with really ominous thriller music. It was about a college professor who seems a little brain-dead like he's on too much valium. He shuffles when he walks which was weirdly irritating. He rents a movie and one of the actors looks just like him so with a little research finds the guy, calls him, meets with him in a creepy hotel room. But it's all really wrong. First, that damn music clearly indicates it's not what it seems. Second, they are afraid of each other, threatening, "don't ever call here again" so clearly something is off. If I found my doppleganger, I'd be kind of excited. One has a weepy pregnant wife and the other has a irritable girlfriend...the mother seems to be the key when she tells the professor that he needs to stop moonlighting as a third rate actor or "Of course you love blueberries!" when we just saw the scene of the actor asking why there are no blueberries in his refrigerator. There are other earlier hints, but not obvious until the end. They are the same person and he must be psychotic or something (music...), but they never make it clear. And there are big spiders. I think he offs the girlfriend in the end...maybe? Then it just ended. The music was obnoxious and the plot a little slow as if it wasn't getting to the point fast enough. **

Forsaken was a western about a man (Kiefer Sutherland) who comes home ten years after the war to his reverend father's (Donald Sutherland) home vowing to never kill again. Unfortunately, his reputation precedes him. The town is besieged by bad men confiscating land through violence and Kiefer manages to turn the other cheek until they attack his father. Beautiful landscapes and scenery, great performances. Demi Moore plays a long-lost love. That woman is WAY TOO skinny and looks skeletal in a very scary way. She's nearly unrecognizable. She's a great actress but her appearance is distracting. I think she needs to leave well enough alone and let herself age gracefully. ****

The Giver is based on a sci-fi young adult novel of the same name by Lois Lowry about a futuristic community that has been sterilized, stripped of all humanity in order to avoid conflict so the human species may continue. The reason for this is unclear although they imply something very bad happened in the past. They take injections every morning to rid themselves of human emotion, the police state monitors everything they do, lots of rules and curfews, and cameras. They grow babies in a test-tube nursery and cull them if they don't fit certain expectations. When children who are allowed to live turn 18 they are given their assignments for jobs. Jonas is assigned to be the new Receiver of Memories and he learns his trade from the Giver. On the sly he stops the injections and with the return of his human  memories starts experiencing joy, pain and love. Then he takes steps to save the community and return everyone's memory so they can live like full human beings and experience life. It was good. I liked the black and white fading into color when the memories returned. ****

I'll See You in My Dreams is about an older woman (Blythe Danner) who since the death of her husband twenty years prior has lived single and independent life...with her dog for a companion. (Blah!) In the first ten minutes the dog has to be put to sleep . I was so thankful. I didn't want to watch a movie about a lonely old woman with a dog fixation. Oddly enough as soon as the dog is gone a big, black rat moves into her house. So weird I'm watching a lot of dog and rat themes lately. What is that?  She plays cards with friends once a week, goes golfing, has a garden, does stuff. The movie was a very interesting and insightful commentary on life and growing old. At one point her daughter is going on and on trying cheer her up about what a great life she HAD, great career she HAD, great husband she HAD...and she says something like, "But all your examples are in the past - what about NOW? I'm still alive!! [I think?]" I totally get that. There are times I wonder if this is all there is to life and whether or not I'm really living. Granted, Blythe isn't chemically sensitive so she's not faced with such limitations, but growing old with the isolation of MCS makes one not likely to embrace all life has to offer and that sucks and makes one question what's the point.  Anyway, getting rid of the dog forced her to look for human companionship which personally I think has an excellent message...so the dog had a thematic purpose rather acting as a sad ornament. She meets her new pool boy and they become life-pondering drinking buddies. It's a sweet relationship. Then she meets a dashing older man (Sam Elliott). He has an awesome outlook on life, is charming, and owns a yacht. They have two wonderful dates and she begins to fall for him. He asks her if she's ever considered getting married again and she's surprised, "What the hell I hardly know you!" Sensibly she wants to take it slowly, but is that realistic at her age? I liked the movie a lot, however, this is the second movie I've seen this month where these lovely older actresses are overly painted with too much make-up. Rita Perlman's makeup was so heavy you couldn't see her eyes. I think movies that feature older people need to hire make-up artists who are also older and who won't be tempted to make them look like hookers in hopes it'll make them look younger. There was one scene Blythe is up early in the morning with hardly any make-up on and she was BEAUTIFUL. Her blue eyes dazzled without that thick, dark eye shadow and liner. That's how she should have looked throughout the whole movie!! STOP WITH THE HEAVY MAKE-UP ON OLDER WOMEN!  I also think they should have come up with a better title. I understand where it came from, but it makes it sound like some kind of silly love story rather than a story with far more depth. ****

Into the Woods (2010) is the film of the stage production. I've seen it before. It's wonderful. Starring Bernadette Peters as the witch. Outstanding performances, and sets and music. So much better than the recent movie version. *****

Just Our Luck Oh, it was so bad. The opening credits were bad, the music was bad, the acting was astoundingly bad. All bad and extremely low budget.  I lasted about 10 minutes. *

Me Before You is based on the book by the same name about a man who is rich, handsome, successful, active, and after an accident is in a wheelchair. He's in constant pain, gets pneumonia four times a year, has life-threatening health issues that warrants constant supervision and physical therapy, and is miserable. Emilia Clarke (Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones) is hired as his assistant. She wears leprechaun shoes with matching weird clothes and has no experience with disabilities, but she needs a job badly and his mother thinks he need a companion. He's mean and bitter making her cheerfulness a challenge. Later she finds out he attempted suicide and his plan is to end his life at an assisted-suicide center in Switzerland. Her goal is to change his mind with a bucket list of activities in hopes it'll make him realize he doesn't want to die. After all, he is disgustingly rich and can afford the extravagance. It was good. I totally get how he dwells in the memory of his old life and feels his new self is not authentic. I kept screaming, "You have to pretend the old life never existed! Your new life IS your true self! Stop feeling sorry for yourself!" Granted, being quadriplegic is not the same as being chemically sensitive, but I get it. I loved one of the first scenes with her self-centered boyfriend who is a fitness trainer and marathon runner. He tries to get her to run with him. She hates jogging and biking, but she complies to his demands and runs while holding her boobs. LOL  It was a great scene. She claims, "I'm just not built for running!" LOL. Regardless of the humor, good feelings, and moments of tenderness, I was surprised by the message "better dead than disabled" and kept questioning why there was no organized opposition in the movie providing some realistic conflict. I don't know if that was a good message and can only imagine the movie had a lot of people not happy about it. I just read an article about how easy it is now to get approved for assisted suicide. Anyone can die, in fact, insurance is more likely to approve suicide than it is to approve cancer treatments. Wow. ****

The Showdown looked like it might be an interesting western. The opening credits were bad, the opening scene was bad, the acting was bad, the landscape looked like someone's California ranch, and the actors looked as if they never rode a horse a day in their lives. Then the dialogue started...so bad. I lasted less than a minute. <zero stars>

The Water Diviner is about an Australian (Russell Crowe) who has some kind of unexplained sixth sense for finding things. He raises his three boys on Arabian Nights and when World War I comes along all three barely adult sons go to war in Turkey never to return. After his wife commits suicide, he goes to find where his boys died to bring their bodies home. Lots of movies about the English and the British perspective of WWI, but rarely the Turkish perspective. Very good, excellent performances, icky battle scenes. My one criticism is a lot of the time I couldn't understand what they were saying between the Turkish accents and the Australian accents. Oh, and the music was a little loud, overly dramatic, and irritating. ****

Wild Oats is about a woman (Shirley MacLaine) who's husband dies and leaves a $50,000 life insurance policy. The insurance company sends her a check for $5 million by mistake. She finds out her best friend (Jessica Lange) who's husband just left her for his young secretary has a 20% chance to live beyond six months (no details on the disease). They decide to spend the money and head to the Canary Islands for some fun. Lots of "elderly" humor and living carelessly themes. What was disturbing is how gullible and how easily swindled these two women were which is frightening. Is that what happens with age? God, I hope I'm never that gullible and I hope this was just Hollywood taking liberties. Again, we see a barely recognizable Demi Moore (I had to look on the DVD cover to see who it was) too skinny and with long, stringy hair. She looks so unhealthy and really needs to gain weight and do something with that hair. What really bothered me, though, is all the make-up they put on our heroines. What is with that? Do make-up artists think if they add extra dark eyeliner and bright red lips it'll make the women look better? Or younger? It's not needed and all that dark make-up makes them look like sad, used hookers. Shirley and Jessica are beautiful WITHOUT all that make-up! ****

Z for Zachariah I don't know what the title means. I must have missed the reference somewhere. This is an apocalyptic movie where the world has been contaminated with radiation - it was never quite explained how this happened, but I guess not really necessary for the plot. This woman is living in a pristine valley saved from contamination in her family farm alone with her dog. After the initial contamination her father and brother left to find help and never returned. It's been a year of loneliness and a man shows up one day dressed in a hazmat suit. She's really happy as the isolation was taking a toll and she was ready to give up. Then another man shows up. He's much cuter (Chris Pine) and the other one starts feeling jealous. Beautiful scenery. Excellent performances. ***