Old Man @ The Movies

Another milestone: My seven-hundredth review of a film I saw a week or so ago. Didn't understand it then and still don't. On the plus side, it was directed by Danny Boyle, whose one film I remember seeing was very, very good—Slumdog Millionzire, for which I think he won an Academy Award. But I cheated and read about it so I could say something. A deadly virus, Rage, disappears from a chemical weapons lab 28 years ago and infects a lot of people worldwide. The story is about a group who escaped the virus by moving to an island which is defended by a weaponized causeway. One of the group leaves the island to see what's happening on the mainland, and more I cannot tell you. The only star I recognized was Ralph Fiennes. I didn't understand the movie, ergo I didn't like it. This one hour and 53 minute too-long movie got a thumbs up from 87% of the critics and 83% of audiences.    . 

This weekend I was in Virginia with my two daughters, and we saw a movie—their choice. It was another auto racing film, this time about Formula 1 race cars, which run on road courses, not ovals like NASCAR and Indy races. It was well done and entertaining, and my only complaint was the noise of the cars racing. Good-old-boy Brad Pitt stars as a driver who was a phenomenal Formula 1 driver 30 years earlier, asking an old teammate, played by Javier Bardem, now the owner of a struggling Formula 1 team to take him on as a driver. He is hired and learns that his teammate driver is a black rookie driver who has an inflated opinion of himself. You recognize the intrigue here. Brad becomes romantically interested in the technical director of the team, the only female technical director of such terms. There are a lot of race scenes and spectacular crashes, and some intrigue as to the future of the team. F1 THE MOVIE is never boring despite its 2 hour and 35 minute length, and the cinematogr...

Yesterday, several days after I saw one of the best movies of the year, I saw one of the worst movies, not only of the year but for many years past. This one, with a title as bad as the film, HARD BRIDE, starred the buxom plus brassy blonde person, Rebel Wilson. I am rebelling against her appearing in any more films. This presumably action comedy is about a young girl's wedding preparations, in which Rebel believes she is going to be maid of honor because she is a longtime friend of the bride, but has been absent from her life for a long time. What no one knows is she is a federal agent, likely the CIA, and when some terrorists arrive to plunder the soon-to-be-bride's riches and take the bride hostage, Rebel single-handedly takes charge and defeats all the bad guys with any weapon available, including her hands and feet and other body parts. It is just a bad, bad movie, the kind I thought wasn't being made any more. I was wrong, but sat through the all painful 1 hour and 45...

On Sunday, we saw a movie I would describe as an old fashioned western. Starring in one of the lead roles was the unexpected  appearance of Pierce Brosnan, with a beard and Irish accent, as the decent and effective sheriff of Trinity. He befriends and rescues a young man who is pursued by the bad guys because he is seeking the gold his father supposedly buried in that area years ago. It was a thriller, and action and violence filled, and it was a nice change of pace from the multitude of garbage that fills the screens these days. The bad guys really did a job on the young man, punching and kicking him soundly. It is a decent film, populated by nice people and villains, and we both liked it. Critics obviously did not, with only 24% thumbs up and 66% of audiences. I'm now used to butting heads with the professional critics.