Old Man @ The Movies

I feel obligated to renew a request I made earlier this year or last year.  It's time for Liam Neeson to retire.  And if you're expecting a film with the title ABSOLUTION to be a religious one, you're going to be disappointed.  Neeson is an ex-boxer working for gangsters as an enforcer but he's suffering from a disease brought on by taking too many punches in the ring.  He can't remember his phone number or address and he writes notes to himself to remember what he's supposed to be doing. And then he decides he wants to be a good dad and get out of the racketeering business.  It was a dark and dismal story that compelled me to leave the theater without finding out what happened.  What part of it I saw was not the worst movie I ever watched Liam Neeson in, but by the same token I didn't feel I needed to see anymore.  And it should not surprise anyone that 47% of critics believed Neeson still has it and gave the film a thumbs up.  Once again audiences agreed w

As you may recall from comments I have made previously that I was predisposed to dislike the latest Tom Hanks movie despite the fact that it starred the flawed icon and was directed by a highly praised, imaginative and successful Robert Zemekis whose credits include such hits as Back to the Future, Forest Gump and Cast Away.  Actually HERE was even worse than I expected when I drove to Virginia for a visit and a movie with my daughter there.  The director's imagination took a turn for the bizarre as he introduced some cinematic effects that were more distracting than effective such as silhouetted rectangles that materialized into characters or new scenes.  This is the story of a home, located somewhere in the northeastern U.S., which is historically notable and was the home of multiple families over the years, mostly a family of young and aging Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, their offspring and others.  The film jumped back and forth repeatedly from when the land was occupied by India

I was amazed by the number of people in the theater yesterday.  It was obviously a religious movie, and it was very likely that everyone in the audience was not Catholic.  But despite all the odds, CONCLAVE was a very good movie, with more twists and turns than a roller coaster.  It takes us into the inner sanctum of the Vatican following the death of a pope and the intrigue of electing his successor.  CONCLAVE is as complex as any murder mystery and much better than most.  We are treated to the machinations of this heretofore unrevealed process, and the individual cardinals involved in the voting process are as intense and competitive as our current pre-election carryings on.  One after the other, dark secrets are exposed as the cardinals appear unable to choose a viable and acceptable candidate.  I realize that my failing eyesight is limiting my ability to fully follow everything that is going on.  Because some of the dialogue is in Latin or Italian, I realized I was unable to read a

I thought Hollywood was incapable of making real dramatic romance movies anymore.  Several of those that I remember fondly over the years include Penny Serenade, Cyrano de Bergerac, An Affair to Remember and even its lookalike You've Got Mail.  I was wrong.  They did it in WE LIVE IN TIME.  It is set in England and stars Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield (whom I never thought of as a romantic lead, particularly after his Spiderman roles).  This one is truly a love story.  Garfield, in the process of a divorce, is hit by a car driven by Pugh, a chef who invites him to dinner where she works and they move in together.  He eventually reveals he would like to have a family and they plan to marry and begin to try to conceive after she learns she has ovarian cancer.  She enters into a prestigious contest for chefs which conflicts with their wedding date.  She eventually has the baby, delivered by him in the rest room of a convenience store/petrol station because they are stuck in traffic