Old Man @ The Movies

I know that director and writer and producer Wes Anderson is considered a new genius in filmdom, but the movie I saw today, ASTEROID CITY, may have hastened my retirement from movie reviewing.  This is an eccentric, strange, weird, off beat comedic movie that left me totally in the dark, but the way it looked on screen (white on white) was distressing and almost impossible to view with  these old eyes.  The only actor I was able to recognize, Bryan Cranston, opened the film explaining that it was the filming of a play and that the filming would be in the desert.  This is a film advertising a cast of seemingly dozens of top rated stars — Hanks, Johansson, Schwartzman, Swinton, Norton, Brody, Robie and on and on, and I was unable to recognize any of them.  After the opening, it seemed to be an ongoing series of vignettes with a variety of characters. family and otherwise, and I got lost in the shuffle.  I suspect I am intellectually incapable of recognizing g...

Sorry this is late, but I had a brief stay in the hospital this past week.  I saw THE FLASH with my son during a Father’s Day visit.  We saw it reluctantly because there was nothing else playing and I had rejected seeing the other films playing.  It was yet another DC comics film, none of which I have ever fully understood and this was no exception.  I an assuming this character was previously filmed.  Thank goodness I never saw any of them.  The character is a super hero who is able to enter the future and he goes there to try to alter events that affect his family.  He is alone in his quest because it seems that all his fellow super heroes are retired or on other missions (e.g., Superman and Super Woman).  He finally is able to enlist the aid of a reluctant Batman, played by Michael Keaton (and at least one other Batman portrayer according to my son).  The Flash finally confronts the villain, General Zod, played by an unrecognizable Michael...

The final film of the weekend was, in my opinion, the best, and there’s a funny story about it.  When I looked at the movies that would be playing at my daughter’s art theater, I saw one entitled Rise, so I searched the internet to see what it was about.  It was described as a semi documentary about two African boys who were raised in Greece, became professional basketball players and won the pro championship in the U.S.  It sounded interesting so I persuaded my daughter to join me.  We asked for tickets to RISE, picked out seats and went in.  Imagine my surprise when it was another French film, entitled En Corp, or En Corps, and not about basketball but dancing, and I was charmed, delighted and I loved it.  This is the story of a beautiful young ballerina, talented and in love with a fellow dance, and about to make her debut as a lead dancer.  Waiting to go on stage, she observes her boyfriend embracing another female, who is her backup.  She ent...

The second winner of this unique weekend was THE NIGHT OF THE 12TH, which surprised us by being a wonderful French language murder mystery which takes place in Grenoble, France, somewhere I had never been.  I loved the landscape, snowcapped mountains and nice countryside.  This is the story of a pretty young girl who is brutally murdered while coming home from her best friend’s place.  The case is handled by the local police force and headed by a newly promoted officer who is obsessed with solving it.  Many leads and no leads are pursued by the dedicated force and they are stymied at every turn.  It has the black and white feel of movies like The Maltese Falcon and others of that memorable era and while it was a bit long, it held my attention.  It had a lot of psychological innuendos.  I will not reveal the ending, which disappointed me because I didn’t really understand it, but my daughter told me why it ended the way it did and her explanation made s...

I had the pleasure of watching three movies this past weekend, two with my daughter, and wonder of wonders, I thoroughly enjoyed all three.  And even more amazing, the critics and I agreed on all of them!  The first, IT AIN’T OVER, was an extremely well-done documentary about the beloved and unlikely baseball star Yogi Berra, with footage that included folks ranging from Billy Crystal, sportscaster Bob Costa and Edward R. Murrow to ballplayers, and they didn’t miss a beat.  It was fun, poignant and filled with nostalgia for me (and the audience which were mainly men).  It covered him from infancy to high school to trying out for the Yankees and included his career as a manager for both the Yankees and the Mets and his incredible love affair with his longtime wife.  Narrated largely by one of his granddaughters, it is a tribute to a 5 foot 7 inch brute of a man who just never looked like a Yankee but one who piled up memorable statistics.  It even explains h...