Old Man @ The Movies

I went for the triple-header this weekend and saw BARBIE with my daughters.  While most of the movies these days are dark, BARBIE was a distinct contrast — a panorama of pastels and bright colors and silliness.  How to describe it?  It was a farcical story of the doll entering the real world and have it tuned around by a mindless Ken, played delightfully and to full comic effect by Ryan Gosling.  Barbie, played to the hilt by Margot Robbie, was everything you expect -- in control of Ken and everyone else around her.  It was definitely a feminist film but not so much that it should have offended anyone.  It was played for laughs, and I thought it was fun and funny and my daughters didn’t have to drag me there.  Despite the huge box office success of these films, the theater in Fairfax, Virginia was not jammed for any of the movies I saw.  In addition to the doll leads, the cast was enhanced by enjoyable performances by Will Ferrell as the head of M...

One day after my mind-numbing experience watching Mission Impossible, I saw an outstanding film that I really liked and admired.  I confess I remember very little about the history that led up to the creation of the atom bomb.  Blame it on the fact that I was in high school at the time and desperately trying to figure out a way to join the military and get into the fight to end the war.  Therefore I don’t know how accurately OPPENHEIMER tells the story of the brilliant physicist chosen to head a team of scientists in a mission to beat the Germans in creating the bomb and subsequently fighting the forces depicting him as a communist and traitor.  An excellent cast headed by Cillian Murphy as the title character, Matt Damon as the general in overall charge of the program, Emily Blunt as O’s wife and Robert Downey Jr. as the villain, Lewis Strauss who first supports Oppenheimer and then viciously turns on him.  And, although 3 plus hours is too long for any film, I...

I should have known better.  When the title of a movie reads part one, that means they have already started on part two.  And I saw that it was well over two hours long — almost three hours.  And it starred the diminutive Tom Cruise, who, like Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, should have stopped making action thrillers a few films back.  And coupled with all that is my growing cynicism and criticism of movies in general, I should have stayed in bed.  In MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: DEAD RECKONING PART ONE, Tiny Tom again is Ethan Hunt, who heads up an IMF team of players who take on assignments that are , simply, impossible.  This time it’s tracking down a sinister and dangerous weapon that could end the world before it gets in the hands of some bad guys.  The stunts, on motorcycles and on top of speeding trains and unlikely sky diving, seems to be repeat performances of something I’ve seen before.  And, of course, nothing is resolved because you have to see...

I noted in my newspaper on Thursday that it was Harrison Ford’s birthday, and that he was 81.  To celebrate the event, I went to the theater and saw INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY and after half an hour of dimly lit action I thought to myself, utilizing an oft quoted utterance attributed to the venerable Yogi Berra, it’s like deja vu all over again, except without Sean Connery as Indy’s father.  Believe it or not, he’s back battling the Nazi’s again, this time in search of a reputed invention of Archimedes, the dial of destiny.  This invention purportedly allows the user to return to the past, and the Nazi group want to go back to 1939 and assassinate Adolf Hitler.  I must have missed their reason during my many naps.  This ridiculous plot, substantiated by many ridiculous subplots. led to an overly long just plain boring and lousy movie.  At 81, Ford is too old for this nonsense, and the film makers recognized it by keeping most of the movie in low ...

After a less-than-satisfactory set of experiences with Movie Pass, I cancelled my subscription and returned to my Regal Unlimited one.  I saw SOUND OF FREEDOM that was better than good, but I can’t say I liked it or enjoyed it because of the uncomfortable subject matter — trafficking of children for sex.  But it was based on a true story and was well done despite the awfulness of the subject.  The star was Jim Caviezel (whom I remember as a portrayer of Jesus way back when), and also faintly recognizable in a relatively minor role is Mira Sorvino.  The best role was played by someone named Bill Camp, who is an expatriate American and former bad guy who helps Caviezel.  The hero, who works for Homeland Security, rescues a young boy from traffickers and then gets fixated on rescuing the boy’s sister, whom he learns has been taken to Columbia.  He quits his job and treks to the Columbia hideout in the middle of the jungle in pursuit of his goal.  It is a ...

I was encouraged by the opening scenes of NO HARD FEELINGS, despite what I now suspect is the double meaning of the title and the foul language (f-word endlessly), because it looked like the beginning of a pleasant (if raunchy bordering on the obscene) romantic comedy.  The director, writers and all associated with the movie somehow lost track along the way, and it turned into a not-very-well-done drama with psychological overtones.  Did I read too much into this one?  It somehow wandered away from fun to a serious film that jolted me.  Excellent actress Jennifer Lawrence is wasted in this one although she was sometimes very funny in spite of her foul mouth.  She portrays a young woman, living in Montauk, NY,  on the verge of disaster.  She owes back taxes on her house (left to her by her mother) and her car (she is an Uber driver) is repossessed.  Her best friends show her an ad placed by wealthy parents looking for someone to “date" (read betwee...