Old Man @ The Movies

There were only two new movies released this week, and I just had no appetite for Ordinary Angels, yet another faith-based movie, this one starring Hillary Swank, whom I haven’t liked since I saw her as a boxer in a Clint Eastwood-directed movie.  The other choice was one written and directed by one of the Coen brothers who are responsible for a number of very fine films.  At the end of the movie, it showed the title as Drive-Away Dykes, and if that had been the title shown when I decided to see it, i.e, DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS, it is likely I wouldn’t have gone.  Like Poor Things, this is a pornographic film, graphically and verbally. but this time, instead of being about a prostitute, this one is about lesbians and their activities.  It depicts two friends who get a job driving a car (which contains hidden, unusual contents) from Philadelphia to Tallahassee and the many things that happen to them enroute.  They are pursued by a pair of inept criminals charged with getting back the unusual t

This was a strange movie but one I could not stop watching even though it was just about two hours long and I didn’t know what was going on half the time.  Maybe more than half the time.  MADAME WEB stars Dakota Johnson, whoever she is, as a paramedic in New York City named Cassie Webb whose mother, pregnant with Cassie, is shot in the jungle somewhere searching for a rare spider whose venom offer a cure for many diseases and ailments. Somehow Cassie, who incidentally is a Marvel superhero—another I never heard of—possesses the ability to see the future and to alter it, perhaps because of the locale where her mother was shot.  Somewhere along the way Cassie rescues three teenagers and other passengers from something she perceives as dangerous on a train, and the teenagers and she are pursued by a creature who can climb walls and prance about spastically on ceilings.  I won’t reveal more other than to say this film is punctuated with light flashes and bursts of loud noises over and over

This is not a film for everyone. It is an old fashion military action thriller but a military world totally unfamiliar to me, with cameras thousands of miles away watching everything and someone thousands of miles from the action directing drones. Starring Russell Crowe as the drone operator, LAND OF BAD takes place in the Philippines where a special forces extraction team has been sent in to rescue a CIA agent who was captured and imprisoned by an insurgent group.  Things go awry for the mission in which Liam Hemsworth, dubbed “Airforce” and a last minute addition to the rescue team despite the fact that he has no experience in this kind of an operation, becomes the seemingly only survivor of the team, which is ambushed.  He’s being guided to safety via radio in Las Vegas by Crow, an undisciplined captain (whose 4th wife is expecting a baby), becoming the focus of the film as he compassionately but calmly runs the show.  One glitch after another occurs and there’s a lot of shooting an

Yep!  I admit it.  I’m an incurable romantic, not only on Valentine’s Day but every day. Which is probably why I liked THE TASTE OF THINGS, a French movie about food, cooking and love.  This movie, beautifully filmed and directed, stars the always excellent Juliette Binoche and other fine actors.  Since I fell down a flight of stairs more than 4 years ago, I have no sense of taste or smell, but the incredible cinematography in this movie convinced me that I could actually smell and taste the food they were preparing and eating almost nonstop throughout the film.  Taking place in the late 1800s, it focuses on a gourmet chef and his cook, who have been creating world class cuisine together for 20 years.  The Chef, Dodin, is in love with his cook, Eugenie, but she won’t commit, so it becomes an ongoing romance, and he begins creating dishes only for her.  I won’t say more, because I don’t want to spoil this one for any of you who might be able to see it.  Caution.  This is not a film for

What possesses people to write and create movies like the one I saw today, and who in their right mind would pay to produce and distribute it.  Your guess is as good as mine.  LISA FRANKENSTEIN was a stinker; it was described as a comedy horror movie. but it was neither funny nor full of scary things.  Actually, it was horrible!  This is the story of a young high school girl, lonesome and unpopular. who unfortunately lost her mother to a gruesome murderer (and she was present when it happened), and her father remarries an absolutely disgusting snd cruel woman who has a popular daughter Lisa’s age.  The stepsister does her best to befriend Lisa, to no avail.  After a party at which Lisa is drugged and sexually assaulted, she visits her favorite place (a cemetery) where she expresses a wish to be with a buried Victorian man, and, lo and behold, a bolt of lightning brings him back, smelly and covered with dirt.  Is that enough to entice you to see this one because I’m not going to describ

I admit I read about this movie after I left the theater about an hour into the film because I really didn't know what was going on.  Most of the scenes were shot in a cave or other barely lighted sites, and the captions were virtually unreadable.  Furthermore I was unable to figure out what language they were speaking until I did my reading.  It was a language made up just for the film, and they seemed to speak it very well even though there wasn’t a lot of dialogue.  I read that the film is about a bunch of ancients or cavemen and women (this happened 43,000 years ago) who arrive by boat on what appears to be a deserted island and encounter creatures or apparitions or something else when they realize they aren’t alone.  The soundtrack is punctuated by abrupt, very loud noises of all kinds, and occasional screams.  I wouldn’t classify it as a horror film; critics considered it something else, and I urge you to read them first if you plan to see this one. I know you’re not shocked

The movie I saw yesterday was exactly what I expected it to be--a silly, lightheaded, lighthearted, ridiculous action movie.  I viewed ARGYLLE as a satire/farce of spy films and slightly comedic and certainly not to be taken seriously.  I honestly don’t know if its creators intended it to be viewed in that fashion.  But for me it was a welcome relief from the heavy, revealing films I have seen lately.  The movie stars Ron Howard’s daughter, Bryce, who should work on her unattractive voice and consider a weight-loss program, but I guess her character was meant to be whiney and  the cast also includes two competent actors who might have wanted a change of pace as well—Sam Rockwell and Bryan Cranston.  Bryce, as Ellie, is a simple, stay-at-home-with-my-cat woman who writes best selling spy novels. When one of her books seemingly replicates an actual spy mission by an international intelligence agency, she is embroiled in events up to her ears and her back-packed cat Alfie.  There are more

I absolutely have to change my ways.  From now on, I must read a little bit about the plot of the movie I am going to see.  I walked out of FITTING IN rather early in the movie because I was embarrassed,  and those who know me well know that I am not easily embarrassed.  I saw enough of the film to know that a teenaged girl, with her mother, is visiting an OB/GYN to get birth control pills because she wants to have sex with her new boyfriend.  The doctor stuns them and me when he reports that the girl suffers from a real, rare female condition known as MRKH which has her lacking the majority of the female reproductive system and therefore cannot have children and not even sexual relations without a lengthy program which I will not describe but which is described in detail by the doctor.  Leave it to those tell-it-all Canadian women (it won some awards as the best Canadian film)!  Like the director/writer/star of Scrambled, this writer/director (but not star) made a semi-autobiographica

The film I saw today, THE ZONE OF INTEREST, was interesting to say the least.  It was adapted from a novel by Martin Amis, whose books usually are more weird than interesting.  This one is about the commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, who lives with his wife and five kids in a house with extensive flower and vegetable gardens and greenhouses adjacent to the walls of the camp.  The film starts with almost five minutes of silence and darkness, with discordant music and finally opens to a scenic view of the river behind their home that also lasts nearly five minutes in silence.  Not a great deal happens in this German language subtitled movie other than the family living a very normal life despite hearing shooting and prisoners in pain and seeing and smelling the crematorium in action.  The fact that they do live normally is unsettling snd uncomfortable.  There are some twists and turns throughout, including the actions of one of their servants sneaking out at night and leavin

Maybe I’m getting jaded, or perhaps I’m seeing too many films. The movie I saw today, SCRAMBLED, while only 1 hour and 16 minutes long, felt longer than Oppenheimer.  And I confess, I had to read a precis of the movie to make certain I understood I saw what I thought I was seeing.  In my reading, I learned that the director/writer/star based the film on her own personal experience.  It is about a young woman, Nellie, in her 30s who after a series of failed relationships and serving as a best friend to a lot of women by serving as bridesmaid and confidant, decides to freeze her eggs for eventual use sometime in the future.  Yes, her eggs, hence the title of the movie.  It is purported to be a comedy but I didn’t think it was very funny.  And what is really strange, the description of the film on my theater’s website describes it as being about a man who has half a penis getting out of prison (which, if I recall correctly, was one line of dialogue in the film).  Obviously my lack of appr