Old Man @ The Movies

As I was leaving the theater today, i remarked to a middle aged couple also leaving, "could they make it any worse?"  To which they replied laughing, "we've seen worse!"  It had one thing in common with the grand film I saw yesterday—there were basically only two characters.  But yesterday the two spoke almost constantly for 1 hour and 41 minutes; in the 1 hour and 40 minutes of A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, there was virtually no dialogue (I think I could count the number of lines of dialogue on my fingers) and some of it was indecipherable whispering. I did not know, until I got home and did a little research, that this movie was supposed to be a prequel to the two films from a couple of years ago directed by John Krasinski and starring Emily Blunt.  I recall that I liked them quite a bit.  I envision the producers going to Krasinski and saying how would you like.to do the prequel to which he responds after reading the treatment or the script. "you've got t...

I honestly don't remember the last time I saw two films in a row and liked them both very much.  I thought Ghostlight was excellent; but the movie I saw today bordered on remarkable.  How can a movie with a ridiculous title like DADDIO be so darn good? It is a two person conversation in a taxicab headed from JFK airport to a destination in midtown NYC, and despite the fact that it is an hour and 41 minutes long, it never falters, never bores and never loses its spontaneity.  The cab driver, played by Sean Penn in what I believe is about his finest performance, and his young passenger, played by Dakota Johnson, are just plain brilliant.  Their endless conversation in this taxi ride, interrupted by a massive traffic jam caused by what looks like a horrendous accident, is intimate, salacious and revealing, with appropriate foul language.  Penn is a worldly, brazen and outspoken character who is part philosopher, part psychiatrist, part snooper, and he's very good a...

I was clueless going in to see GHOSTLIGHT.  From its title I expected yet another poorly constructed and not scary horror film.  You see, I rarely if ever read anything about the movies I see in advance of my viewing.  I was pleasantly delighted to see an exceptional movie that was different, charming, well filmed,  well acted and meaningful.  And one that exhibits a variety of sensations from anger and pity, to compassion and encouragement, from highs to lows.  It opens with someone singing a song from "Oklahoma" off screen.  This is the story of a dysfunctional middle class family. The husband is a large, fumbling construction worker with a wife and two daughters, the oldest of whom is basically out-of-control, with anger issues snd a very foul mouth.  Things are going poorly for them with the daughter being expelled from school for terrible behavior and the family embroiled in a legal dispute of an unspecified nature and they are drifting apart...

The movie I saw yesterday was interesting, unusual and very good.  And it featured standout performances by three leading actors — Tom Hardy as Johnny, Austin Butler as Benny, and Jodie Comer as Kathy. (I was not familiar with the careers of the latter two).  And the cinematography in THE BIKERIDERS  is noteworthy. The film, largely narrated by Kathy, is the story of a motorcycle club started and led by Johnny in the Chicago area. It is simply that — a motorcycle club of beer drinkers and no more than that.  It takes place in the tumultuous sixties and is a reason for a bunch of guys to get together because of their love of motorcycles.  Benny is an off-kilter loner but also a member of the club who acted unhinged much of the time.  The club's popularity grows and bikers from other parts of the country seek them out to join, with Johnny being most selective about who is allowed to join.  Kathy tells her story to a photographer who is chronicling the Va...

The creators of the film I saw yesterday must have realized that a theme of exorcism is not new in the movie business but they were searching for something that made this one stand out and be  unique.  They tried too hard and instead of creating something new in the genre, they fumbled badly.  The idea of making an exorcism movie with a semi-washed up leading man as the priest isn't a bad idea but they lost their way.  Russell Crowe with his distinctive voice may be a semi-washed up actor in real life to have taken on this role.  It's not that he did a bad job; he just had nothing concrete to work with because the film makers kept changing their focus midstream and what should have ended up on the cutting room floor made it to the big screens and became just another bad exorcism/horror movie with loud, ear-jarring noises and music.  I felt sorry for the actress who had to play Crowe's daughter.  It was a thankless job but she tried hard to overcome all...

On a hot and humid Saturday, I wen to see THELMA, expecting to see hoards at the theater escaping the heat,  Nope, the usual paucity.  Two other men were in the theater, sitting in my reserved seat but moving off when I threatened them with my cane.  Just kidding!!  It presumably is based, in some measure, on the antics of the director's grandmother.  It was a light-hearted comedy, intended to amuse and entertain (critics described it as hilarious).  I had mixed emotions because, as a longtime senior citizen, I thought it had the odor of demeaning those of us advanced in age.  Thelma is an elderly woman, living independently but leaning heavily on her beloved grandson.  She gets a call, purportedly from him, revealing that he is incarcerated and she needs to send him ten thousand dollars in cash to get him out. Yeah, she's a senior victimized by a scammer about which we've been warned countless times by the media.  She scrounges through her r...

Today, Monday, I reluctantly saw TUESDAY, which doesn't mean anything.  I say reluctantly because it stars Julia Louis Dreyfus in a deeply dramatic role.  I describe this movie as an allegory but I'm not really certain it is.  It certainly is a fantasy or fairy tale with more symbolism than I recall seeing in a movie for a long, long time.  I am only guessing that it takes place in England because two characters, Julia's daughter and her caregiver, speak with an English accent.  Julia and her daughter live in a large home.  Daughter obviously suffers from some serious disease (unnamed as far as I remember) whose main companion is s grotesque parrot-like bird with s nasty-looking beak.  This mysterious creature is capable of transforming itself from a sparrow-like size to one of eagle or larger proportions.  If I'm not mistaken, the bird is the symbol of death and is trying to prepare the daughter for it.  The bird also insists that the girl t...

On Father's Day, I went to a movie with one of my daughters. It was depressing and sad, but we both thought it was worth seeing. This film, inspired by true events, is the story of two New Yorkers, a daughter who is a journalist and her father, a holocaust survivor, who travel to the country of his birth, Poland.  The daughter in TREASURE is trying to learn about the history of her family because her parents never spoke about it.  Her father has a different agenda and counters her plans at every opportunity. He is a kind of hale fellow well met who insists that they engage a car and driver to take them everywhere (she had purchased train tickets for them) and who immediately looks upon the driver as his best friend.  The father and daughter clash at every new phase of their trip. They visit the family apartment, now occupied by a sullen family, who claim there is nothing left from the previous occupants, but her father recognizes his mother's china and other items, and th...

In a theater with more than the usual crowd of one, I saw another horror film, and I must admit that it was not the usual bill of fare and a welcome change from the Halloween-type scary movie.  It was more than unusual; it was strange and unique and I'd even call it innovative.  It had very little dialogue, with most of it coming from off-camera actors.  Much, maybe too much, of the film featured the camera following s burly man with his back to the camera plodding through a forest.  The events are explained by a young man telling the story of Johnny (obviously the man in the woods) who killed people years ago in this woods, was killed, buried and came back.  One of the group around a campfire listening to the story has found a necklace which we learn belonged to Johnny's mother and he wants it back.  When he's not plodding, Johnny kills anyone he comes across in very graphically filmed ways—like plunging a hook into a girl and pulling out her innards, and ...

I noticed this weekend that the season of summer movies seems to have arrived, and if I'm not mistaken that means lots of fare for young and very young children out of school, which translates to animated and other less savory films in prospect.  The new offerings included two or three horror movies, and I will probably only see one.  Today I saw BAD BOYS: RIDE OR DIE which I gather is not the first time the two stars rode together.  If the title only offers the two choices, I'll take the latter alternative.  Not that it was all bad; it wasn't.  But it also wasn't that good, and the language as usual was foul.  I think it was an attempt to resurrect memories of the TV series Miami Vice (which today's audiences probably never saw) with the lead characters African Americans this time.  The two undisciplined officers are portrayed by Will Smith and Martin Lawrence (the latter I suspect is a comedian because he tried to be funny under all circumstances)....

After deciding that I would not see Summer Camp, Babes and I Saw the TV Glow simply because I'm trying to amend my viewing habits and the subject matter turned me off, my son and I went to see EZRA, and we both enjoyed it.  It is a heart warming, poignant and sometimes funny story about family and relationships.  Max, played exceptionally well by Bobby Cannavale, has become a dark stand-up comedian, living with his father (Robert De Niro) during s separation from his wife (Rose Byrne), and father of an autistic young son.  When the couple's arguments about what to do with their son reach an unsolvable point, Max takes son Ezra and embarks on a get-away-from-it-all trip to friends in Michigan and onward west. It serves no purpose to explain more about the trip because there are too many events to recount, but Max ends up as a fugitive of justice for kidnapping.  There are other elements to be examined such as Max's troubled relationship with his father, who went from ...