Old Man @ The Movies

The movie I saw today had an appropriate title "Strange" and I didn't have a clue as to what was going on.  A narrator explains as STRANGE DARLING begins that this is the actual story of the most notorious and vicious serial killer in history, but to me the film is about two unattractive people smoking excessively and talking about sexual attraction then snorting coke snd fentanyl, getting high and handcuffing one or the other to the bed and occasionally someone is shot or knifed. There are several scenes of the woman running away from the man pursuing her with a rifle.  If this confuses you, join the club.  And despite the random shooting and stabbing, I was not aware of a serial killer.  But then, I'm an old man and this movie was made expressly so I would not understand what was going on.  I will report that critics said it was wonderfully acted.  My favorite scene was one in which one of the principals spent a long and almost silly time to die—the longest death sc

The movie I saw this weekend was one for which I had seen no previews and was unaware of its existence.  Seen away from home with a friend it was an unexpected pleasure.  Of course I had heard of Sing Sing, the well-known prison in Ossining, New York, up-county from where I lived  earlier in my life.  The movie SING SING was more like a documentary than a movie snd featured professional actors as well as actual inmates of the institution.  It is a well-told, well-acted and produced story of a program at Sing Sing, in which the convicts act in plays mostly written by them. It follows a group rehearsing a play which  embraces a variety of historical events (ancient Egypt, for example), and which also includes, bizarre as it might sound, Hamlet's soliloquy.  It is essentially a program of rehabilitation, and each character reacts in a different way.  It feels legitimate and is filmed almost entirely at the prison with no attempt to make it more or less than that.  Having visited a pri

I hope I have finally learned my lesson. Don't see a movie just because it's there. Be a little more discriminating. So, by eliminating most of the Marvel comic epics and more and more of the incomprehensible to me sci-fi films, I may have a more realistic strategy in my movie-going lifestyle.  This is the result of seeing and then walking out of the latest "big" movie, ALIEN: ROMULUS, which in no way resembled the original, which I liked and understood, and starred Sigourney Weaver, if I'm not mistaken and which was released back in the Middle Ages.  What I was able to garner from what I saw, a group of disgruntled and unwanted space explorers embark on a scavenger hunt of a deserted space station to sell what they find and encounter a gross monster, and then I left.  It is very loud, with extraordinary discordant and unnecessary sounds that made my hearing aids rattle in agony.  Younger audiences might enjoy it. And it was a hit with critics and audiences with t

I feel obligated to preface this review with the facts that I am a sucker for human interest stories if they are well done and am an incurable romantic when it comes to love stories.  I also am a cryer and used to do it often in the past.  You should also be aware that I rarely know what any movie is about before seeing it.  Today, I was more than pleasantly surprised and absolutely delighted to watch MY PENGUIN FRIEND, based on a true story that I had never read or seen before.  A humble Brazilian fisherman (I say humble because he and his fellow fisherman work from rowboats) takes his absolutely charming young son out in the boat for his birthday.  The bot is capsized and the boy is lost at sea.  Uh oh, I thought.  This is going to be too tragic to take because what came before were scenes of an absolutely wonderful family.  The father, played magnificently by French actor Jean Reno, is despondent and literally pulls out of the world despite efforts by his wife (who seems to have age

The movie I saw yesterday was an action thriller with a typically improbable plot.  GUNNER is the story of a highly decorated war hero (Medal of Honor and more) returning home after being missing in Afghanistan for a year.  He is anxious to establish a relationship with two sons, aged 16 and 10, who live with his ex-wife. Heretofore he hasn't been a good father, and his sons don't like him because of that and his yearlong absence.  He asks for permission to take them camping (which they are reluctant to do), and off they go. In the woods, they stumble on a hidden fentanyl producing site and in the midst of being pursued, the two boys are abducted by the lowlifes.  He is determined to find and free his boys, and takes on the dozens of criminals barring his way.  He takes care of them one after the other, and after he's done these impossible feats—killing each one with a single shot, or rendering them useless with his martial arts, he is reunited and realigned as a loving fat

The last movie I saw was unusual.  It was about World War I, it took place in Belgium and the invading army wore uniforms unlike any I had seen in other places. And the insurgent troops were referred to as Germans only once which I thought was peculiar.  The events occur in a tiny farming community and open with a romance between two young people whose fathers, one a farmer the other the village doctor, oppose the relationship.  The community is invaded by enemy soldiers led by an elderly man with white hair.  His son, a lieutenant, is under his command but behaves in an uncontrollable fashion, randomly shooting and killing bystanders, including the young man involved in the romantic relationship and his younger sister.  The farmer/father who previously had refused to be involved in any kind of resistance now assumes a leadership role and leads a small group toward the French border, pursued by the lieutenant, intent on killing the farmer.  THE LAST FRONT has the look and feel of a for

The film I saw today is based on a novel and is described as a melodrama.  It certainly is a drama, and perhaps an over dramatic drama but melo it ain't.  Starring Blake Lively, who doesn't look too well and two suitors who look too much alike, IT ENDS WITH US is far too long at 2 hours and 10 minutes to tell what is not a compelling story.  You know you are in for dysfunction at the beginning when Lively, as Lily Bloom, driving to see her newly widowed mother who castigates her first for not coming to see her father when he was dying and then instructs her to do the eulogy "just give five reasons why you loved your father." At the funeral, Lily stands at the podium, says "five things I loved about my father" and stands there silently in what we used to call a pregnant pause, then leaves the stage and walks out. We next see Lily on a high rise rooftop in Boston where she encounters Ryle (what kind of name is Ryle?) who is not only a neurosurgeon and one of t

I have a confession to make.  I departed from the movie I saw today, entitled CUCKOO, even more cuckoo than when I went in.  Yes, it was weird; yes, it had the most complicated plot imaginable; and yes, I haven't a clue what the film was about or what it might have been trying to say.  With a sizable audience, suggesting that folks are probably starting to return to theaters, this one is practically guaranteeing that they won't be back.  What I was a able to piece together: A young, teenaged girl has moved reluctantly from living in the U.S. with her mother into her father's house in a resort area in the German alps where he lives with his new wife and a very weird young daughter. Our U.S. girl, Gretchen, is offered a job as a receptionist at the adjacent resort by its very slimy owner.  As to what happens after that, your guess is as good as mine as the film tries to scare us without explaining anything.  Did I mention that I didn't like anything in the 1 hour and 43 m

I went to what was described as a faith-based, inspired-by-a-true-story film.  While I  do see faith-based movies, I generally do not look forward to them, not because I am irreligious, but because they tend to look and sound alike and mostly are about redemption in one form or another.  THE FIRING SQUAD, which is a strange title for a faith-based movie, has an interesting plot.  Two men, one American and one British, are a very successful team selling drugs all over the world, traveling in a private jet.  They are arrested in Bali and sent to a prison run by a cruel, demanding, agnostic warden to await execution by firing squad.  The British guy finds religion there, even becoming the pastor of the prison church. The predictable ending had some in the unusually large audience audibly weeping.  The film was more religious than most, but unfortunately was amateurish in dialogue and inept and unconvincing acting.  There were only two professional reviews, one panning the film; the other

Today I went to see a most unusual, interesting and stimulating film, which also included extensive drug use, explicit sex, foul language and extreme violence—and was mostly in a language that you rarely hear —Irish (or as I was always told to refer to as Gaelic).  KNEECAP takes place in Northern Ireland, Belfast specifically, and stars three real musicians playing themselves.  I think this kind of film is referred to as a biopic which I think means it's about real people and events but may not be the true story.  Two young men, "low-life scum" and heavy users and sellers of drugs, start performing hip-hop (I call it rap) and deliberately sing in the Irish language which was a very controversial issue in Northern Ireland (the transformation into the use of Irish as the official language was already a law in Ireland).  They are joined by a teacher who wears a balaclava on stage to avoid being recognized.  It was interesting to note that the group named itself Kneecap becau

I am familiar with the work of writer/director M. Night Shyamalan, because I actually remember seeing and reviewing two of them in the past couple of years, notably Old and Knock on the Cabin.  If I'm not mistaken, I used the word weird in both.  The film I saw yesterday, with an audience that easily surpassed all other audiences I have experienced for a long time, I had viewed in previews for what seemed months, and I actually was looking forward to it.  From the previews, it did not appear as weird as previous ones.  TRAP appeared to be s straightforward thriller mystery.  It is the story of a fireman father, played well by Josh Hartnett, who is taking his young daughter to an incredibly exciting event for her—a concert starring a very popular female pop/rock star, Lady Raven, taking place in a theater venue filled with adoring teen and preteen girls (mostly).  Dad acts kind of mysterious, leaving his seat several times, and befriending a vendor who, in response to Dad's ques