Old Man @ The Movies

I was amazed by the number of people in the theater yesterday.  It was obviously a religious movie, and it was very likely that everyone in the audience was not Catholic.  But despite all the odds, CONCLAVE was a very good movie, with more twists and turns than a roller coaster.  It takes us into the inner sanctum of the Vatican following the death of a pope and the intrigue of electing his successor.  CONCLAVE is as complex as any murder mystery and much better than most.  We are treated to the machinations of this heretofore unrevealed process, and the individual cardinals involved in the voting process are as intense and competitive as our current pre-election carryings on.  One after the other, dark secrets are exposed as the cardinals appear unable to choose a viable and acceptable candidate.  I realize that my failing eyesight is limiting my ability to fully follow everything that is going on.  Because some of the dialogue is in Latin or Ita...

I thought Hollywood was incapable of making real dramatic romance movies anymore.  Several of those that I remember fondly over the years include Penny Serenade, Cyrano de Bergerac, An Affair to Remember and even its lookalike You've Got Mail.  I was wrong.  They did it in WE LIVE IN TIME.  It is set in England and stars Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield (whom I never thought of as a romantic lead, particularly after his Spiderman roles).  This one is truly a love story.  Garfield, in the process of a divorce, is hit by a car driven by Pugh, a chef who invites him to dinner where she works and they move in together.  He eventually reveals he would like to have a family and they plan to marry and begin to try to conceive after she learns she has ovarian cancer.  She enters into a prestigious contest for chefs which conflicts with their wedding date.  She eventually has the baby, delivered by him in the rest room of a convenience store/petrol s...

The film I saw yesterday was certainly different from most movies hitting theaters these days.  Billed as a hilarious satire, if falls a bit short of that.  RUMOURS is definitely funny for the most part, but its satire is about as subtle as being clubbed by a baseball bat.  But, mostly, I enjoyed it.  This is an intimate look at the meeting of the G7, the seven wealthiest countries in the world, as they are scheduled to draft a statement about a world crisis, and they are stumped. To say they are depicted as incompetent is being kind. They are the epitome of ineptitude and vicious parodies of politicians in general. They are meeting in a remote part of Germany, hosted by Cate Blanchette, chancellor of Germany.  And the film pulls no punches in depicting these leaders. As they ponder childlike to draft the statement, they find themselves deserted and helpless.  The cast is excellent, their barbs sharp, and silly things happen. 79% of critics gave Rumors a th...

The descriptions of the films released this weekend didn't seem all that promising, so I closed my eyes and picked one.  Mistake!  Probably should have kept my eyes open and seen the one I will see today.  I wondered, after viewing this one, if there was a predecessor and why they felt obligated to produce a sequel.  SMILE 2 was what might be called a psychological thriller because the star of the film, whom I had never seen before was psychotic.  She is a young and very successful pop singer/dancer who is returning to the stage after a year's absence.  It seems that she was in a terrible automobile accident in which a movie star driver was killed and she suffered traumatic injuries.  Her fans are thrilled by her return, but she's suffering from episodes of hallucinations and other worse experiences, which include some horrifying scenes of self mutilation and body parts being ripped apart or torn asunder with lots and lots of blood. I'll say one thing ...

I went to today's movie out of curiosity. Having seen and enjoyed the Reagan film, I wondered how they would treat a current candidate for the presidency in the midst of a highly competitive campaign and the bias that emanates from both political parties. THE APPRENTICE surprised me in every respect. It is the story of Donald Trump as a young man who comes under the influence of the notorious lawyer Roy Cohn, who does his best to cultivate this wealthy, relatively naive young man and mold him into what Donald Trump is today.  The film is very sympathetic to the innocent Trump in the beginning and literally turns on him in the second half. It's as if the Republicans made the first half of the film and the Democrats the second.  I thought  the acting, particularly the two principals, was first rate even though I didn't know who they were and the rest of the cast supported them well.  There were some scenes that seemed unnecessary and jolting but overall I thought the f...

The first Christmas movie to come to theaters this year arrived over the weekend.  In my local theater's online description of the film I saw today was a warning I had never seen before.  "PLEASE BE ADVISED: Terrifier 3 contains scenes of extreme violence and gore.  If at any point you feel unwell, don't hesitate to seek assistance from one of our team members.  Guests under 17 must be accompanied by a guardian who is 21 or older.  Please be prepared to show ID at the theatre."  I obviously did not need a guardian, and true to part of the theater statement, TERRIFIER 3 was indeed, if not the most violent, the goriest film I had ever seen. And that's the nicest thing I can say about the movie.  It was so gory and bloody, with heads and limbs being severed by chain saws and axes and entrails being pulled from bodies that it was almost comical.  It had no plot and no reason for being other than for exploiting the blood and gore.  Obviously, bein...

I am not, and never was, a big fan of Saturday Night Live like some of my dear friends.  But I have seen several episodes and usually found them clever and funny, particularly in the earlier years.  So with that preface I went to see SATURDAY NIGHT, billed as the first night the show went on the air in October of 1975, and as it is today, it was a live performance unusual for television shows then.  Largely focusing on Lorne Michaels, the show's creator and still its producer today.  What we see is utter chaos, not only on the set but in the film because no one seems to be quite sure what was going to happen, particularly the big shots from NBC, depicted in the film by the fiendish looking Willem Dafoe.  When all is said and done, it is a fun film, with actor's playing such memorable Saturday Night characters as John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd.  And in the middle of the chaos avoiding questions from Dafoe about the makeup of the show...

I am grateful that I saw my most recent film at a theater, which has a policy of free showings every Tuesday for senior citizens, because I would have resented strongly having to pay to watch this one. I would even have resented seeing it with my unlimited pass at Regal.  How they managed to write and produce a film this ridiculous starring Joaquin Phoenix is beyond me and particularly disgraceful when it was supposedly a sequel to a very successful film in 2019, which won two Oscars, one of which was awarded to Phoenix as best actor. The original was an exceptional psychological thriller.  I can't begin to describe JOKER: FOLIE A DEUX.  I might call it a musical because the principals were continually singing classic pop tunes such as "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" and other memorable tunes, which had nothing to do with the plot.  It reminded me of a Bollywood film with its inappropriate song and dance sequences.  One could call it a comedy because some o...

I saw a fine film a couple of days after my 95th birthday.  (No applause please.)  I guess it's what might be called an actor's dream role because I think the actress starring, Saoirise Ronan, appeared in virtually every scene snd performed brilliantly as she always seems to do.  In THE OUTRUN, Ronan plays the role of Rona (I thought her screen name was Oona which is the name of my favorite (and only) great granddaughter), as what I can only gather was a marine biologist who is a raging alcoholic. The film is faithful in depicting the happenings and language in AA meetings, several of which Rona attends as she seeks a path to sobriety.  It seems that her father is an alcoholic as well,  snd we see her at times in her unhappy childhood. It is confusing in terms of flashbacks whether she is just emerging from rehab or has been in and out of rehab several times.  Whatever the case, she is now sober and working on a research project in the remote Orkney Islands...