Old Man @ The Movies

I had been seeing previews of the film I saw yesterday and was looking forward to seeing it because it appeared to be the amusing story of a boy who easily coped with his problems. I was disappointed. It turned out to be a faith-based movie that was ultimately sad and depressing. Scott and Teresa, the parents of Austin, THE UNBREAKABLE BOY, are shattered when they realize he is not only autistic, but has a rare disease, octogenesis imperfecta, inherited from his mother.  It essentially is brittle bones, which causes easily breakable bones. Despite this, Austin is upbeat and positive and outgoing; his father doesn't handle it well and therein lies the problem with the film, which focuses too heavily on guilt-ridden and self-focused Scott. It is not that it's a bad film, it just lost its focus. The cast as a whole did a credible job, but the actor who played Austin was particularly gifted. I did not find anywhere that this was based on real people but felt it was obvious that som...

Looks like I'm on a losing streak, or rather a streak of watching what I consider loser films. The latest is THE MONKEY, and I happen to like monkeys. This monkey is a windup toy, in the possession of twin boys, and when he is wound up and plays his drum, horrible things happen to people, primarily relatives. The twins leave home, leaving the monkey behind, and drift apart. Now grown men who don't resemble one another, they are somehow reunited with the monkey and stupidly wind him up, with predictable results. I didn't care for the brothers, the monkey or any of its victims, so I was pleased when this hour and 38 minute loser ended. I guess the critics (79%) and audiences (60%) were not when giving it a thumbs up.    

It appears that I can't even keep promises to myself. I seem to recall sometime last year or the year before that I pledged not to see any more Marvel comic movies. I failed when I went to see CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD, and I deeply regret it. In this one, Captain America is selected to protect us by the newly elected U.S. president, played by fast aging Harrison Ford, who at one point changes into a monster who looks like the Incredible Hulk and tries to destroy the good Captain. Other silly events occur both before and after Harrison's transformation, but none significant enough to write about. Just be comforted by the fact that Captain saves America or humanity once again, so you have nothing to worry about. 49% of critics and 70% of audiences gave this film a thumbs up.  

This week turned international  for me. I went from seeing a Norwegian film to viewing one from Mexico. I changed my mind at the last minute and went to see EMILIA PEREZ instead of Captain America because there was a lot of publicity about Emilia recently, having won a host of awards already and with a near record 13 Oscar nominations. I thought the movie was interesting, unique and just plain weird. This one is about a big time Mexican criminal who undergoes a sex change operation with the help of a small time lawyer to satisfy a longtime desire and also to hide from those pursuing him. I think I am getting used to these weird plots but this one had more appeal because it was a musical with a lot of singing and dancing that reminded me of a Broadway show. The total production was successful and entertaining, in its own way, in terms of acting, direction and unusual cinematographic effects. But I wasn't that impressed. I long for the days of movies like Casablanca and Indiscrete, N...

I saw a movie the other day that I wish i had seen with my great granddaughter, who turned three a couple of days ago. It was definitely a movie for families, charming and low key and no violence, and i think she would have enjoyed it. I did. I did not see the first Paddington film, so I don't know how it compares, but in Peru had the cute little bear traveling to Peru with his adoptive family, the Browns, to discover what happened to a dear aunt who disappeared from a convalescent home for retired bears. Paddington is funny and fearless, but not feckless as he leads his family from one adventure to another in the tropical rainforest. And it had a happy ending. Some distinguished actors lent their voices to the various characters, and I suspect a good time was had by all. Not surprising is that 96% of critics and 90% of audiences gave PADDINGTON IN PERU a thumbs up. Lesson learned; I will not chance seeing another family film soon.  

I don't recall seeiing a movie from Scandinavia since Ingmar Bergman stopped directing his epics in the last century. That led me to my local theater yesterday to watch ARMAND, a dark, dismal, heavy-duty drama from Norway, and I'm glad I went because I learned that Norwegians are as capable of making dark, dismal, heavy-duty dramas as the Swedes. This film is about an elementary school in which the staff and involved relatives are attempting to adjudicate an alleged sexual event involving two 6-year-old boys. All focus is on Elisabeth, who is either the aunt or mother of Armand, the boy who is accused of sexual abuse by the parents of Jon, the boy allegedly abused. Elisabeth is confused and despondent and moves from tears to a bout of hysterical laughter about the whole preceding, and she wanders through the corridors of the empty school, looking for answers. The cast is excellent, especially the actress playing Elisabeth but the preceding is ludicrous but not comedic in any wa...

For Valentine's Day, I treated myself—to a movie. And to prove to myself I was not really an old fogey, I saw BECOMING LED ZEPPELIN, a documentary designed to do just what the title implies. Yes, I was familiar with the name of what I believed was a rock group, but I had no idea what music they played and why they had become so popular.  It was largely narrated by members of that group, one in particular, and I concluded by his accent, the group was British. By the end of the just over 2 hour work, I knew that Led Zeppelin played very loud, to my ears mostly discordant music, and the vocalists screamed mostly incomprehensible lyrics. I recognize that the vast majority of those reading this review will disagree adamantly with my comments above, but keep in mind that I am at the very least 30 years older than you and entitled to my feeble beliefs and conclusions. LZ seem to have been largely successful and did not have any major relapses in their run, and enjoyed their tours in Ameri...

With this one, I will be all caught up and raring to go out and see another movie. This one hour and 32 minute epic, HEART EYES, is the perfect film for Valentine's Day. Believe it or not, it is about a maniacal serial killer who for several years has been going to different cities and brutally murdering romantic couples. On Valentine's Day! And no one has the foggiest idea of who he is or where he'll strike next. He is known only as the Heart Eyes Killer. The film follows the ordeal of a young, romantically involved couple who appear to be a target for old Heart Eyes. If I had the inclination and the ability, I would have picked them to bump off too! There are near misses galore, and I won't tell you if he's successful or not and whether the law or someone else finds him. Just grab yourself a partner and take her or him to see for yourself what happens. It won't be a waste of time or money because there are worse movies in theaters now and critics (81%) and aud...

Almost up to date, with only one more review to write after this one. I saw two more B-pictures in two days, and they just might have fallen into a new category: C, which means they were worse than Bs. LOVE HURTS was mis-titled; it should have been called Audience Hurts because it was painful to watch, depicting a wimpy real estate agent now showing houses in the Milwaukee suburbs who used to be something else involving gangs. His past emerges, and he finds himself battling former associates, including his brother, a big time crime boss and some girl who should not have been in this movie or any movie for that matter. Nothing in this loser made any sense, including his skills as a combatant whose wimpy-ness suggested he couldn't beat a 92-year-old lady or an eight-month-pregnant girl, which is likely why 18% of  critics and 63% of audiences gave it a thumbs up. I may give up writing reviews and take up beating myself in the head with a club instead. It might be more productive and ...

Yet another of the movies I dubbed B-pictures, and thereby mediocre at best, was BRAVE THE DARK, a dark drama about s teacher trying to do something decent, in this case rescuing or trying to, a student who is living in his car. The teacher brings the boy into his home and begins to realize to his dismay things are worse than he thought. The boy is thrown in jail and the teacher bails him out, but things go from bad to worse in this flaky melodrama, and everyone in the audience soon recognizes that he should have left him sleeping in the car. At least this hour and 52 minute stinker didn't claim to be based on a true story. How was it judged by critics and audiences?  70% and 54% respectively gave it a thumbs up. If it were up to me, I would have broken their thumbs.  

I realized as I sat down to write this, that the three films I saw in the last week had at least two things in common—they were relatively and thankfully short at one  hour and a half long, and they were not very good, In my youth, they would have been called B pictures, the second and less desirable of a double feature. Initially, I thought I would include all in one review, but they were so different that it wouldn't have been practical. Companion was the first and already reviewed.  The second, VALIANT ONE, was in the era of the Korean War in which a non-combat team crash-lands a helicopter in the demilitarized zone and must find its way through North Korean units across the border to safety. It was supposedly inspired by a true story, they claim.  The surviving group are basically technicians and have no idea what to do. And prove this over and over. But they prevail and finally make it to freedom. Despite its claim that it is an action thriller, I fell asleep countle...

Back home after a most enjoyable interlude away, I did what I always seem to be doing: I went to a movie, recalling that the total audience, aside from my companion and me, of the three movies we saw in New York, was three! And once again, after watching the thankfully only one hour and 37 minute spectacle, wondered what the heck I was doing here. Billed by the local theater as a mystery, thriller, horror/sci-fi, comedy, COMPANION, I guess, was some of those if you consider that comedy was pulling the leg of viewers (to use an ancient idiom). It did have a somewhat interesting premise—artificial intelligence able to create a robot love (sexual) partner imbued with whatever traits you want it to have. An attractive couple meet by chance in a supermarket and become romantically involved quickly. He takes her to a secluded home of a friend where his friends are partying and when things start getting weird, he explains to her that she's really a robot made-to-order for him, and things ...

The third good movie I saw recently was based on a true story but was produced and directed like a documentary using professional actors. The story revolved around the horrendous tragedy at the summer Olympic games in 1972 which were held in Munich, Germany. In the midst of the events, a Palestinian militant group, known as Black September, entered the athletes' living area, executed two Israeli athletes and abducted 9 others. The ABC tv crew were in a position to show the happenings live but were totally inexperienced in news coverage like this because they were a sports team, not a news team. Led by the legendary Roone Arledge, they were able to do the job remarkably well, against all odds. Combing actual footage of the event alongside the on-the-job learning experiencing of televising what was happening made for an exciting, suspenseful and meaningful movie. Acting was first class as was everything else about the movie which was in black-and-white like The Brutalist.  The succes...