Old Man @ The Movies

As I was leaving the theater after watching A WORKING MAN, I asked the young couple behind me, "I lost count. How many did he kill? " They laughed and said, "We don't know. We lost count, too." Which is all you need to know about a film starring Jason Statham, a younger and more competent version of Liam Neeson. You can almost predict from the beginning what's going to happen. His movies rarely if ever stray.  In this one, he is a construction worker with s young daughter (no wife) with obviously violent skills gained in the military. His boss's young daughter is abducted by sex traffickers, and he reluctantly agrees to find and free her. And he proceeds to do his own version of population control by violently eliminating scores of evil men and women until he finds the abductors and the girl. He does not seem to be aware of the odds against him winning when he is confronted by six, eight or ten opponents. It's all the same to him, and he is a skilled...

The movie I saw today is one for the books. It's another two person movie, starring Anthony Hopkins and Bill Skarsgard. The twist is that Hopkins, as William, never appears on screen until the last five minutes of the movie. He is a voice on a car telephone. Eddie, a deadbeat father of a young girl, in desperation breaks into a deserted car only to find himself locked in and cannot start the car.. He begins to tear things apart in an effort to escape, ignoring the constantly ringing dashboard telephone. He finally answers and it is William, the owner of the car, who has set the whole thing up as a trip for someone like Eddie. Their conversation evolves into a sociological discourse on evil and good, but neither of the men is good. William has rigged the car to inflict pain on Eddie whenever he strays from the conversation. When Eddie falls asleep exhausted from his escape efforts, William presumably sneaks and leaves food and water. Eddie uses his...

It is hard to believe that I saw two movies starring penguins less than a year apart, and both were better than most films I've seen, and both were inspired by true stories. The first was My Penguin Friend, and it was simple and poignant and funny and gentle. The one I saw today, THE PENGUIN LESSONS, was political and funny with far less charm, but I liked it, although not as much as its predecessor. In both movies, the penguin was the ultimate star. They seem to be natural born actors. Lessons is the story of an Englishman hired to teach English in an Argentine prep school for the wealthy in a suburb of Buenos Aires. The country is in the midst of revolution, under military rule and there is unrest. On vacation in another South American country with a fellow teacher, he meets a girl and, while walking on the beach with her, they come across a penguin in distress covered with oil and she persuades him to rescue the penguin and clean it off. Anticipating a romance, he agrees, but sh...

I confess: I haven't the slightest idea what I saw yesterday. I know it was sci-fi because there was a space ship involved.  I know it was a horror film because there were horrible things happening, like an evil creature with tentacles entering a man's nostrils and some kind of medical device penetrating a woman's skull and cheek. I understood the beginning of the film: A woman awakens in a strange place and realizes she is on a planet snd she subsequently discovers that all her fellow space ship crew are dead. Then the film lost me or I lost it. From somewhere, an unknown man appears, claiming to be there to rescue her, suggesting they can get through this together, but she doesn't know him or how he got where they are. And more people appear and the really bad stuff starts. And somehow, she figures a way out (with no help from me or anyone else), and she finds a space ship somewhere out on the planet and is able to start it and take off.  Did I understand anything? No...

I saw DISNEY'S SNOW WHITE with my daughter Tracey. I may have taken her to see the original as well. Nothing changes except the cost of going to a movie. She thought it was okay; I liked  the original better and, in retrospect, wonder why they had to claim it as Disney's  Snow White. Who would have the effrontery to claim it as theirs? I have read that it's a box office bomb. I wonder why. It wasn't political that I could discern; neither Snow nor the dwarfs come out as transgender; and the plot remains more or less what I remember. There's still the wicked stepmother, played by Gal Gadot, and she consults the mirror as to her beauty "mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest one of all?" Why is it failing? Are we as a society losing our childhood innocence or are children today too sophisticated?  With the belief that I have told you everything you need to know about the movie, I haven't a clue as to it's lack of success. Neither, it appears,...

I'll clarify one thing in the event that it bothers you: The Alto Knights Club was a venue for a social gathering of the top gangsters in New York City in the 1950s, and where two of the leaders, Frank Costello and Vito Genovese loomed large and had been the best of friends since childhood. Now, they are deadly enemies, each vying to be number one.  I was working in New York City then and could not avoid following the news coverage for weeks after Albert Anastasia, Costello's top aide, was murdered in broad daylight in a barber shop which opened the gates to mass indictments and imprisonment of the two principals and others.  That's the whole story of the film I saw.  It was violent and okay but not great, and the most interesting aspect of THE ALTO KNIGHTS is that Robert DeNiro played both men, which made me feel like I was imagining things. Wonder if he was paid double for the two roles? DeNiro did his usual capable job but playing both seemed like overkill for thi...

The final movie of the weekend may have been the worst. I guess the concept looked good on paper. A young reporter is sent to a remote and isolated area to cover a conference going on to celebrate the 30th anniversary of a pop music star who disappeared mysteriously and has never been heard from since. The site had been the star's home. If it's so isolated and remote, why does she encounter hoards of adoring fans and a bunch of journalists who are supposedly there to cover the conference but instead spend their time drinking. I have a feeling the filmmakers were trying to satirize pop culture and media inadequacies but they got lost. In the midst of the finance posturing by the organizers of the conference, who should show up but the missing pop music star, portrayer by a mad and bad John Malkovich, and things go downhill from there since it turns into a horror film for the young reporter. I won't even try to explain the indignities she's subjected to. This film was a s...

The second of my weekend movies was described as an action, comedy, mystery, thriller. The mystery designation is easily explained: The mystery is why it was made. The comedy? The ridiculous premise. An unpretentious, mild-mannered hero has a rare disease which makes him impervious to pain, so he goes through the movie getting beat up, kicked, stabbed, shot and otherwise maimed, and he doesn't feel a thing. In fact, when he is shot in the arm he probes the wound with a knife and is able to extract the bullet by himself. He does all these things because he's trying to rescue his girlfriend, whom he adores. who has been abducted. In my opinion, she isn't worth what he subjects himself to. Bottom line? It's a very silly movie, but there are some funny scenes that allow you to survive the nearly two hour farce. I'm not certain that producer and director thought they were making a comedy--or did they? Another reason it's described as a mystery to me is why critics (8...

I saw three films over the weekend, and if I were giving out stars for merit, the three combined would earn one star.  Am I getting too negative?  Maybe, so I may cut back in my viewing habits and will try to develop a positive attitude. Don't count on it.  BLACK BAG, with two top performers in Pierce Brosnan and Cate Blanchette, was disappointing. From the previews I expected a rousing mystery adventure story. What I saw was a marathon talking contest with the subject matter as boring as the people reading their lines. Six people, all employed by the British government as intelligence officers are associates and also friends. One of them, Brosnan, is charged with discovering which of his associates, one of whom is his wife, is a double agent, and upon finding the culprit, to bump the bad one off. The nothingness of the conversations and the lack of any real action, enabled the filmmakers to turn a one hour and 33 minute film into a sleep inducing spectacle that felt like...

For the third film I saw this weekend, I was alone. I had a companion for the other two and I feel obligated to apologize for dragging her to I Am Living Proof. And for this one, I read a little more than usual.  I noted that the director was a Korean who won an Oscar for his 2019 film Parasite. I actually went back to find my review (#184 on November 20, 2019). My review was most complementary. I wrote I liked it and might even have loved it and suggested that it might be nominated for one or more Oscars. Armed with this knowledge I viewed MICKEY 17, and like Parasite, director Bong Joon Ho's film was unusual and quirky. This one was a sci-fi movie about colonizing a distant planet with people who are created by 3D fax machines, die and are recreated. The leading character, Mickey, is on his 17th re-creation and is confronted by one of his previous characters which supposedly shouldn't happen. It is a social satire and, I felt, quite well done. I was not as enthusiastic about ...

I think I should read more or know more about the movies I see before actually going to see them. A case in point for the second weekend film I saw. This one was a documentary and very, very faith-based.  I AM LIVING PROOF is a blatant commercial for revivalism and did nothing to change my mind about faith healers. This 1 hour and 24 minute film about three people who find themselves in dire straits and are healed was written, directed and produced—and starred in—by a minister and faith healer. The last words you can attribute to me: They never use the term faith healer in the film but….  In my I guess you might call it naivety, I have long believed in miracles, but not those that occurred in a tent filled with hundreds or thousands of fervent "believers" as witnesses to healings. Having said that, I am willing to concede that the documentary was well done and the participants convincing. I still need to be convinced that it is not just another Burt Lancaster film I'm wat...

The first movie I saw over last weekend was the personification of a feel-good movie, and it worked very well.  RULE BREAKERS, obviously based on actual events, is about four young Afghan girls, inspired by an activist, who enter the world of robotics and successfully achieve unprecedented success in a strongly  competitive environment of creativity.  Coming from the very restrictive atmosphere of Afghanistan and an environment that is clearly and traditionally against education and most other things for women, they overcome the odds by gaining worldwide attention, as they compete in countries all over the world.  The young actresses portraying the robot makers are outstanding and credible and the entire cast, direction and cinematography are first class as well.  I had the feeling that many in the audience, including me, wanted to stand up and cheer at the end of the 2 hour and 5 minute film.  Proof of this is the critical and audience rating of the film—t...

When I entered the theater yesterday, I had a flashback to the start of he Korean War when I was determined to enlist in some branch of the service. One of the options was Naval Intelligence and during my interview, I asked what I might be doing in Naval Intelligence. The answer was "you'll be spending a lot of time under water as a deep sea diver in a helmet."  I opted out of that choice. But the film I saw was all about divers in hard helmets, and I was glad I opted out. Based on or inspired by a true story, LAST BREATH told the story of a crew of deep sea divers tasked with repairing a pipeline on the ocean floor at depths of more than 300 feet. In this modern world, they had to accustom themselves to operating at such depths and had to spend considerable time (days?) in decompression chambers. The old-timer in the crew was played by Woody Harrelson doing his last assignment before retiring. One of the younger and less experienced guys gets trapped in equipment under w...