Old Man @ The Movies

On a beautiful windy spring day, I saw a movie that was definitely an action thriller. THE ACCOUNTANT 2 stars Ben Affleck, who also produced the film, and appears to be the sequel to another film with the same name, minus 2, which I obviously saw but have no recollection of. Affleck is a robot-like accountant who heads a firm doing what kind of work I don't know that utilizes young people who are fantastic as hackers. He gets involved with a federal agent on a case I am not sure of, but it involves a female assassin and others of ill repute. And then his brother appears, after an eight-year separation, and they work together helping the Fed. They are wise-cracking all the time in a love-hate relationship, which kept a lot of the audience in stitches.  I didn't think they were that funny, but I rarely do when erratic behavior and violence is occurring. Near the end of the film there is what feels like an hour-long gun battle culminating in the rescue of a busload of children who...

The movie I saw on Friday started out as a drama about relationships and spiraled down to a film about sexual preferences and activities. A man and his wife are living in his family home in Kansas and are joined there by his brother, who has been missing in action for a couple of years. Nonetheless, they bond, perhaps too much bonding between brother-in-law and wife, and make plans to sell the family home and then join forces in California, and embark on some undisclosed business venture. The couple, Muriel and Lee, move and buy a tract home in California awaiting brother Julius, who has stopped off in Las Vegas to satisfy his gambling habit. Before Julius shows up again, restless Muriel has discovered something secret that she likes, gambling on the horses and she is very successful at it. Julius shows up and the movie falls apart, with Julius having a relationship with a man and Muriel with a woman.  And nothing better happens for the rest of this far too long hour and 57 minute ...

Perhaps it's just me. I'm too old, or too cynical or can't see the forest for the trees, but I am baffled by the thumbs up ratings by critics (98%) and audiences (97%) given to the movie I saw early last week. I found SINNERS to be shallow, meaningless, confused and confusing, and certainly not worth the price of admission. This what-am-I-doing movie focuses on the lives of twin brothers, played by Michael B. Jordan, who leave their rural hometown in the deep south to go north to the big city, get in trouble and return home seemingly to start all over again. The brothers and the movie lost the way at home, and the movie goes from being about criminals and such to a surreal story of vampires and violence. In my opinion it was pointless and poorly done. And as if they thought they were in Bollywood, there were inappropriate sequences of singing and dancing. It was an agglomeration of every silly movie I've seen over the years. Maybe I should pack it in, but if I were you ...

I spent the Easter weekend with my daughter Tracey in Virginia, and we walked to her local theater where we saw a movie she had selected. It was a very good, very unusual and very entertaining film entitled THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND. Wallis Island, as near as we could figure, was off the coast of England, Ireland or Scotland, and its almost only resident is an eccentric man who won the lottery twice and could thereby afford  to pay a once popular vocal group to come to put on a concert just for him on the beach. Herbert, the lead, who is given $500,000 when he arrives to this bizarre situation not aware that Charles, the eccentric, has also invited his onetime bandmate, who was also his lover. It was funny and poignant and more sad than happy, and the music was interesting and not at all familiar to me. But the actors, including the always reliable and accomplished Carey Mulligan, and characters they played were depicted in a good way. The one hour and 40 minute film was enjoyabl...

I went to see a movie I wasn't sure about because of the subject matter. WARFARE was likely the most realistic war film ever produced, probably because it was written by two Iraq war veterans who were recounting what they experienced. This is the story of a platoon of soldiers on a surveillance mission in Iraq deep in enemy territory, and things go very wrong.  It is as realistic, I suspect, as it could possibly be, not one of those typical Hollywood war movies that makes heroes out of everyone, with occasional comic relief. This is the real thing, and you wonder how they're going to get out of this mess they're in. It was well-acted, produced and directed and does not avoid or gloss over the sordid images of war. I have no personal experience to compare it with, but have spoken over the years to many guys who did, and this movie feels like the real thing. The one hour and 29 minute film passed quickly and never dragged. 94% of critics, 93% of audiences, and I gave it an un...

The film I saw yesterday is described as a thriller, and it is that, I guess. It's also a mystery as to what's happening and why. An attractive young widow with a young son is preparing to go out on her first date in a long time, with her sister acting as babysitter. She arrives early for her blind date at an elegant, upscale restaurant and is pleasantly surprised  when her date arrives and charms her. It's an awkward encounter until she begins to receive text messages or emails from an unknown sender warning her the she must follow all instructions or someone will kill her son and sister. She verifies viewing her home security system that a hooded man is in her home and is threatening the occupants. Finally, the unknown person tells her she must kill her date or face the consequences, and things go downhill from there with an unexpected unknown and reasons why and a flurry of violence and gunfire. It was improbable and inane at times but the settings and characters work de...

The parking lot at the theater was crowded again, but everyone else was seeing something other than what I watched with about 15 other people. The film I saw, THE AMATEUR, was just okay but could have been better with a new a new cast and a new script.  This is about a CIA desk jockey, either an analyst or technician, who is distraught because his wife has been killed, and he is seeking revenge on whoever killed her. CIA management knows nothing but agrees to help him by providing instruction on spycraft and and some offensive and defensive skills. As one of his instructors points out, when he hands him a gun pointed at himself and stating the young husband is not a killer, and he's right.  Somehow, without any help from the agency, he leaves the country, picking up help along the way, and manages to track down the bad guys, arranging for them to be caught by authorities. It's a good idea but poorly executed and is hereby awarded my thumbs down. This hour and 39 minute movie w...

I did some research on this movie, and even though I saw it a week ago, I do remember it, probably because of its notoriety. I learned, for example, that Minecraft is a video game, very popular and successful, but I suspect most of you knew that already. I also learned that the movie is indeed a blockbuster and that theaters are not too happy about the behavior of teens watching the movie. It appears that at certain times in the movie, when a certain expression is used involving a chicken, the audience goes wild and throws food and other items at the screen. I'm happy to report that no such event occurred when I saw it. I don't want to be known as a curmudgeon, even tough I probably am. but this one just made no sense. Four losers somehow go through s portal into another world where everything is cubical and highly imaginative and creative and they are harassed and pursued by creatures like piglins and zombies. The losers team up with another...

The movie I saw yesterday was as bad as I expected it to be, beginning with the arrival of 25-year-old counselor Justin, a nerdy fellow being castigated by his mother driving him to his summer job for having no ambition to go beyond this job.  His co-workers, of course, are teenagers who are there to get away from home to drink, do drugs and have a ball. Justin is concerned by the absence of the couple who normally run the camp and announces that he will be in charge in their absence, which is ridiculed by the others. And before the campers arrive, a masked individual begins to viciously bump off the counselors, and this supposed comedy (not really funny) is transformed into a stereotypical horror movie, just what I needed on a rainy Sunday afternoon which attracted a full parking lot of patrons who were obviously seeing other films in the multiplex (Summer had about 20 patrons). It was a juvenile offering at best, and fortunately lasted only 1 hour and 28 minutes, but seemed much ...

Got to the theater Friday to see this film, but the myriad of service trucks parked at the curb suggested problems. It was closed because of a burst pipe. It was open yesterday, with crowds of people, and I saw my best movie of the year, believe it or not. I actually liked THE FRIEND, this 2 hour drama, which starred Naomi Watts snd Bill Murray, the latter not one of my favorites. Bill only appeared for about 10 minutes in the film but he and Naomi did a more than credible job in what I considered a drama with a warm love story. He is her close friend and former teacher and mentor. Both are writers. He commits suicide, and she learns he has left in her charge his dog, a larger than life Great Dane whom she reluctantly takes into her small, rent-controlled NYC apartment where dogs are not allowed. The dog, Apollo, commanders her bed and at one point, trashes the apartment, and she desperately tries to overcome the restriction against dogs. As we follow her travails mostly through narrat...

I should have seen the movie I saw today yesterday, because then I could have thought someone was playing an April Fool's Day trick on me. Maybe I'm just too old, but today's movie DEATH OF A UNICORN had me missing the boat by a couple of days. It wasn't just stupid or bizarre or weird, it was all three and then some. Picture this if you can: A man is driving to a business meeting with his young daughter (late teens to early twenties), toward some remote place, and they strike and seriously injure a unicorn, which he then proceeds to pound to death. He is a pharmaceutical consultant to some company and he is meeting the owners, a family of weirdos. And then unicorns become the center of conversation and the focal point of the movie, But this version is not how I picture these fantasy creatures--gentle members of the horse family with a single horn jutting out of the forehead.  The unicorns in this film are aggressive and ferocious, growling like lions instead of neighin...

I came out of the movie I saw yesterday not certain of what I had seen. THE WOMAN IN THE YARD is described as a horror, mystery, thriller. It was scary, there were some mysteries, but it was not thrilling in any way. The all African- American cast was more than competent in handling this film about a mother, on crutches as the result of an automobile accident that killed her husband, snd two children (teen-aged son and younger daughter) living in a comfortable house in a rural setting that her husband had been lovingly restoring. There are tensions which magnify when they discover a woman shrouded in clothes covering her head sitting in the yard. The mother, Ramona, goes out to confront the woman, who won't leave, and does not speak, and concludes that the woman is either lost or demented. They are unable to call for help because, for no reason, the electricity fails. Tensions increase, Ramona cannot go for help because their car won't start, snd the son confronts the yard woma...