Old Man @ The Movies

I saw another film today with my son that promises to be a blockbuster. What it is is a darn good iteration of its predecessor lookalike from 1984, with a few wrinkles. KARATE KID: LEGENDS is the story of a young proficient kung fu-trained boy in Bejing who is taken by his physician mother to New York City to pursue a new life. Enrolled in a prestigious high school, he is basically friendless until he meets a young girl classmate who works with her father in their pizza shop. The father, in debt to some unsavory characters, wants to return to his boxing days to earn enough to pay off the debt and enlists Li to help him train. His first bout ends badly. In the predictable plot, and against his mother's wishes, Li decides to compete in the city's karate championship and reaches out to his sensei in China for help in training. The sensei in turn recruits a former champion, played by the original Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio. The film is like renewing acquaintance with an old friend, ...

The film I saw yesterday was a pleasant change of pace despite the fact that it was primarily in French with subtitles I couldn't read because of my deteriorating eyesight. But enough French came back so I was able to follow this romantic comedy. An attractive young girl is working in Paris at the famous Shakespeare book shop but is frustrated by her love life and everything else. She is invited, thanks to a friend, to attend the Jane Austen residency program in England and she jumps at the chance to change her life. But her life in the program isn't all that good and is complicated by a romantic interest in a fellow classmate. It gets even more complicated when her boyfriend from Paris arrives. The film is funny and fun and relatively lighthearted and enjoyable and very different from most of the movies produced today. The actors by and large looked good and performed well. 86% of critics and 76% of audiences and I gave Austen a thumbs up.  

Because sometimes I don't read about a film before I see it, I was surprised to realize that it wasn't about a weather event, even though the winds were blowing hard over the desolate location  of the film. TORNADO, we learned late in the movie, is the name the young girl chose when she was viciously avenging the brutal murder of her father. The gang who murdered him is pursuing her through a barren landscape. While predominantly in English, other languages were spoken as well. I thought this was a strange movie, violent at times and difficult, for me, to comprehend. The followers were led by a brutal man, and they indiscriminately destroyed everything in their way, including burning a gypsy settlement where Tornado tried to hide at one point. It was interesting at times but basically dull and pointless. Critics gave it a 76% thumbs up and there were no audience ratings. I would give it a sideways thumb.