Old Man @ The Movies

I don't understand it.  What compels reasonably attractive and talented actresses to debase women in general and themselves specifically on screen.  Although Poor Things and Emma Stone was the rock bottom in my opinion,  Nicole Kidman and BABYGIRL comes in as a close second lowest!  Perhaps they should have called it Poor Things Revisited. In this one, Kidman is a brilliant (Yale summa cum laude) robotics and technical expert in a large firm. She appears to be happily married with two children and on her way to bigger and better things until she is introduced to the new group of interns, one of whom is a good-looking young man. Somehow, he insinuates himself on her, and they embark upon a sleazy sensual and sensuous affair with no holds barred and absolutely no inhibitions. But the worse thing that happens is that he gains complete control over her and is able to make her do anything he commands. It's basically a dirty porn movie in which, cinematically, Kidman is un...

A couple of days before Christmas, I saw a film that held me captive for an hour and 47 minutes, and I liked just about all of it.  LAKE GEORGE is what I might be inclined to call a sleeper. Unheralded and with no familiar names (to me), it was interesting, sometimes funny, off beat and violent.  The principal, Don, is just out of prison after ten years there, and he's looking for work.  Reluctantly, he ends up asking for help from a heavy duty criminal for whom he did a job which put him in prison. The crime boss agrees to pay him what he's owed if he, Don, kills the criminal's girlfriend. He is given literally no choice and reluctantly trails her and then abducts her and takes her to the desert to perform the execution. He's basically a nice guy and cannot do it, and the nice-so-honorable girlfriend proposes a pact to rob the criminal of all his ill-gained funds. They are successful and unexpected events occur again and again. It is extremely well acted and set up and...

On a frigid Saturday before Christmas, I went to a crowded multiplex theater and was one of 4 people watching HOMESTEAD. The rest of the hoards were in theaters showing the two other new releases— the Disney production of Mufasa: The Lion King and the animated Sonic 6 (or whatever number this one is).  My film was a deep drama depicting the virtual destruction of America by a nuclear weapon or weapons and a group of people who join others in an isolated fortress in the Rockies.  It was designed to be a self-sufficient enclave determined to limit the number of people there by being protected by armed security people. A racially mixed family is there because the husband has been hired to head the security effort.  It is an interesting film with no recognizable actors and has a great deal of suspense and anxiety and pathos, particularly the plight of the people outside the gates in dire circumstances who are refused admittance.  I was constantly thinking throughout the ...

I think I must be seeing too many movies because I actually liked, but not too much, the movie I saw Monday, despite the fact that it was a Marvel comic film and I had previously decided not to see any of them some time back.  This one was different because I understood everything that was happening.  This is the story of how Kraven, obviously a popular villain who has appeared in previous renditions, got to be what he became.  Maybe they should have entitled it Birth of Kraven instead of KRAVEN THE HUNTER. He is one of two vastly different but devoted to one another brothers, Sergei and Dmitri, whose father is a Russian gangster and drug dealer living the high life in the U.S.  Dad is well played by basso profundo-voiced Russell Crowe.  Kraven, a name Sergei adopted, leaves home after violent confrontations with his father and in a remote part of the world is transformed into a superman of sorts (but doesn't fly) and he travels the world supposedly hunting...

The second film I watched on this chilly weekend was THE MAN IN THE WHITE VAN, and I was alone in the theater as I watched it at the 1:15 showing.  The other patrons of the multiplex proved they were wiser than I by seeing other movies. It's not that it was bad; it was just pointless, rambled all over the place and ended by being unresolved in any way.  I didn't realize it was based on a true story until I started to write this review.  It is the story of what I considered a dysfunctional family, the young daughter of which is frantic because she feels and reports that she is being stalked and no one believes her.  The stalker should come as no surprise to you because he is a man in a white van.  He finally finds an opportunity to abduct her but she manages to escape. The film spends an inordinate amount of time on the girl riding her horse, Rebel, which had nothing to do with the story line, and I thought her parents were stiff and disinterested.  I d...