Category: 2 Stars


I Care A Lot

March 11th, 2021 — 3:17am

I Care A Lot
**

While we both agree this film was quite engaging and held our interest, we find it very difficult to accept the premise of the film and ultimately cannot really recommend it.

A seemingly competent caring woman (Rosamund Pike) along with her business partner and lover (Eliza Gonzalez), run a con game where she arranges to have an older unattached elderly individual declared incompetent and a ward of the state and then she becomes their legal guardian. She is therefore able to arrange for these persons to be isolated in a fancy nursing home while she gains all their assets. However, she runs into a difficult situation when her latest prey, Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest) appears to have a son who is a dwarf (Peter Dinklage) and is part of the Russian mafia. There is a great deal of intrigue with murders and unbelievable almost murders. In the end, it was quite an adventure, but we do not recommend the ride (2020).

Comment » | 2 Stars, Crime, Drama

Identity Thief

July 26th, 2019 — 6:00pm

**

Identity Thief-rm

I was looking for a movie to watch on a recent international flight. Most of the films I had either seen or were in a foreign language or I did not recall hearing about them. I chose the one title that sounded interesting. It featured Melissa McCarthy, a scammer who tricks a happily married man (Jason Bateman) on a phone scam into giving all his essential information to her, so she could assume his identity and buy things on his credit cards. (His name is Sandy and could be male or female). He desperately needed to find her to avoid a huge debt and losing his job. He tracks her down in another city and they get involved with the police and criminal elements, which leads to a cross country car ride with two of them; so you might call this a road movie. I can also state it is one of worse movies I can recall sitting through. Ms. McCarthy is a great comedian who can do physical comedy, falls, and facial contortions and brings realism to her character. Bateman plays his role quite well. However, the story is unbelievable and in my opinion not worth the time even on a boring plane ride (2013).

 

Comment » | 2 Stars, Comedy

The Souvenir

June 5th, 2019 — 1:43am

**

The Souvenir-sp

This movie is about a young woman filmmaker (Honor Swinton Byrne) who establishes a relationship with a somewhat older man. She appears to fall in love with him and he turns out to be a liar, drug addict, and to be promiscuous in the age of HIV/AIDS.

The storyline keeps returning to the main character’s attempt to make her film. Perhaps the writer/director, Joanne Hogg, is drawing upon her own experiences or observations. The film certainly conveys a negative view of men especially in the treatment and demeaning of women.

It is interesting that the mother of the main character is actually played by the actress’s real-life mother, the esteemed actress, Tilda Swinton, but there are no real dramatic interactions between them. The main male lead is well done by Tom Burke.

Despite the beautiful photography (by David Raedeker) and excellent acting, we felt that the story line was drawn out and pretentious. We understood the characters and we were looking for a storyline with more depth, more surprises, and even more emotion in our two-hour visit with them, but alas, we didn’t find it. (2019).

Comment » | 2 Stars, Drama, Romance

The Mustang

April 17th, 2019 — 1:00am

**

The Mustang-rm

There is a program in a western U.S. maximum-security prison where inmates can learn how to train a wild mustang horse. If they succeed the horse can be sold at auction. Horses that can’t be tamed are often euthanized.

We meet Roman Coleman (Matthias Schoenaerts) a somewhat taciturn violent prisoner who becomes involved in this program. There are interesting well-photographed scenes where we see the trials and tribulations of men working with their horses. There are short but well-done supporting roles by Connie Britton a prison psychologist and Bruce Dern who plays the old guy who tells the prisoners how to train their horses.

Unfortunately, we learn very little about the previous background of the main protagonist as we are just given fleeting glimpses of what happened to him and his relationship with his adult daughter (Gideon Adlon) who visits him periodically in the prison. We learn essentially nothing about the other prisoners who are participating in the program and must have stories to tell.

Seeing a wild horse show some recognition to the human trying to train him is a touching emotional experience but is not enough to carry this film and make it worthwhile. We feel that the storyline failed and therefore the movie failed, however, well directed by Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre. Even though there were some great scenes of horses running wild or even cozying up to their trainer, we just cannot recommend this movie. (2019)

Any comments are welcome in the section below 

2 comments » | 2 Stars, Drama

Diane

March 19th, 2019 — 8:11pm

**

Diane-sp

Veteran actress, Mary Kay Place takes on very nuanced role as Diane, a cousin to a dying woman, a niece to an elderly aunt, a meaningful friend and most significantly a mother to a son with drug addiction problems, who breaks his habit, finds Jesus and wants to convert her. All of this goes on while the son resents his mother for some complicated past deeds.

This film is the brainchild of writer/director, Kent Jones who appears to have written a script that must have been meaningful to him. Ms. Kay Place in a post-screening discussion revealed how she worked hard to understand her character and the back story. She elaborated how she filled in the blanks with her own imagination so the character who is on screen just about all the time, would be real and meaningful to the actress. The problem is, that despite her superb acting, and good directing by Mr. Jones (although perhaps a little too much car driving scenes on country roads), the story wasn’t meaningful to us. Even though, there was an excellent supporting cast which included Estelle Parsons, Andrea Martin, Deirdre O’Connell, Joyce Van Patten and Jake Lacy, there wasn’t much of a thread bringing the story together and in the end the storyline did not move us nor did it enlighten us or stimulate our thinking. The potential may have been there, but it didn’t work for these reviewers. (2019)

As always, your comments are welcome below

Comment » | 2 Stars, Drama

Ayka

January 15th, 2019 — 8:20pm

**

Ayka-sp

This is the Kazakhstan international entry for the Oscars and it is in the top nine entries being considered for best picture. It is directed by Sergey Dvortsevoy who also is the main screenwriter and producer. It stars Samal Yeslyamova who is on the screen 99% of the time and has already won the Cannes Film Festival award for best actress. It took six years to make and the film was extremely realistic as it shows the main character in the snowy streets of Moscow suffering as she tries to survive as an illegal immigrant in Russia.

Having said all this, we cannot really recommend that you spend the 100 minutes of running time to watch this film. It is basically about the full-time misery of this young woman which we get is her plight and that of many others. There is no delving into how this all came about, any options or variations or even any significant back-story of the main character. We admire the skills of the filmmaker and the talent of the actress but we need more of a storyline in regard to relationships, background and message to make this film worthwhile, in our opinion. (2018)

Please consider leaving your comments below 

Comment » | 2 Stars, Drama, Foreign

Mary Queen of Scots

December 5th, 2018 — 6:02am

**

Mary Queen of Scots

Unless you are an Anglophile, and deeply understand British history, do not even think about this movie. Even if you do think you know enough to be interested in the story, we doubt you will be able to follow it. It did appear that Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie were really into their roles as Mary Stuart and Elizabeth I, but we could not distinguish the mostly bearded men who were around them, nor figure out exactly what was their point of view. The intense confrontation scene towards the end of the film between the two women monarchs is probably the highlight of the film, although apparently some historians say they never actually met in person and thus it is poetic license, which is acceptable but in our opinion does not save the movie (2018).

Comment » | 2 Stars, Drama, History

Loveless

February 8th, 2018 — 9:15am

**

Loveless

When a filmmaker decides to make a two-hour and seven minute film in Russian (with the subtitles of course), he has to have a storyline that is going to grab and hold the audience. This movie is a Russian finalist and is nominated for the Best Foreign Film of the Year. It featured Maryana Spivak, Aleksey Rozin, Matvey Novikov and Marina Vasilyeva and was directed by Andrey Zvyagintsev who wrote the screenplay with Oleg Negin. It was a beautifully made movie which examined marriage and how it can fail. It remind us how a destructive marital relationship can devastate a child who may feel that he has no place to go especially when the parents don’t show the caring and love a child deserves.

Early in the movie we see the child become literally lost and the audience is taken on the long search for him. It seems that we experienced every rock that is lifted, every brush that is moved aside and every deserted building, which is explored. We are impressed that there is the mobilization of volunteers to search for the boy We are also led to believe that the parents are desperate to find the lost child, although we really don’t understand the dynamics behind why they should care when we saw how they didn’t really give a hoot about him before he became lost. Of course we understand how guilt can completely takeover in situations like this. But guilt is not love. The title and theme of this movie is “Loveless.” We are following people who had a limited capacity for love for each other and even for their next partners. We get a glimpse of the dynamics of where this might originate in one of the characters. (Would it surprise you to learn it has something to do with the mother?) In situations like this the audience usually will not like or identify with the main characters. So we’re going to need something more than beautiful photography, a skillful sound background and a little suspense. After all, 127 minutes is a good chunk of time. We felt in the end, the film didn’t deliver. (2017)

Comment » | 2 Stars, Drama, Foreign

Film Stars Don’t DIe in Liverpool

December 20th, 2017 — 4:27am

**

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool

This film is an example of really great acting by the two leads who both captured the personality of their interesting characters, but in our opinion the movie experience fell flat and did not hold our interest.

The movie is based on a true story about a well-known movie actress, Gloria Grahame, who won an Oscar for best supporting actress in 1947. She had four marriages and four children from three of her husbands. She apparently was very “young at heart” as her husbands’ tended to be on the younger side and one of them was a stepson of an ex-husband.

This movie was about Grahame’s last relationship, which was with a young actor, Peter Turner, who wrote the book upon which the screenplay by Matt Greenhalgh was based. Turner was played by Jamie Bell and Gloria Grahame was played by Annette Bening. The story encompasses the time of their relationship with flashbacks to when they met and we follow her in failing health, which we are introduced to as the film opens. (You need not be concerned, as the heroine does not die in Liverpool.) Director Paul McGuigan used period music to establish various moods of the film. Bening showed the appeal, which made us understand why the younger man was drawn to her. A supporting cast of Julie Walters, Kenneth Cranham, Stephen Graham, Frances Barber, and even a brief stint by Vanessa Redgrave where as they were excellent as they should be.

The premise of the film held interesting promise. It provided some understanding of the feelings and chemistry of both characters. But in the end, we found the movie lacking and we were not sufficiently touched or moved to urge our readers to put it on your list of films to see. (2017)

Comment » | 2 Stars, Drama

Just Getting Started

November 28th, 2017 — 11:54pm

**

Just Getting Started-sp

Director/Screenwriter, Ron Shelton (Bull Durham, Tin Cup, White Men Can’t Jump, Cobb, Blaze) in a post-screening discussion stated that he made this film for the over 50 crowd. He probably means even 10 years older but didn’t want to limit his audience. Even so, while we fit that demographic we couldn’t relate very well to the film. It is supposed to be a feel-good Christmas movie although Christmas is not the main theme.

It would seem that you are supposed to come away from the movie feeling that one should always be having a good time now and in the future. Duke, played by Morgan Freeman, who always is great in any role that he takes on, is the director of a wealthy retirement community in Palm Springs, California. He has lots of women who are certainly good for sex and you get the feeling that a good time is had by all. There is a new “sheriff” in town by the name of Leo, played by Tommy Lee Jones and we’re not quite sure exactly why he is in town but he is trouble for Duke. So is Suzie (Rene Russo) who is sent by the hotel owner with a job to do but of course gets caught up with the cast of characters.

There is a plot with some twists and turns and even a surprise or two but frankly we didn’t care much although it was mildly pleasant to watch. The supporting casts included familiar faces such as Glenne Headly(sadly in her last performance), Joe Pantoliano, Elizabeth Ashley, Sheryl Lee Ralph and singer Johnny Mathis, who is now in his 80s and plays himself and sings almost as well as ever.

With so many great movies out there today we can’t recommend this one, even for a holiday interlude. (2017

Comment » | 2 Stars, Comedy, Uncategorized

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