Category: Film Reviews

Hedge-fund oddity, Michael

Helen Mirren (be still my heart) is wonderful as QEII during the Princess Di death march in 1997. Who knew Blair saved the monarchy (as his wife says, “all you Labour MPs wind up kissing the Royals’ arses”). What an interesting film. The real T Blair swings both ways, sleeping with both Bush and the…

Hugh Grant stars in this good and very interesting look at a man without a life. He doesn’t want one. He lives off his deceased father’s income from a song written decades before. He goes from woman to woman. Then he discovers single women with kids and realizes they are pastures of plenty. He goes…

I actually enjoyed the first of this duo. It was fun, campy, silly, well-meaning, and largely inoffensive. Reese Witherspoon is a fun ditz, Elle Woods, who goes off to Harvard Law School to win back her disgusting frat-boy boyfriend who sees himself on the fast track. The plot is irrelevant, Witherspoon’s performance is all, and…

I admit it, films like this comic/drama freak me out and characters like Charlise Theron’s Mavis Gary make me want to hide. A depressed, divorced, narcissistic, alcoholic, arrogant bitch/former prom queen, she ghost-writes a series of young adult novels that has run its course. She sets out to woo her hometown boyfriend away from his…

I am ashamed to admit it, but I actually enjoyed this totally mindless piece of brain candy from Adam Sandler about the seemingly moronic bayou-born 31-year old waterboy who becomes a football phenom and uplifts everyone around him. Boring side work by Henry Winkler, but Kathy Bates as his possessive and not totally dense mama…

I am not a great fan of Barbara Streisand, but I enjoyed this silly, popular story of a mother/son road trip. Seth Rogen is an engineer-inventor on a road trip to try to sell his new cleaning product. Babs is his ever intrusive, loving, overwhelming mom. He finds things out about his mom that encourage…

I appreciated and enjoyed film much more than Bronwen, although I have to admit and caution that it very much alien territory to me as well. Even though shot in color, the film feels like the clothing worn by most Chassids, black and white. I can’t really evaluate what’s ‘right’ and what’s ‘wrong’ about the…

I can’t believe it took me 12 years to see this film. Jaime Bell stars in the title role as a young (11-year old), working-class boy who prefers ballet to boxing. He is tarred as a ‘pouf’ by his family and community, both locked in conflict over a mine strike that includes his dad and…

I can’t believe it’s been 2 ½ months since I saw and reviewed a film. During that time, we’ve watched all five seasons of “Breaking Bad,” staring Bryan Cranston as chemistry teacher-turned meth cook and demonic, sociopathic family man, Walter White. Well-acted, with excellent work all ‘round. Taut writing and a real focus on character…

I can’t believe we haven’t seen a film in two weeks but it’s true. Anyway, Bronwen won a pair of tickets in her department raffle and so we saw this at the $925 a ticket (yikes!) Kendall. Nice art deco. The film is the latest from Pedro Almodovar and is another in his series of…

Happy Labor Day. Jiro Ono is a national treasure in Japan. He is 85 and the world’s greatest sushi chef. His eldest son is still his apprentice. His youngest is a chef but no one matches his artistry and his creativity. He dreams of sushi. I dream about teaching history but I’m not a national…

I didn’t like this teen chick flick very much, I’m afraid. Too simpleminded and in all honesty, almost none of the characters are very interesting. Another movie with rich, remarkably talented kids, all of whom have the world at their feet. Even the one who works at the Walmart clone. B- liked the movie Yucky…

Hard to imagine that this is the first time I ever saw this John Sayles classic, but it’s, embarrassingly, true. A well-crafted tale about the Matewan coal wars in West Virginia. Chris Cooper is superb, Hazel Dickens sang most of the songs, and it does ring true. Sayles himself plays this very bizarre right-wing preacher….

I don’t get the rating system. A very, very tense fine drama from 2008 about two poor mothers: one white with an absent husband whose gambling has bankrupted the family in the impoverished part of Upstate New York, the other, a Mohawk widow who smuggles aliens into the US via the frozen river that has…

Hard to imagine, but I’ve never seen this 1952 classic of the Cold War western genre. Gary Cooper, Grace Kelley, Lloyd Bridges, and Henry Morgan, among others, tell the story of the sheriff (GC) who’s about to leave it all and go off with his new Quaker bride (GK) when he hears the baddest man…

I don’t normally enjoy stories about those elite groups of socialites, heirs, and heiresses. Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. But this look inside the life of one set of that elite group won me over. Set in the first couple of years of WWII, Meryl Streep plays the title character, Madame FFJ,…

Funny, well acted, creative look at a loser who becomes the hit of a 24/7 cable show, his life. Manipulated and real. Very funny. Nice work by Matthew McConaghy, Woody Harrellson, Cameron Diaz and lots of others. Check it out

Good piece on the death penalty with Susan Sarrandan and Sean Penn. The latter does an intense, fine job. Directed by Tim Robbins. Not great, but worth seeing, nonetheless. About the nun involved with the prisoner and his coming to redemption. I miss the wilder Sarrandan. She’s grown sooooooooo sincere. Bring back “Bull Durham” and…

George Clooney stars in this well done crime story about a lawyer whose primary job is to clean up the messes made by clients and others in the firm. He’s their “janitor”. Arthur Eadins (Tom Wilkinson) has gone off his medication and, finding clear evidence of his corporate clients’ guilt in the deaths of hundreds…

Good western about Wild Bill Hitchcock. Well-acted, interesting script

German documentary screened for Jewish Film Festival. Recounts the memories and feelings of German and Jewish women from Ulm, Germany, who get back together for the first time since WWII. Slow, 1 ½ hour film, it is interesting throughout, but drifts a great deal. No real climax except to find out that the leaders of…

Good work by the guy who plays the bouncer, Demi Moore’s great body, and Burt Reynolds having a good time as a sleazy senator can’t save this absolute turkey. She does have a great body though

Give Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Chaz Palmentierri, Gary Shandling, Anna Paquin, and Meg Ryan a tight David Rabe script and watch them run. Paquin alone is too young and just not mature/sexual enough to pull it off, but it is a really interesting dark/humorous piece about LA movie coke-heads and their utter inability to sustain…

Good, depressing dark teen comedy[?] about a geeky jr high girl’s efforts to get by and be loved. Strong performances in this, with an over-the-top Jewish family as foil. Just like my days in grades 5-10. Very painful to watch