Hail, Caesar

You look at pictures for this movie and you have the feeling i t's some biblical epic, but it's not.  It's about Hollywood with some great familiar scenes -- from Spartacus, an Ethel Williams take-off, a Gene Kelley/Frank Sinatra musical, and other scenes that will look very familiar.

It's really the story of the studio "fixer" and how he takes care of a pregnant star, a cowboy who can't act but has to be in a British drama, and his biggest star kidnapped by Communists (a very slight tribute to Wizard of Oz)

Anybody who loves old movies will love this film.

Lost in America

This is a 1985 comedy with Albert Brooks (David) and Julia Hagerty (Linda), co written by Brooks.

David and Linda are a yuppie couple living in Los Angeles, each with great jobs.  David is expecting to be made vice president of his company and they have sold their house and bought another multi million dollar home.  But not only is he not promoted, when hegets angry he is fired.  He convinces Linda to quit her job and when they liquidate all their assets they are able to buy a motor home and have enough of a "nest egg" to live for many years, driving around the country having adventures.

But their first stop is Las Vegas, where Linda gambles away alla but $800 of their money and they spend their time trying to find jobs in a small town (she works for a fast food joint whose manager is about15 years old; he works as a crossing guard for $5.50/hr).

What life decisions they make comprise the rest of this movie.  Not a knee slapper but mildly funny, and enjoyable.

Taxi Driver

 

Today is the 21st anniversary of Paul's death and this was the logical movie to watch.  It was his favorite movie and, in fact, his friend Paul K wanted to name his son after Paul, but since the name would have been the same his son's middle name became Travis, after Travis Bickle, Robert DeNiro's character.

DeNiro looks like a little kid in this 1976 movie, for which he won an Academy Award.  Bickle is an ex-marine, Vietnam veteran who writes notes and letters about his observations of New York City, which he finds ugly.  He wishes for a "real rain" to wash the "scum" off the streets..He is shy, but has no sense of how normal people live (he takes a lovely girl to the movies, a porn movie because he sees couples going in there and sees nothing wrong with it).

This is a brilliant movie, but it leaves out a lot of things.  It is not a story of Bickle, but more a series of days in his life without knowing what caused those days to happen.

Amazingly I had never seen this movie before and feel that today was the perfect day to watch it.

Ned fixed us clam dip and chips to eat and sushi for us to have afterwards, for dinner.

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

 

1949 MGM musical starring Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly and directed by Busby Berkeley.  How could it be anything but wonderful.  Amazingly, it's terrible.  Frank and Gene are baseball players who play vaudeville in the off season.  Esther Willliams is the new owner of the baseball team (and just happens to live in a hotel with a swimming pool).  There are no familiar songs, other than the title song.  It was boring, boring, boring.  Lucky Ned--he had other things to do today!

Hollywoodland

Did George Reeves kill himself...or was he murdered?  It is still a mystery today, despite the 2006 movie exploring the possibilities.  Ben Affleck is wonderful as Reeves in the many, many flashbacks that structure this film.

Adrien Brody is the investigator who sets out to disprove the suicide, but in the end the movie reached no definitive conclusions.  As Ned put it, just four possibilities and no answers. It was an OK film, but not one of the better ones.

Easter Parade

 

It's Easter.  You HAVE to watch Easter Parade on Easter.  I knew Ned wouldn't be interested so I thoroughly enjoyed it myself.  Fred Astaire, losing his dancing partner, Ann Miller, goes out and finds a girl in a chorus line (Judy Garland) and says he can teach her to dance.  After some difficulties finding the right style for her, they become big hits and after a romantic misunderstanding is solved, romantic partners as well.

The famous "We're a Couple of Swells" comes from this movie.

Oddball

 

Oddball is based on a true story of a dog who learns how to protect a penguin sanctuary in Australia from the foxes who nearly killed thousands of penguins.  I watched this on Saturday, Ned's day to record his radio show, so I picked a movie I was sure I would love and he might not. 

Wikipedia summary:  In the early 2000's there was a thriving Little Penguin colony on Middle Island. Over a number of years foxes began to swim over and kill the penguins. So the Warnambool Coastcare Landcare Group took charge, hence The Middle Island Maremma Project began in 2006. Little Penguins on Middle Island where declining due to fox predation. Maremma Guardian dogs were trained and placed on Middle Island to protect the penguins from foxes. Hence this is where Oddball comes into it and saves the penguin's where he is a very mysterious and naughty dog back on land so this is his second chance to prove that he is a good dog.

Sherlock Holmes

It's difficult to review this movie.  Robert Downey, Jr. is wonderful, the recreation of the grim London of Victorian times is great, the fight choreography throughout the film is amazing, but, in all honesty, I had a terrible time following it.

I'm accustomed to closed captioning, especially in movies like this where the accents make it difficult to understand, even with my earphones, so I really don't know what this movie was actually ABOUT, but still it was great fun.

Hotel Rwanda

Whenever someone says that the Holocaust should teach us to "never forget," I think of places like Rwanda, nearly 50 years after the concentration camps were liberated.  Hotel Rwanda is not a pretty movie (lord do I need a comedy tomorrow!), but tell os the genocide of the Tutsi people by the Hutu militia in Rwanda.

The real Rusesabangina

Don Cheadle plays Paul Rusesabangina,  the manager of a luxury Hotel des Milles Collines in Kigala, Rwanda, who sheltered more than 1200 Tutsi irefugees in his hotel and prevented them from being slaughtered, after they were abandoned by every United Nations nation.  The UN evacuated all the of UN people and left the Rwandans behind to be killed.

Both Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo, who plays his wife, were nominated for Academy Awards in 1994.  Cheadle won the Golden Globe for hisi performance.

The only good white guy in the film is Colonel Oliver (Nick Nolte), head of the UN Peacekeeping force, who tries as hard as he can to support Rusesabangina. 

There is no "down" time in this movie.  It starts with slaughter and is filled with one harrowing thing after another.

The thing about Rusesabangina (a Hutu married to a Tutsi, with three children) is that what perhaps made him so successful in saving as many people as he did was he never lost his self esteem, always remained a hotel manager, treated people as guests, and learned how to work the system to get protection from those in charge.

Blasts from the Past

 

Calvin (Christopher Walken) is convinced the US is about to be bombed by the Russians and has built an extensive bomb shelter for himself and pregnant wife (Sissy Spacek).  There is no bomb, but a plane crashes into their house while they are in the shelter and he thinks that the bomb has surely exploded and sets the lock on the shelter for 35 years, after which it will be safe to emerge.

Son Adam (Brendan Fraser) is born in the shelter and raised there for 35 years, at which time the locks open and Adam emerges from the shelter to replenish the food for his family.  He knows nothing of the world of 1999 and manages to meet Eve (Alicia Silverstone).  All sorts of things happen, but she finally realizes that he 's telling the truth and he finally brings his family to the surface and all ends happily, though Dad still thinks the story about the plane was a hoax.

A fun comedy and I enjoyed it a lot.

Rocketman - Part 2

They finally stuck Rocketman OnDemand for a week and I grabbed it so we could finish watching it.

 

We had seen the first 58 minutes before the tape ended last week.  This picks up as Elton John's meteoric rise to stardom begins and covers his sold out shows, his drug and alcoholism and his self-destructive personality, which resulted in at least one suicide attempt. 

But it also covers his treatment (Betty Ford Center??) and recovery and, in notes at the end, accompanied by pictures of the real Elton John, a summary of all he has done since sobriety (28 years when the movie was made), his marriage, his sons, etc.  

I probably would have appreciated the film more if I had been a hard core Elton John fan, but I thoroughly enjoyed it anyway and am glad to have seen it.

The Firm

I had a friend who was a writer many years ago.  (Sadly, she died before she finished her novel).  What I remember clearly was visiting her office and seeing notes taped up all over the place with notes about this or that character.  I can only imagine what John Grisham's office looked like when he was writing "The Firm," today's movie selection.

 

The twists and turns and the tension throughout this 1993, 2-1/2 hour Tom Cruise movie will keep you on the edge of your seat.  Cruise is Mitch McDeere, about to graduate from Harvard Law School.  He is given an offer it is impossible to refuse from a small Memphis law firm.  It comes with a house, a car, payment of his college loans, and a 6-figure salary.

But as he begins to work for the company he realizes that things are not as they seem and it's hard to keep track of who kills whom, who is laundering money where, which are the bad guys and which are the good, who is sleeping with whom--and why, etc.  Somehow Mitch manages to settle everything legally, screw the FBI, get cozy with the mafia, get his brother released from jail with a hefty bankroll, and escape the clutches of the law firm which has a surprisingly high death rate, and start a new life, with a clean conscience.

Really an entertaining movie.  Good job, Ned.

Holiday in the Wild

Well, this was definitely my movie, but Ned was good and sat through it.

Kate (Kristin Davis) is jilted by her husband just as she is about to present him with a second honeymoon -- a trip to Africa.  He moves out and she goes on the trip by herself.  On the first day, on a flight to a fancy tourist settlement, the plane makes a stop to rescue an orphaned elephant, whose mother had been killed by poachers.  It was something that will change Kate's life.  The orphan elephant becomes her "second son."

Insead of going to the tourist place, she stays at the elephant orphanage, extends her stay past her date to return, and ultimately has an attraction to Derek (Rob Lowe), a conservation who lives at the facility, a widower whose wife died  15 years before.

Eventually Kate returns to New York, but realizes that her heart is really still in Africa, and so she returns, after taking up a collection which saves the orphanage, which was about to be closed, and marries Derek.

All very hokey and predictable, but great elephant shots, good message, and sniffles at the end.  I liked it.  I told Ned we can watch Fight Club tomorrow.

Sweeney Todd

I have, of course, seen the stage production of Stephen Sondheim's dark story of revenge and murder, Sweeney Todd, and I've reviewed it twice.

But I had not seen the movie, with Johnny Depp in the title role and Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs Lovett, who, in the movie is Todd's lover, but in  the original stage show was played by Angela Lansbury, no way the "lover" type character.

It was an interesting, if horrendously bloody movie and I enjoyed it and am embarrassed to admit that.  This is more gory than most movies I have seen...perhaps the very worst scenes dealing with grinding the murdered bodies into meat for Mrs. Lovett's meat pies.

(Thank goodness we had, at the same time, a squirrel circus going on outside the back door as a distraction!)

Alan Rickman is the judge who kidnaps Todd's wife and daughter and sends Todd into prison on a trumped up charge.  I've loved Rickman in everything and he is perfectly nasty and his death perhaps one of the bloodiest.

I don't know enough about special effects and directors choices and what means what, but I really liked the mix of black and white, color, muted color and one-color-only filming.  Not sure what I was supposed to glean from the way it appeared on my screen, but I at least noticed it!