It was Heather’s birthday and she picked out a movie for us to see and it is a good one. Brooklyn, starring Saoirse Ronan as Eilis Lacey, an young Irish woman, who emigrates to America as there are very few prospects for her in post World War II in her home country.
Life in Ireland was hard but she almost withers away from loneliness in Brooklyn but is saved by a priest who takes an interest in her and later Elis on meets a guy, and then, well you can guess the general theme of the thing but there are some surprises and strong emotions and this is a most excellent movie.
Ms Ronan is beautiful in an Irish pale skin kind of way. The cinematography is absolutely gorgeous and the story is big hearted and optimistic. This movie proves that it is possible to make a movie about the Irish that doesn’t focus on drinking. And if you are interested in fashion Eilis is exquisitely color coordinated, especially for a poor Irish sales clerk. And she has a wonderful accent.
Check out the movie web site for lots of background information and videos. The movie is based on a book Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Apparently Heather’s book group read the book already. It is now on my list to read.
The Martian is a science fiction space movie starring Matt Damon. He plays Mark Watney, a botanist on a NASA crew, exploring and studying Mars and when the crew has to leave suddenly because of a bad storm that threatens the space ship that has to take them to Mars. Visibility is poor and things turn south really quick and the leader of the crew has good reason to think that Watney is dead so they leave without him. Well guess what? He didn’t die and his efforts and determination to stay alive is what propels this movie forward.
He has to figure out how to let the folks at home know that he is alive, how to grow his own food supply and a whole bunch of other things plus deal with unexpected disasters in the meantime. I’m not going to give you a summary of the movie, you can find that at IMDB and you can check out the movie web site for more info. Check out the “goofs” section of the IMDB data. I always love those.
I will tell you that this is a great movie and I give it two thumbs up. There is some blood and gore at first, but hey I’m a seasoned Breaking Bad viewer so it didn’t bother me in the least. We have the gratuitous naked butt view of Matt Damon which didn’t do a thing for me. Other than that everybody keeps their clothes on. You know, Jessica Chastain is in the movie, why couldn’t we see her butt instead?
I’ll tell what is really amusing is reading the moans, groans, bitches, and complaints of experts who question the science of the movie. What a bunch of overeducated morons. It is a movie folks, not a science documentary! Get real.
Hey you want a great date night movie? Go see The Intern with Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway. De Niro plays Ben Whittaker a 70 year old retired after 40 years in phonebooks. He has had a full retirement, traveling, taking Mandarin lessons, and staying busy but he wants a little more. He sees that an internet retailer is starting a Senior Intern program and he applies for and gets the gig.
It turns out that he is assigned to the CEO of the company, Jules Ostin. Jules is a ball of fire, she is here, there, and everywhere stamping out fires trying to keep the company going. When she finds out that Ben is her intern she groans and doesn’t really want him and just ignores him. Ben takes it in stride and makes himself useful to other people in the company. De Niro’s Ben is hard working but a team player who does what he can to encourage people. He develops a great rapport with the rest of the staff just being himself.
Gradually he makes himself so useful to everybody else that she takes notice and they start working together. She and Ben develop a great rapport , friendship, and respect for each other. Hathaway and De Niro have great chemistry together. De Niro comes across as a smart but warm and compassionate mentor for Jules and the people he comes into contact with. Jules learns that she has to slow down and accept help.
This movie is proof that a good movie can be done without any nudity and that an actress can be sexy with all her clothes on.
This is a very smart well done, feel good buddy movie. Rene Russo does a great job in a supporting role. This movie gets two thumbs up from me!
Check out the movie web site. Lots of good stuff there. Check out the IMDB site for the movie also for lots of cool stuff like trivia, goofs, and lots and lots of still and publicity photos.
I had my 9/80 day off on Friday and Heather and I went to see “Learning to Drive” with Ben Kinglsley and Patricia Clarkson. Clarkson plays Wendy a woman who gets dumped by her weasel of a husband just as the movie opens. The little turd decided to tell her that he was leaving her in a restaurant, hoping that she wouldn’t make a scene. That didn’t work out so they took their fight to a cab driven by a Sikh named Darwan, played by Kingsley. Darwan gets the weasel to his girlfriend’s house and Wendy to her house. Darwan finds out the next day that Wendy left something in his car and he delivers it back to her and she takes his card.
In the meantime Wendy has promised her daughter, Tasha (played by Grace Gummer, who is also Meryl Streep’s daughter) that she would learn how to drive so she could visit her in out in the sticks way up in Vermont or somewhere. So she calls Darwan and he proceeds to teach her how to drive. While she is learning to drive she is also learning how to live her life without the weasel.
Meanwhile Darwan has his own issues. He is single and and is planning on marrying somebody he doesn’t know from his village in India arranged by his sister. He doesn’t really know how to deal with her and so he and Wendy kind of muddle along teaching each other about life as the driving lessons proceed. Then Darwan’s wife Jasleen shows up and she and Darwan get married the next day and start their life together in Queens and she is so unhappy because she doesn’t understand why her new husband is never home and he doesn’t understand because she just won’t adjust to life in her new place.
Anyways I’m not going to tell you about the whole danged movie but I loved this because it is about growing and changing and adapting and picking yourself up and moving forward and making a life for yourself. I loved this movie.
Clarkson is a marvel. She is so expressive and when she is frowning and sad, we are sad also and when she is happy, she is radiant and we feel great. Kingsley does his thing where just subtle changes in expression really multiplies the emotional effect. He is also a definite solid guy in counterpoint to the weasel.
I thought this was a completely satisfying movie and give it two thumbs up. It is R rated mainly because we get a really good view of Clarkson’s breasts bouncing around as she has a sex with a guy she met. I mean I like looking a breasts as much as any guy but this was totally gratuitous and didn’t have much to do with the movie before or after the viewing.Not that I am complaining.
I get every other Friday off and this week after dropping the kid off at school, going to eat breakfast, and a bit of shopping, we went to see “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” a spy flick with a wry sense of humor.
It features two bon vivant spies, Napolean Solo, a smooth talking thief who now works for the CIA and Illya Kuryakin a brutish, strong, hot tempered KGB spy. These two guys are balanced by the luscious Alicia Vikander playing Gaby, a car mechanic from East Berlin.
All I am going to tell you about the movie is that it is set in the early 1960’s when the Cold War could turn hot any second. An evil worldwide criminal organization has kidnapped Gaby’s father, a renown nuclear physicist, to make the most powerful atomic bomb ever known! So the two spies, who don’t like each other by the way, must work with the beautiful Gaby to find her father, and disable the bomb. I bet you couldn’t see that coming could you?
So why did I like this movie? The plot was good, the actors were good, lots of action, good cinematography, and all that? All that was great but what I liked about this movie was the 1960’s vibe. You know the early 1960’s elegant movie style. The two spies were bon vivants who got into a hilarious argument about proper accessories while in a high fashion salon when Gaby was dress shopping. The spies wore smart suits with ties and had sterling manners and nothing fazes them (except sometimes for Kuryakin). I loved the Jaguars and other vintage sports cars, the 1960’s soundtrack, the elegant hotels, and restaurants and the proper crystal glassware. Gaby’s fashions. Plus she looks pretty darn good in just regular old pajamas. she kind of acts like a princess but also offers to clean out the jets on the carburetor of a race car. (And the 1960’s race cars are so much more elegant than what we now have, in my opinion.) The movie is set in Rome with the classical background. The bad guys getaway boat is an elegant teak speedboat. Yep, it was the vibe that hooked me on this movie.
There is some suggestiveness in parts of the movie but everybody keeps their clothes on and of course gentlemen watch their language.
I remember vaguely the original Man from U.N.C.L.E from the 1960’s. I liked it fine I think but it was not on my “A” list shows. Shows you like “Combat”, “Twelve O’Clock High,” “The Flintstones”, “Johnny Quest” and others. The Man from Uncle was on my B list.
Anyways I highly recommend this movie! Check out The Man from U.N.C.L.E web site. Lots of good stuff there. Movie web sites are the little secret of movies. Nobody I talk to goes to them. I love them and almost all movies have their own sites. Check out the IMDB site for the movie also. They have encyclopedic information on the cast, guidelines for parents, lists of goofs, and links to trailers and lots of photos.
Meryl Streep plays Ricki, a sixty something rock and roller lead singer of an obscure but well loved band that plays in obscure bars in the Los Angeles area. The band plays classic rock covers and every once in a while a more contemporary song. So Ricki one day gets a call from her ex husband Pete, played by Kevin Kline doing his very best George W. Bush channeling, saying that their grown daughter, Sharon is in crisis because her no good husband, Max has left her for another woman.
So Ricki, has to scrape up some cash to fly from LA back to Indianapolis. She has seen Pete for some time and is astonished by how rich he is and how huge the house is. This is when we first see Sharon, played by Streep’s real life daughter Mamie Gummer. Gummer plays a psycho scary daughter perfectly, she almost steals the show especially in the early scenes.
Anywho, Ricki and her daughter start to get along and then Ricki and her ex, Pete almost start to get really along (if you know what I mean) but then in swoops Michelle Obama. I mean Pete’s present wife Maureen played by Audra McDonald who has been checking on her dad out of state, who pulls out the old “I’ve been your kids mama since you left Pete and went off to LA to be a rock star” card and basically hip chucks Ricki clear back to the scuzzy bars of LA. I loved it.
And then, as I can tell I’m a little long winded, the magic happens, and Michelle Obama, I mean Mareen decides to let Ricki back into the family via a family wedding. Ricki shows up and sings some songs and gets everybody feeling like family again. Almost as good as a Coca Cola commercial. Although it kept playing with my head when George Bush and Michelle Obama were holding hands.
Some of my readers are going to be disappointed in me but last Sunday afternoon after dropping the kid off at his friend’s house Heather and I went to see Trainwreck with Amy Schumer and Bill Hader.
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It was a hoot and it was a little a lot raunchy and it was funny. Schumer wrote it and she had a lot of different takes on things that I thought was original. LeBron James was in as well as a bunch of other big name sports guys. James did very well. I think that he is a natural actor. I had never heard of Amy Schumer before. Apparently she is a comedian. Check out the IMDB site for more information.
The movie turns into a romantic comedy type thing except the roles are reversed. It is Girl gets boy, girl loses boy and girl gets boy back. You know something else as the relationship and movie goes along the raunchiness falls (almost) by the wayside.
So anyway. I liked it and I highly recommend it with the provisio that it does get a little nasty at times. So go for it, if you like.
I had my Fridacation yesterday, the last one before school starts next week. The family packed up and went to the movies to see “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation.”
The movie stars Tom Cruise and Rebecca Ferguson. I would give you a synopsis but you know what you can find better descriptions of the movie somewhere else. I’ll just tell that it involves a seemingly impossible mission and lots of stunts involving airplanes, motorcycles, BMW’s, swinging ropes, knife fights, and long jumps. Lots of cars get crashed and the body count ends up being pretty high. There is also going to be a lot of betrayals and double crosses and confusion in the plot. Check out its IMDB site for the cast, photos, and the like.
I’ll also tell you that Rebecca Ferguson steals the show from Tom Cruise. She is sexy and sultry she also gives us some totally gratuitous side boob and underwear photo ops. For no apparent reason she takes her clothes off a couple times during the movie. Not that I am complaining or anything you understand.
So it is an entertaining movie and a great way to spend the day when the temperature is shooting out the roof.
If you are looking for a fun animated movie with a little depth this weekend check out Inside Out by Pixar. It is a fun flick.
The movie is out a little girl, Riley, who leaves a happy life in the midwest to go to San Francisco so her Dad can start a new job.
Well, San Francisco doesn’t have her friends and everything is new and it is all overwhelming and things start to get out of control at home and at school.
In an imaginative twist most of the action of the movie takes place in Riley’s mind where the characters of Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust are all vying for control of her mind as Riley deals with the changes she is encountering. It really is a fascinating movie and is very well done. It is rated PG and is okay to take all but the most sensitive little ones.
And there is more. The best part of seeing the movie may not be the movie itself but a “short” feature before the movie. It is a wonderful little film called “Lava” about a volcano who for millions of years sings for someone to come “Lava” him. It is just a few minutes long but it kind of steals the show.
The short is utterly charming and gets one in the right mood for the feature.
Heather and I went to see The Imitation Game. It is about a British mathematician, Alan Turing, and his participation during World War II of cracking the German Enigma Code which helped shorten the war. It is also about his being gay during a time of persecution of gays in Britain. The movie also flirts with him having Asperger’s Syndrome. The movie interweaves three different time periods quite well. His life at a boarding school and his persecution by his fellow students for being different. Second his work and life during the war while he was working on deciphering Enigma, and finally the early 1950’s when he was being investigated and put on trial for Indecency.
The movie is really, really good and suitable for a date movie. Benedict Cumberbatch plays the role well, showing lots of inner turmoil. Keira Knightly plays his pretty, and open minded, and brilliant coworker. She is all the cuter for having less than perfect teeth is what I thought. Plus, don’t make her mad as she can really slap somebody hard. She must have taken golf lessons. You know where you learn to “Swing through the target.”
I’m not going to give the movie away or even review. I’m just saying it is a great movie.
Check out the web site for the Imitation Game. Lots of good stuff there. You can crack codes so we can so how smart you are.
