Movie Monday - 11/11/2019

The season is in high gear. I'm trying to keep up.

I knew nothing about The Lighthouse before I saw it, other than Willem Dafoe and Robert Pattinson were in the movie. I figured it couldn't be bad. I figured wrong. It's set on a remote island during the 1890s. The two men spend the movie tending to the lighthouse while trying not to go insane. Things started happening that weren't possible in the real world. I guess it is a bit of a horror movie. It's not a genre that I watch on purpose. I kept waiting for things to make sense or for at least a the point to it all. The point was never revealed. It was just weird.

Midway is set in the Pacific of the 1940s, and begins basically with the attack on Pearl Harbor. It continues to the battle of Midway between Japan and America. I'm not a fan of action-filled war movies, but this film was thrilling without being gory. The cast was full of good actors, including Woody Harrelson, Dennis Quaid, Patrick Wilson, Ed Skrein, Luke Evans and Aaron Eckhart. It was good.

Ed Norton wrote, directed, produced and starred in Motherless Brooklyn. It's based on a novel by the same name. Norton plays a detective with Tourette's Syndrome who is left to solve the murder of his supervisor and mentor, played by Bruce Willis. Bobby Cannavale, Alec Baldwin and Willem Dafoe are among the awesome cast of this film. I think it's the best movie I've seen in a while. I'm looking for Ed Norton to garner a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Best .Director is within his reach too. It was so good.

MK out.

Movie Monday - 11/4/2019

Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman and Antonia Banderas are among the actors who star in The Laundromat. Inspired by true events, Streep plays a recently widowed woman who, while trying to collect insurance money, discovers a whole network of shady enterprises that have one thing in common. They are all connected to a law firm in Panama. If you remember reading about the Panama Papers a few years ago, when a whistleblower leaked private information of over two hundred thousand offshore entities that were engaged in illegal activities, these are the true events. It was quirky and good.

Renée Zellweger does a fabulous job portraying Judy Garland in Judy. The film mostly deals with the last year of Garland's life, when she spends several weeks performing in England on The Talk on the Town. Flashbacks are used to explain how Garland ended up where she did. It was sad watching how a phenomenally talented individual was bested by her demons. It was very good.

I was finally able to see At Eternity's Gate. Willem Dafoe portrays Vincent Van Gogh in his later years. There's a controversial theory that Van Gogh did not commit suicide, but died from an accidental bullet wound. This film tells that story. It was good.

MK out.

Movie Monday - 10/14/2019

Not seen in theaters:

Maria Callas: In Her Own Words is a documentary about the life of Maria Callas. It's full of footage from concerts, interviews and home movies. She was a bit of a diva. It was interesting.

Gloria Bell, starring Julianne Moore, is about a divorced woman who enjoys the club scene. One night, she meets a divorced man and they start dating. She soon discovers that he is maintaining a codependent relationship with his ex-wife and grown daughters. Surprisingly, it was just alright. I'm glad I didn't run right out to the theater to see it. 

White Boy Rick is based on a true story about Rick Wershe, Jr. who is the youngest FBI informant in history. The film is set in 1980s Detroit. The FBI enlist Rick's help in tracking drug dealers in exchange for immunity for his father, who is manufacturing weapons. However, being poor and having seen what drug money can buy a person, Rick starts dealing on his own after his assignment with the FBI ends. Richie Merritt, Matthew McConaughey and others star in this movie. It was good.

MK out.

Book Chat - 10/10/2019

The Lager Queen of Minnesota by J. Ryan Stradal is about two sisters growing up in rural Minnesota in the 1950s. I know, I know...recently I told you about two other books about two sisters growing up during the same time period. In this book, one sister takes a more traditional route. She marries and lives a blue-collar life, baking pies at the local nursing home. The other goes to college, majors in chemistry because she wants to make beer and ends up marrying the son of a local beer empire. I have to say, hands down, that this book is the best one I've read in a while — and, I've read some good ones lately. You must read it.

The Color of Water in July by Nora Carroll is about a girl who inherits the family cottage when her grandmother dies. She hadn't been there in many years, following a failed summer romance. She treks to Michigan with her boyfriend to ready the cottage for sale and starts going through the contents. Family secrets come to light. It was good.

MK out.

Movie Monday - 10/7/2019

I didn't watch any current films in the last week, but here's what I did see:

Chicken with Plums is based on a graphic novel of the same name. A world famous violinist loses his will to play and to live after his wife smashes his violin. He decides to lay down and die and takes to his bed. Everyday, he looks at past aspects of his life including his love for a woman from before he got married. It is based in Iran, but in French with English subtitles. Isabella Rosellini and Mathieu Almaric are the only two actors I recognized, and both did a great job. It was good.

Susan Sarandon, Diane Keaton, Robert De Niro, Robin Williams, Katherine Heigl and Amanda Seyfried are among those who star in The Big Wedding. A former couple's adopted son is getting married. His biological mother, a devout Catholic is coming to the wedding and he is worried that she would not approve of his less than traditional family. Everyone decides to pretend that his parents are still married. Comic circumstances ensue. It was predictable, but cute.

LBJ, starring Woody Harrelson, is the story of Johnson's presidency from before and following the assassination of John Kennedy. Harrelson does a great job. It was interesting.

MK out.

Movie Monday - 9/30/2019

Buckle up, Peeps! Good movies season is just beginning. I hope to be seeing more movies in the coming days and telling you about them. Here's some I've seen in the last month or so:

Downtown Abbey - The King and Queen are coming to stay one night at Downton Abbey, causing a flurry of activity upstairs and downstairs. I went to an early screening of this film and I'm glad I did. The audience was very interactive, clapping when beloved characters first came on screen. It was definitely a fan's delight. All the main characters reprised their roles, except for sorely missed Lily James. I loved it.

Overcomer - A large manufacturing plant shuts down, which singlehandedly destroys the high school basketball team, as players and their families move away to where jobs are. The coach is asked to head up the track team. One athlete shows up to the first practice, an asthmatic long distance runner. Thus, the challenge of the film. It was a heart warming story, but the acting was terrible. It was cute.

The Art of Racing in the Rain - The film was adapted from the novel of the same name by Garth Stein. I read the book and talked about it here on the blog in March. Milo Ventimiglia, Kevin Costner and Amanda Seyfried starred in the very good adaptation. I liked it.

The Farewell - An Asian American family's matriarch has only a short time to live. As is the custom, she isn't told. They concoct a way to gather the family to see her one last time without the grandmother realizing why. Akwafina, Tzi Ma and Diana Lin were among the actors. I thought it would be funnier with Akwafina in it, but it was pretty good.

MK out.

Book Chat - 9/5/2019

The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is the story of an Andalusian shepherd boy who sets out to find treasure in the pyramids of Egypt. The overriding theme is about finding one's destiny. It was quite entertaining.

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah is about doctoral student working out in the field who is visited by a dirty child that's covered in bruises. The kid claims she's an alien from another galaxy and will not leave. While the scientist and the local man who sells eggs try to figure out what to do with the child, the youngster schools them on life and love. It was good.

When We Believed in Mermaids by Barbara O'Neal is about two sisters. Their dysfunctional childhood lead them to make choices that separated them by a tragic accident that took the lives of one of them. Years later, one of the sisters thinks she sees the dead one (allegedly) on television and travels across an ocean to try and find her. It was very good.

Mrs. Everything by Jennifer Weiner is also about two sisters growing up in the 1950s and spans several decades. Their relationship is complicated, as they are as different as salt and pepper, but they mostly love each other. The backdrop of the novel chronicles the social changes that women have undergone in the last sixty years. It was so good.

MK out.