Showing posts with label Leo Grande. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leo Grande. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

"Good Luck To You, Leo Grande" and the Week in Reviews

[I review the new Hulu film, "Good Luck To You, Leo Grande" as well as  "Blacklight" and an anime classic that somehow I missed, "Spirited Away."  The Book of the Week is “Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and the Romance of the Century” by Stephen Galloway]


Good Luck To You, Leo Grande (2022)





Widow and ex-school teacher Nancy Stokes (Emma Thompson) hires a young sex worker so she can experience some good sex!

I never thought I would ever say a movie that is all about sex was sweet but I am going to say it. This film was sweet.  But it was also charming and wonderful.

Widow Nancy was married for 31 years and the sex was the slam-bam-thank-you- ma'am variety and she had never experienced an orgasm.  Her husband was also the only man she had ever been with. Oh, she has had opportunities to be with other men since her husband's death but they were all old.  She doesn't want old, she wants to be with a young man and to experience some good sex.  So she hires a young handsome (and I DO mean handsome) sex worker named Leo Grande (Daryl McCormack) to learn about the joys of sex. So she books a lovely London hotel room, meets Leo and is then utterly terrified and wondering what she has done.  Over the course of four meetings, Leo is patient, non-judgmental and amazingly understanding as Nancy works through her fears and old beliefs and patterns.

This film, written by Katy Brand and directed by Sophie Hyde, is what the Brits call a two-hander. It's just two people, Nancy and Leo, meeting over the course of a few weeks and Nancy trying to get up the courage to try all of the sex situations she has on her list.  So they talk...and talk...and talk.  But don't get me wrong. It is not boring.  In fact, it's quite wonderful.

Emma as Nancy displays the whole range of emotions that a woman of a certain age might feel meeting a gorgeous and very young kind man, a woman trying to spread her wings and, uh, have an orgasm.  Thompson is a wonder of an actress and is at the top of her game. But McCormack holds his own.  As I said, he is gorgeous so just watching him gave me a bit of a flutter.  But he is also a good actor who shows vulnerability and kindness.

Yes, it's all about sex, but there is much more.  The film also deals with aging, body image, self-empowerment, not to mention a plug for legalizing sex work but all-in-all, it's a lovely, er, satisfying film experience that is not to be missed.  And I predict a long successful career for McCormack...as an actor!

Rosy the Reviewer says...no matter how you feel about a movie about sex, this one will make you smile.(Hulu)


Blacklight (2022)


Liam Neeson is a deep cover FBI operative with a shadowy past and when his past catches up with him, he has to save his family.

Okay, I know, I know. How many iterations of “Taken” is Liam going to star in? But you know what? I don’t care. He has “a very particular set of skills” that I like, so they could film him putting on his shoes and I would watch. Yes, you might think he is getting a bit long in the tooth for this stuff but, c’mon, look at that movie poster. He’s still got it. He is such a nice big tall man and with that Irish lilt in his voice…sigh. What woman wouldn’t want to…well, you know…ahem…be rescued by him? Yes, you will chuckle at some of the really serious lines he delivers but I believe everything he says and does.
Anyway, this time Liam plays Travis Block, a deep cover FBI agent with some OCD, a penchant for Bud Lights and the desire to retire and become a good grandpa. His job is rescuing other deep cover agents who have lost it or gone rogue. But when Sofia Flores, a progressive politician who is running for Congress and who looks just like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, is mowed down in a hit and run and one of Block’s operatives contacts a reporter with information about it that implicates the FBI, Block discovers corruption at the FBI (I guess the FBI didn't like progressives). He confronts his boss, who he thought was his friend and mentor, but it doesn’t go well and then his daughter and granddaughter disappear – IT’S GAME ON!
Written by Nick May and Mark Williams (from a story by Brandon Reevis) and directed by Williams, this has all of the usual Liam Neeson thriller tropes: ominous music, rather unbelievable fist fights, guns, car chases - though I had never seen a Dodge Charger chasing a garbage truck before - and Liam using his “particular skills” to nail the bad guys – all the usual stuff you have come to expect in these Liam Neeson thrillers, though in light of recent events, the gun fight was rather stomach churning.

Rosy the Reviewer says...is it a good movie? Not really but if you enjoy Liam in his predictable troubled hero role and want to see the bad guys get what's coming to them, you will probably like this. (On DVD, Apple+ and for rent on most platforms)



Spirited Away (2001)


A ten-year-old girl finds herself in a strange fantasy world.

I have to confess a little crack in Rosy the Reviewer’s movie cred. I just don’t understand how I missed this one. I mean, I worked my way through all of “The 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die” book, and I guess I thought I had seen this one, but when it came to my attention recently as the most celebrated animated film of all time, I had to ask myself, “Had I?”
I had not.
When I say the most celebrated animated film ever, I’m not kidding. It was not only Japan’s highest grossing film of all time, it is considered by some the greatest animated film ever. It is #6 on IMDB’s “1001 Greatest Films of All Time” and won the Oscar for Best Animated feature film in 2001, the only non-English animated film to have done so and it was hand-drawn as opposed to all of the computer generated films we now have.
Written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and dubbed in English, it tells the story of 10-year-old Chihiro (voice of Daveigh Chase) who is on her way to her new home in the suburbs with her parents when they take a wrong turn and discover a mysterious tunnel. They explore the tunnel and find themselves in what looks like an abandoned amusement park. Chihiro’s parents discover a food shop that is open, the counter filled with food. Her parents stuff themselves with the food (Chihiro isn’t hungry) and are turned into pigs, and it’s all one crazy adventure after another for Chihiro as she makes her way around this strange fantasy world, “Alice in Wonderland” style.
This is one of those animated films that will appeal to all ages. Kids will enjoy it because there are all kinds of wild shape-shifting creatures and a lesson about friendship. Adults can get into the deeper messages of western consumerism and the environment as well as the beauty of the animation itself and be blown away by the fact that it was so meticulously hand drawn frame by frame.
Rosy the Reviewer says…I am not usually a huge animation fan but this is a very special film that everyone should see. Am I glad I finally saw this? Yes! You will be too!
(Available on DVD, on HBO Max and for rent on most platforms)


***The Book of the Week***


Truly, Madly: Vivien Leigh, Laurence Olivier and the Romance of the Century by Stephen Galloway (2022)


American audiences probably know Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind” and possibly also as Blanche Du Bois in “A Streetcar Named Desire (she won Oscars for both performances)” and Laurence Olivier gained widespread acclaim as a movie actor as Maxim de Winter in “Rebecca” and as Heathcliff in “Wuthering Heights,” but what Americans might not know is before that, they were both British stage actors, most notably Olivier, who brought Shakespeare to the masses.
But perhaps what made them even more famous was their epic love affair and the aftermath.
When the two met, they fell “truly, madly” in love. Unfortunately, they were both married to other people, and in those days, a woman, unless she could prove abuse or abandonment, could not get a divorce without her husband’s permission. Yes, you heard me. And Vivien’s husband was not about to give her a divorce. But Olivier and Leigh couldn’t live without each other and eventually did marry. They lived and worked together for 20 years hoping to become the British version of Lunt and Fontaine until Vivien’s mental illness drove them apart.
Though Galloway’s prose is at times a bit overly dramatic, the Olivier and Leigh love story was a dramatic one and he includes new research, unpublished correspondence and interviews with family and friends and lots of behind the scenes anecdotes. It’s juicy.
Rosy the Reviewer says…if you are fans of Leigh and Olivier or want to know more about them or you miss The Golden Age of Hollywood, this is for you! And here’s a fun fact. My little beloved poodle, Tarquin, was named after Olivier’s son!
(Check it out at your local library)!


(Tarquin as Romeo)

Thanks for reading!

See you again soon!

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