Showing posts with label movie reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label movie reviews. Show all posts

Friday, October 6, 2017

"American Made" and the Week in Reviews

[I review the new Tom Cruise movie "American Made" as well as the new Jane Fonda-Robert Redford film currently streaming on Netflix "Our Souls at Night" plus the DVD "Shall We Kiss?"  I also bring you up-to-date with "My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project" with "Playtime."  The Book of the Week is "Love and Trouble" by Claire Dederer]




American Made



The true story of Barry Seal, who went from a TWA pilot to working for the CIA to smuggling Colombian cocaine to gun-running for the Contras.  How did that happen?

Well, good old American guts and ingenuity, I guess.  Or maybe he was just greedy and stupid.

To give you an idea of what kind of guy Barry Seal (Tom Cruise) was, while flying a commercial jet during an all-night flight with his co-pilot asleep next to him, he thought it would be fun to take the plane off of auto-pilot and do a nose dive, just to shake people up a bit. Oh, and he liked to smuggle Cuban cigars into the country too. That's the kind of guy Barry Seal was so when he was approached by Monty Schafer (Domhnall Gleeson), a CIA guy, to do covert photography over Central America filming communist-based guerrilla groups, it's not a stretch that Barry would say yes especially when Schafer also offered him a fast little tricked-out spy plane to do the job in.

Likewise, when Barry was later approached by a member of the Medellin drug cartel to smuggle cocaine out of Colombia, that was also believable.  But as he himself says in the film, it started to get unbelievable when the CIA asked him to not only start supplying guns to the Contras (remember that whole Iran-Contra thing in Nicaragua during the Reagan administration?), but to actually bring the Contras themselves to the U.S. for training in his back yard!  And that's not all.  He then started giving the guns to the drug lords and the cocaine to the Contras and America became complicit in the drug trade while Nancy Reagan was telling young people "Just say no!"  Whew!  Only in America!

Barry is married to Lucy (Sarah Wright), and they have a couple of kids and the money is rolling in so fast and heavily that Barry has his own vault at the bank.  Bags of money are buried in the backyard, falling out of closets and peeking out from under the beds.  Barry and Lucy are living the high life in their small town of Mena, Arkansas until Lucy's redneck brother, JB (Caleb Landry Jones who was so good in "Get Out") shows up.  Everyone has an Achilles Heel and JB is Barry's.  It all starts to fall apart until it all ends tragically.

Now don't get me wrong.  This is not a dark drama at all nor is it really an action film.  It's a true story with some action - especially in the air - but it also has a comic, devil may care feel to it much like "War Dogs" and "Catch Me If You Can."  Barry narrates, there is some animation to help us understand the political climate, and Barry's cheeky, though you could also say clueless, attitude is fun to watch.  The film is fast-moving and full of twists and turns and double-crosses. 

However, my problem with the film is that it doesn't really seem to be saying very much other than revealing a part of American political history that we shouldn't be proud of.  And it doesn't help that Barry was a bit of an arrogant jerk.

But the actors do a good job of pulling this film off.

I know being a Tom Cruise fan is no longer very popular.  I think it all went downhill for him when he jumped on Oprah's couch.  And what with his mysterious divorces from Nicole Kidman and Katie Holmes and his connection to Scientology, his star has started to fade a bit, despite that mega watt smile.  Now when I proclaim my fandom for Tommy, people shake their heads.  But I don't care.  He will always be my Tommy.  He had me at "Taps," and I remain loyal, and this movie suits him.  Despite the fact that he is 55 and a bit frayed around the edges, his smile still fills the screen and even in extreme close-ups he is still swoon-worthy.  And this is Tom's kind of film where he can not only flex his acting muscles but spread that special charisma of his all over the screen.

The rest of the actors do a good job of filling in the cracks when Tom isn't doing his thing. Sarah Wright is a beautiful actress to watch and I love the twitchy Jones. Likewise Gleeson is a good actor who can seemingly do anything.

Written by Gary Spinelli and directed by Doug Limon, who also directed "Edge of Tomorrow," this is a film that both men and women will enjoy.  I just wish it had a bit more depth to it.

Rosy the Reviewer says...if you are a Tom Cruise fan you will be in Tom Cruise heaven (he's still got it), but even if you are not, this is still an enjoyable adventure film that won't tax your brain too much.

 




***Some Movies You Might Have Missed***
(And Some You Will Be Glad You Did)!

Streaming and on DVD






Our Souls at Night (2017)



A widow and widower, who have been neighbors for years but never really knew each other, enter into a relationship.

This film is new and can only be seen on Netflix.  It is billed as a Netflix Original, and since I wondered what that actually meant - I mean, did Netflix produce this movie starring two of our most famous actors? - I thought you might wonder too. 

Netflix does produce some of its own content such as "House of Cards."  But other shows such as "Arrested Development" are continuations of cable shows that Netflix bought.  As for this film, it falls into the category of a film that Netflix paid a lot of money for so you couldn't watch it anywhere else.  This movie comes to us via Netflix straight from the Venice Film Festival, and I loved every minute of it.

Louis Moore (Robert Redford) and Addie Waters (Jane Fonda) are neighbors.  They have both lost their spouses and live alone.  Though they both live in a small Colorado town, they never really had much of a relationship.  They knew OF each other, but didn't really know each other.  One day, out of the blue, Addie knocks on Louis's door and proposes to Louis that they start sleeping with each other.

"We are both alone.  We've been on our own for years.  I'm lonely and I'm thinking you might be too."

Now, don't get the wrong idea.  This is NOT about sex.  It's about getting through the night.

"Nights are the worst, don't you think?" she says to Louis. 

And she goes on to ask him if such a proposition would be of interest to him.  They would get into bed together and talk, and then, hopefully, fall blissfully asleep.

Louis is taken aback, naturally, but he says he will think about it.

After thinking about it, Louis lets Addie know that he would like to try sleeping together so they make a date.  Louis tells Addie "I'm not much of a talker," which is funny since Redford has made a name for himself playing laconic characters. It's charmingly awkward as the two get ready for bed, Addie in her nightgown buttoned up to her chin, and Louis in his pajamas, and before Louis can say anything to Addie, she is sound asleep, snoring quietly.

The two continue meeting with Louis carrying his paper bag of belongings and knocking on Addie's back door so that the neighbors won't talk until Addie demands that Louis enter through the front door - to hell with the neighbors! - and of course it's not long before word gets out about the two of them and the neighbors do talk.  Each night as they prepare for bed, they share their stories with each other and that's how those of us watching learn about them too. Slowly their relationship flowers. 

In the meantime, Addie's son, Gene (Matthias Schoenaerts), arrives.  He is having business and marital problems and asks Addie to care for his seven-year-old son, Jamie (Iain Armitage) for awhile until he can sort things out.  Jamie doesn't know his grandmother very well and is shy, which reinforces what I have said about long-distance grand-parenting.  It doesn't work very well.  Jamie is also a child who appears to not have had many experiences.  He has never been to a baseball game, doesn't know how to throw a baseball and is addicted to his computer games on his phone, but it isn't long before Addie and Louis both win him over and wean him off his phone.  Louis produces his prized train set.  What little seven-year-old boy can resist a train set?  And then they get him a dog!

It's no surprise that Addie and Louis fall in love and eventually get it on. Thank goodness we are spared the gory details of the act itself, not because I don't want to see old people having sex but because in general I find sex scenes boring.  That happens after a certain age.  And the fact that there was mutual attraction that led to sex reinforced my controversial belief that men and women can't just be friends. I should write a blog post on that some time.

Anyway, we knew Louis and Addie were going to fall in love, right? But that doesn't matter because, remember, it's the journey, not the destination, that matters.  And the journey is a delight.  I believed every minute of it and loved every minute of it.  

Fonda and Redford first acted together 50 years ago, when they starred together in another love story, "Barefoot in the Park," and Louis and Addie could be Paul and Corie from that film, 50 years later because Addie is impulsive, just as Corie was, and Louis is quieter and solid, like Paul.   I am of an age where I like seeing people my own age (actually they are older than I am) portrayed in the light of reality, and by that I mean, no old people movie clichés such as breaking out with the F-bomb or having trouble with the computer or suddenly doing a break dance, all things that some filmmakers seem to think are funny when old people do them. 

Whatever you might think of this film, it's always good to see actors at the top of their game and these two actors are about as on top of their game as actors can get, and because of that, you are drawn to them and their story. And they both look great. Redford's face looks lived in which I appreciate, and for an old dude, he still has a nice head of hair.  Jane may have had some work done but her plastic surgeon knew what he was doing.  And when Jane was in bed without her nightgown on, I couldn't get over the fact she had no back fat! 

The film written by Ken Haruf, Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber and directed by Ritesh Batra (who directed "The Lunchbox," which I loved - see the "Featured Post" on the sidebar for the full review of that) captures what it must be like to be old, alone and lonely, a place I am probably not too far from, and the barriers that keep people from connecting.  And this film isn't just for us old folks.  I think the younger generation should see this so they can see that our bodies may have aged but inside we old folks still care and talk about the same things we did when we were younger, feel the same things and seek love just like the younger generation.

Now I have to eat a bit of crow. 

I know that I yammer on endlessly about how much I dislike child actors.  I had a bit of an epiphany watching this film.  I realized that it's really not the child actors who actually annoy me but the screen writers who write the precocious crap they want the children to spew.  I particularly thought this while watching young Iain Armitage who played little Jamie.  You might also remember him from his amazing performance in "Big Little Lies."  This kid is adorable and a wonderful young actor.  I believed him every step of the way, too, and, believe me, I was watching him with an eagle eye, waiting for him to turn into one of those child characters I dislike so much.  But he didn't miss a beat.  And kudos to the writers who wrote a believable child.

I also have to point out the film's score which is spot on.  It has a western vibe which highlights the Colorado setting but it also is tantalizing as we wait to see what is going to happen between Louis and Addie.

If you blink you will miss Bruce Dern who plays one of Louis's cronies that he hangs out with in the coffee shop.  If he gets nominated for an Oscar, he will beat Judy Dench who won one for less than eight minutes on screen. You never know.

Rosy the Reviewer says...if you Baby Boomers are yearning for a movie you can relate to, this is it. It's quite wonderful.  And you younger folks can see what your parents are really up to!





Shall We Kiss? (2007)



A romantic comedy about a kiss offered, a kiss declined and the reason why.

Two strangers, Emilie (Julie Gayet) and Gabriel (Michael Cohen), meet in Nantes, France, and share an evening together. She is there on business and knowing that they will probably never meet again, Gabriel asks to kiss Emilie, a kiss with "no consequences."  She wants to kiss him but explains that a kiss can have very big consequences.

"Before a kiss has been given, no one knows if it will be big or small."

Emilie then proceeds to tell Gabriel a story to explain why they should not kiss, and through a series of flashbacks, the story of Judith and Nicholas (Emmanuel Mouret, who also directs) unfolds, and we learn that one kiss can have wide-ranging consequences.

Judith (Virginie Ledoyen) is a lab technician happily married to Claudio (Stefano Accorsi), a pharmacist. Nicholas was Judith's high school friend and is still her very best friend.  They meet often and talk about everything.  Nicholas had a girlfriend but they broke up and one day, Nicholas confides in Judith that he lacks physical affection (a euphemism for the fact that Nicholas is horny), and he is so starved for it that he is obsessed.

Judith recommends that Nicholas see a prostitute, and he tells her that he already has in a story within a story where he relates his bad experience with that. Turns out the prostitute does not allow kissing and without kissing Nicholas doesn't have a, er, good experience, so that didn't work for him.  He couldn't go through with it because he needs to kiss.  

So Nicholas shyly proposes that he and Judith get together, and Judith, being the good friend that she is, decides to help Nicholas out - just this once.

There is a long scene of awkward foreplay with the music from "The Nutcracker" playing in the background and then --- THE KISS! --- once again confirming my theory about the fact that men and women can't just be friends (see review above).

However, the two part, Nicholas acquires a girlfriend, Caline (Frederique Bel), and Judith and Nicholas don't see each for awhile, but when Nicholas and Judith do meet again a month later, they both confess that since the kiss things have not been the same for Judith with Claudio and Nicholas isn't really feeling it with Caline.  So now they decide they have to have sex again to make sure that the first time wasn't a fluke and to try to do it mechanically so as to break whatever spell might have been cast on them.  They decide to do it on the floor so it will be uncomfortable but, yes, you figured it out.  IT WAS EVEN BETTER THAN THE FIRST TIME!  

Horrified that they want each other so much, they realize they are in love and embark on a full-blown affair.  But an affair is one thing.  "Should one overturn one's life for kisses and caresses?"  The reality of leaving a marriage is another, so Judith and Nicholas concoct a plan for Claudio to meet Nicholas's girlfriend, Caline, hoping that Claudio will fall in love with her and leave Judith.

Well, my peeps, we all know about those best laid plans right?

The film continues back and forth between Emilie relating the story to Gabriel and Judith and Nicholas as their worlds fall apart and a twist is revealed by Emilie as to why she won't kiss Gabriel.

After seeing this film, I feel bad that I have been bashing French films so much lately.  This is the kind of romantic comedy I love.  The story is funny and appealing, the comedy is subtle and the characters are engaging. Gayet looks like a young Catherine Deneuve and Mouret has not only directed a film reminiscent of a Woody Allen romantic comedy, he looks and acts like a young Woody.  It's a sweet love story where even the music - Tchaikovsky and Schubert - play important roles.

And now we all know why prostitutes don't kiss.

Rosy the Reviewer says...utterly charmant (I didn't know how to say utterly in French).
(In French with English subtitles)




***My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project***



167 to go!

Have YOU seen this classic film?

(Note:  In case you are the kind of person who notices such things, I know there is a discrepancy between the number of movies I still need to see from what I reported last week.  That is because I did a recent inventory and realized that I had miscalculated somewhere along the line and I had in fact seen 20 more films than reported so now onwards and upwards!)




Playtime (1967)


Monsieur Hulot (Jacques Tati) gets caught up with a band of American tourists as they wander around a high-tech Paris.

Jacques Tati is practically a national treasure of France and "Monsieur Hulot" is his trademark character, a silent gentleman much like the U.K's Mr. Bean or Chaplin's "Little Tramp" stomping around Paris with his sideways walk, his trademark hat, pipe and overcoat befuddled by technology and the changes around him.

Here Monsieur Hulot finds himself entangled with a group of American tourists who are shown around "modern Paris," which seems to consist mostly of a modern office building and an area of modern buildings, never the sights we have come to associate with Paris.  Paris is presented as bureaucratic and modern and Monsieur Hulot is struggling with all of that, embodying the human isolation that technology and the changing times can bring.  

The film is beautifully produced and very stylized and Tati shows off his silent comic skills without speaking a word.  Lots of physical humor of which I am not a big fan, but I could appreciate the set design, the music and the look of the film, all of which Tati reproduced at great expense, which at the time was the most expensive movie in French film history and which eventually bankrupted him.  He built the entire set outside of Paris - an airline terminal, office buildings, even a traffic circle - which became known as Tativille, and it is something to behold. 

Despite the amazing look of the film, there is no real plot and no characters to grab onto, just hundreds of people moving on and off the screen, no real dialogue and a series of strange scenes. It was all shot in 70mm using only medium and long-shots and there is a lot going on at all times in every corner of every frame on the screen.

However, I see this film as one man's personal expression, an historical film curiosity rather than a satisfying film experience.  Personally, I found this film boring.

Despite what Tati was trying to do, the film was just too impersonal and chaotic for me.

Why it's a Must See: Playtime is less a film than one man's successful attempt to encourage us to see with new eyes.  Indeed, director Jacques Tati's timeless masterpiece is concerned, from start to finish, with imbuing the viewer with a totally new set of sensory experiences.  Like no other movie, Playtime has the power to make us question our very faculties of eyes and ears...The gags in [Tati's] films aren't really gags at all, but odd little moments that add up to an overall tone of a world being slightly askew."

Rosy the Reviewer says...now I'm not liking French comedies again.
(In French and English with English subtitles)




***Book of the Week***




Love and Trouble: A Midlife Reckoning by Claire Dederer (2017)




A Gen-X'ers midlife memoir.

I remember reading the book and writing about "The Mad Woman in the Volvo," which takes on the topic of menopause and how menopause is supposed to be a time of returning to the carefree feelings of our youth.  Our children are grown and we don't have to worry about having any more.  We only need to take care of our own needs.  We become middle-aged teenagers.  But when we wait to have children, we throw the natural cycle of things off so when we should be enjoying our new freedom we find ourselves caring for little children and possibly aging parents as well.

I thought of that book while reading Claire Dederer's memoir and thought that she might be having some of those "mad" episodes as she enters middle age and reflects back on her younger years.  She is 45 (oh, to be 45 again), a seemingly happily married mother of two, ages nine and twelve, but she finds that her mind is returning to her younger years when she discovered sex, was wildly boy crazy and eventually wildly promiscuous. She is unsettled by these feelings appearing again and shares a series of essays as she tries to understand what is happening to her. 

This memoir shifts back and forth between her present experience as a middle-aged mom in the grip of mysterious new feelings and herself as a teenager and young adult punctuated by passages from her diaries that she kept in her younger years.

I was originally drawn to this book because Dederer "lives on an island near Seattle," and I always enjoy books that draw on locations where I have lived or been.  And she doesn't disappoint.  People who live in the Seattle area or who have been here will enjoy her references to growing up in Laurelhurst, remembering cool places on The Ave (University Way) in the 1980's and her chapter "How to be in Seattle in the '90s."


"Move to Phinney Ridge because it's cheap and you can have a yard."

Ah, if only.  Phinney Ridge is no longer cheap in Seattle, the fastest growing city in the U.S.

On the occasion of her daughter's 13th birthday, Dederer writes a letter to Roman Polanski about his rape of a 13 year old girl; there is a chapter called "A Kiss May Ruin a Human Life (see movie review above and be reminded that you shouldn't be kissing people willy nilly because it can lead to problems);" a list of things she didn't want to think about that kept her up at night - "My children talking about me the way I have talked about my parents," taxes, rats and flossing" - and her experiences at Oberlin College, which weren't very good.

We believe in the midlife crisis that men experience and mostly give them a pass, but we give little thought to the same thing happening to women.  Believe me, it does, and Dededer is here to testify to that fact in a witty and engrossing memoir.

Rosy the Reviewer says...a candid and intriguing look at the female experience from a Seattle Gen X-er's point of view.

 

Thanks for reading!


See you TUESDAY 



for a Rosy the Reviewer
special edition  
 

"What's in a Name? -

Making a New Case for Naming Your Children After Friends and Family Members


 
 
  

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Check your local library for DVDs and books mentioned.
Next time you are wondering whether or not to watch a particular film, check out my reviews on IMDB (The International Movie Database). 

Friday, September 29, 2017

"mother!" and The Week in Reviews

[I review the new movie "Mother!" as well as DVDs "How To Be A Latin Lover" and "My Cousin Rachel."  The Book of the Week is "The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook."  I also bring you up-to-date with "My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project" with "Delicatessen."]




Mother!


A poet and his much younger wife live a seemingly idyllic life until uninvited guests arrive -- and then they won't leave!

This is one of those movies that you need to mull over until it hits you, but while you are watching, it is excruciating.  There is a lot going on here, and even though I found the experience difficult, it must have affected me, because when I stepped out of the movie theatre into the mall teeming with people, I didn't have good feelings about my fellow human beings, and from the looks of this movie, written and directed by Darren Aronofsky, he doesn't either.

Basically, the story is about a young woman (Jennifer Lawrence) and her husband (Javier Bardem) living in an old house.  They are childless and the woman is working to restore the house that had been partially destroyed by a fire. One night, a man (Ed Harris) shows up at their door explaining that he is there because he was told that the house is a bed and breakfast. However, it turns out he is there because he is a fan of the poet's writings. The husband invites the man into the house much to the unease of his wife.  Then the man's wife (Michelle Pfeiffer) arrives, then their sons arrive.  Soon the man and his wife become involved in a drama with their sons where one of the sons is killed. Now the the young wife married to the poet is not just uneasy, she is horrified. 

(You might notice that I am not mentioning any given names here and the reason is that there aren't any.  Neither the husband nor the wife are named. The wife is listed as "Mother," the husband as "Him," the uninvited guests as "Man" and "Woman.")

Anyway, people keep arriving and things get out of hand, items in the house are broken, "Mother" starts going nuts and has a final meltdown that reminded me of the ending of "Carrie."

The film is obviously an allegory (it's usually some kind of symbolic allegory when the characters are named "Mother," "Him," "Man" and "Woman"), but what it all adds up to in the end is anyone's guess.

The biblical and symbolic references aside - I mean, there is God, there is Cain and Abel, there is the Eucharist, there is Mother Earth...anyway, I think that's what was going on...on a purely superficial level this is my idea of a horror film - uninvited guests who won't leave. Right?  I would find that to be a horrific experience.  

But on a larger scale, I think Aronofsky thinks that if we keep repeating history, the end of the world is nigh.

Don't mess with Mother Nature!

But there is also all kinds of other stuff going on in this film. 

Aronofsky also seems to be saying that we humans worship love, but we don't practice it; we search to find in others what we ourselves lack; and that there is a price to fame and celebrity.  He also comments on the relationship between men and women, how difficult it can be to create both artistically and physically and the sad political state of the world. This film is A LOT.  It's also about a really bad husband. He was not supportive.  If I had been "Mother," I would have kicked all of those people out of the house and him as well!

There is also homage to horror films.  I already mentioned "Carrie," but this film also had a bit of "Rosemary's Baby" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," "Woolf" being, in my opinion, a horror story about marriage.

Written and directed by Aronofsky who gave us the nightmarish but much more accessible "Black Swan," this is a very personal work that includes casting Jennifer Lawrence. You can tell Aronofsky and Lawrence have a relationship because the camera is up close and personal on her at all times.  And her relationship with Aronofsky is the only reason I can figure out why Lawrence wanted to play that character. I don't think this role did her any good. Though she is the center of the film, her character mostly reacts to what is going on around her. She runs around the crumbling house looking wide-eyed and worried, then upset and frantic and that's about it.  It's Pfeiffer and Harris who steal the show.

What Aronofsky was trying to do here isn't entirely clear, and I still haven't gotten over the rather pretentious title.  I mean a lower case title with an exclamation point? But I have to give him credit for trying to make a film that tries to say something.  Unfortunately, my problem was that I wasn't sure what that something was.

Rosy the Reviewer says...probably one of the most controversial films of the year.  Whether you like the film or not, it will certainly spark conversation. 




***Some Movies You Might Have Missed***
(And Some You Will Be Glad You Did)!

On DVD






How To Be A Latin Lover (2017)


An aging gigolo finds himself out on the street when his much older wife of 25 years swaps him out for yet a younger gigolo.

Though young Maximo was raised on the maxim, "You get what you work for, not what you wish for," he doesn't buy it, especially when his father is killed while working hard on the job.  That just proved to Maximo that working hard doesn't get you anywhere, so he decides finding a rich wife is the way to go.  He is a young attractive man and has no trouble finding an older woman willing to lavish him with a life of luxury. 

Be careful what you wish for.

Twenty-five years later, Maximo (Eugenio Durbez) is married to Peggy (Renee Taylor), his much older wife.  He drives expensive cars and doesn't have to do much except make Peggy happy.  He gets around the house on a hover board  and basically his day consists of hanging out by the pool and driving his hot car. 

But when Maximo's wife is attracted to a younger man, Maximo, who was never trained to do anything except be taken care of by a rich wife, is forced to give up his luxurious life.  He is out on the street with nowhere to go and no way to make any money.  He asks his friend, Rick (Rob Lowe), another kept man, to take him in, but Rick tells him that since he and Millicent (Linda Lavin) have sex in every room, the only accommodation he has is Millicent's granddaughter's playhouse out back. Everything is doll-sized and pink.  

When that doesn't work, Maximo is forced to make contact with his estranged sister, Sara (Salma Hayek) and ask her to take him in. Sara is an aspiring architect, and a single Mom with a little boy, Hugo (Raphael Alejandro).  Maximo is an out-of-work gigolo who is inappropriate and out of touch.  So a clash of lifestyles ensues - hard-working Sara with a young son vs. jaded gigolo who has no concept of the real world and has never held a job.  

When Maximo arrives at Sara's apartment and she frets about where he will sleep, Maximo asks "Can't I sleep upstairs?" to which Sara replies, "Upstairs?  Those are other peoples' apartments!" Like I said, Maximo doesn't have a clue about real life.

What is Maximo to do?  

He is no longer the young hunk who can attract any woman, and he doesn't know how to survive on his own. What was once easy for Maximo when he was young and handsome is now not so easy.  Rick tells him that the two of them are survivors and they need to do whatever they have to do to survive.

Then a light bulb goes off for Maximo.

Hugo goes to an expensive private school on scholarship and when Maximo takes Hugo to school he smells money and sets his sights on Celeste (Raquel Welch), who it just so happens is the grandmother of Hugo's love interest, Arden (McKenna Grace, another child actor that I didn't hate in this, though I didn't really like her in "Gifted"). Maximo decides to use Hugo's interest in Arden to get to Celeste in some funny scenes where Maximo teaches young Hugo the art of seduction.

So Maximo hatches a plan to attract Celeste.  He knows to attract money he has to look like he has some so he gets a make-over, buys expensive clothes and basically maxes himself out to get his latin lover mojo back. 

But will what worked 25 years ago work now?

Rob Lowe and Linda Lavin are very funny as the role-playing couple, Rick and Millicent.  Millicent is insatiable and Rick really has to earn his gigolo dollars.  One scene where he plays a pizza delivery guy delivering pizza to Millicent is hilarious.  Rob, who himself started out as a young hunky actor, has now made a career as a comic actor and basically making fun of himself. Nice to see a handsome guy who doesn't take himself seriously.

This is a funny premise and there are lots of laughs to be had mostly because of Durbez who is so charmingly bad - but in a good way.  This is his film and he makes the most of it. However, I also loved seeing the older actresses - Welch, Lavin and Taylor - getting parts again, though I have never seen so much Spanx in my life.

I have a lot of respect for Salma Hayek.  Though she can pick and choose pretty much whatever vehicles she wants (she is married to a billionaire), she chooses to honor her heritage and promotes Spanish language films and films with Latin American themes and characters.  She is also a strong woman who produces and stars in her own films, promotes women's roles and doesn't mind lending her name and presence to the film, even if her part is not the lead.  She brought Frida Kahlo (unibrow and all) to life and who makes serious movies about artists anymore? And here she has also honored our legendary older actresses and given roles to women of a certain age - Raquel Welch, Renee Taylor and Linda Lavin.

Written by Chris Spain and Jon Zack and directed by Ken Marino, there are laughs to be had here even though the film devolved into ridiculousness at the end, but I forgive it because it was cute and funny for most of the film.  And what's not to like.  Weird Al even had a cameo.

Rosy the Reviewer says...one of the better comedies of the year.





My Cousin Rachel (2017)




Believing that his beloved cousin's new wife might have had something to do with his cousin's death, a young Englishman plots revenge against her but instead falls under her spell. 

I am generally down on remakes when the first film was perfectly fine.  I mostly apply that to foreign films, but it could be said for remaking old classics as well.  The original of this film was made in 1952 and starred Olivia De Havilland and Richard Burton.  You couldn't get much better than that, right?  Well, I have to eat my words to a certain extent.  This one was really good, and since I am also partial to good stories and good storytelling, this remake is worth seeing.  Plus it's in color and new technology allows this film to do things that the original couldn't.

In case you missed the first one or didn't read the book by Daphne Du Maurier, Philip (Sam Claflin, who played Finnick Odair in "The Hunger Games" series and more recently, the love interest in "Me Before You") was an orphan raised by his older cousin, Ambrose.  While Philip was attending college, Ambrose had taken ill and gone off to Florence to recover.  He wrote to Philip and told him that while there he had met another cousin, their cousin, Rachel (Rachel Weisz), whom he married.  Philip found this very unsettling that Ambrose would marry so late in life as he had not shown any interest in women before. 

As more letters arrived, Ambrose's letters took on an ominous tone.  He complained of Rachel controlling him and that Rachel had become "his torment."  He begged Philip to come and rescue him, but when Philip arrived in Florence, he found only an empty villa and Enrico Rainaldi (Pierfrancesco Favino), Rachel's lawyer who told him that Ambrose was dead, Rachel had left and he didn't know where she had gone. Rainaldi tells Philip that Ambrose had a brain tumor that affected his behavior.

Philip returns to the estate where he shared his happy childhood with Ambrose, and since Ambrose left everything to him, Philip is now the master of the estate and will inherit everything when he turns 25.  It isn't long before Rachel asks to come and visit Philip, and though he says yes, he has a major chip on his shoulder about Rachel even before he meets her.

Poor Philip. It would have been much easier to hate her if she had been unattractive, but of course, Rachel is beautiful.  And as it turns out, Rachel is not only beautiful, she is considerate and charming.  Even the dogs like her.  And our guy is a handsome, red-blooded young man so it's not long before Philip is in Rachel's thrall. He asks his godfather to increase Rachel's allowance even though his godfather tells him her reputation is not good - has something to do with her having some sort of insatiable appetite.  Mmmm.  Now they couldn't have said THAT in the 1952 version!

However, it isn't long before cracks start appearing and Philip's godfather tells him he thinks Rachel is sending money overseas.  She is also continually making Philip cups of her "special tea."  Now that wouldn't be such a big deal except Philip also starts experiencing strange symptoms and feeling ill.

As more strange events occur, Philip becomes more and more suspicious but Rachel is always able to explain everything away, and he is just so besotted he believes her.  He is also so besotted that he decides that when he becomes of age at 25 and his inheritance kicks in, he is going to give her everything. And that is very soon.

Ominous music plays throughout and there is this one scene when Rachel and Philip hug and her hand goes around his neck in a sort of claw so now, despite the fact that Rachel seems to be a loving and charming woman, we have to wonder about Rachel as well. 

Should Philip believe his cousin Ambrose's letters as he struggled with his illness?  Did Rachel have something to do with his death? Or was it a brain tumor that affected his mind and Rachel is innocent?

A series of events occur and Philip makes some assumptions that lead to a tragic end.

Directed and adapted by Roger Michell from the classic book, this is a great gothic story and a showcase for Weisz and Clafill, both attractive and talented actors. Believe it or not, I first noticed Rachel Weisz in the 1999 version of "The Mummy," and she has had a solid career and a Best Actress Oscar and Golden Globe ("The Constant Gardener"), but for some reason, she is undeservedly still not a household name.  Perhaps she shuns superstardom to play supporting roles in smaller indie movies she believes in, like "The Lobster," which I loved.

I also have to give props to Holliday Grainger, an actress to watch out for.  She is lovely here and was one of the best things about the recent film "Tulip Fever." Plus, I love her name!

Rosy the Reviewer says...sometimes there are stories worth retelling.  This is one of them.





***My 1001 Movies I Must See Before I Die Project***







184 to go!

Have YOU seen this classic film?





Delicatessen (1991)


A post-apocalyptic black comedy about a clown who moves into an apartment over a delicatessen and falls for the butcher's daughter unaware that the butcher is serving up some "unsavory" meats. 

Actually, the ex-clown is lured to the apartment by Clapet, the butcher (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) through an ad in the paper for a maintenance man. You see, it's post- apocalyptic France and food is in short supply.  It's in such short supply that the people have to use grain for money, and the butcher, whose deli is on the ground floor of an apartment building that he also owns, is luring people to his deli with the promise of job opportunities only to murder them, cut them up and sell their flesh as meat to his tenants.

Unemployed circus clown Louison (Dominique Pinon) is the next targeted victim, hired by Clapet to do routine maintenance at the apartment building.  While there he befriends Clapet's daughter, Julie (Marie-Laure Dougnac), and they fall in love. He is a good worker, so Clapet decides to keep him around for awhile and as Louison interacts with the various odd tenants of the apartment building, they like him too.  However, Julie becomes aware of what her father is doing and decides to ask for help from the Troglodistes, a mysterious and feared vegetarian group who live in the sewers.

The Troglodistes attack but are repelled and despite the fact that the tenants like Louison, the desire for meat is too strong so Clapet and his tenants decide Louison's time has come and Julie and Louison must fight for their lives.

Now if any of that sounds funny to you or you enjoy films about cannibalism, you might like this film. I have actually been known to enjoy such films. I quite enjoyed "Eating Raoul" and "The Cook, The Thief, The Wife & Her Lover," but this film lacked the sophistication of those two and the story was just too out there.  Plus the humor was very slapstick, which is not surprising when you consider that the French worshiped Jerry Lewis, the king of slapstick and physical humor. I don't like slapstick humor.

The real star of this film is the cinematography and camerawork.  There are lots of super close-ups and shots from below and a moody, foggy look to the film similar to some of the Coen Brothers' films.  But that is where the similarity ends.

I watched the film on Netflix and Netflix gave it only one and a half stars.  So the critics in the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die" book think this is one of the greatest 1001 movies ever made but looks like most of us regular folks who have watched it think otherwise. I thought it barely deserved those one and a half stars.

Why it's a Must See: "Creatively combining genres -- post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, black comedy, and sweet romance -- and offering audiences an impressively oddball collection of sounds, colors, actors, and images, [directors] Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro's inspired film...was the recipient of several European awards and anticipated the pair's subsequent collaboration, The City of Lost Children (1995). Jeunet would go on to direct Alien Resurrection in 1997, which was followed by the international blockbuster Amelie in 2001."
---"1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die"

Rosy the Reviewer says...oddball is right. It was so oddball I found it unwatchable.
(In French with English subtitles)





***The Book of the Week***




The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook: Recipes and Wisdom from an Obsessive Home Cook by Deb Perelman (2012)


Award-winning blogger Perelman (www.smittenkitchen.com) shares her favorite recipes in her first cookbook.

Perelman was never a chef, never a restaurant owner.  She never even worked in a restaurant.  She was just a home cook cooking in a tiny New York City apartment kitchen who wanted to cook really delicious food and she wanted it to be fun.

Early on she was overwhelmed by the number of recipes out there in the world.  When confronted with all of the choices on the Internet alone, she wondered how do you pick the best recipe?

I can attest to this dilemma.  I love cooking but even more than that I love READING recipes and reading about cooking.  I subscribe to several magazines that are full of recipes and I have tons of cookbooks.  I have folders and folders of recipes I have ripped out of said magazines.  Am I really going to be able to actually try all of those recipes?

Perelman founded her blog Smitten Kitchen as a way to not only wade through all of the recipes out there so that you and I can avoid making a bad recipe but she also wants cooking to be fun and the result to be delicious.

"I never set out to build a website that would draw more than five million visitors a month...The reality of what drives me into the kitchen...is something far less bragworthy: I am picky as hell...and also, a little obsessive."

She goes on to tell you about an experience in a restaurant where she found the chicken less than wonderful so she went home and worked on it again and again until it WAS wonderful.  And instead of you having to go through all kinds of recipes to find the one that works and is delicious, she has done it for you and shares them here in this delightful cookbook.

I mean, who wouldn't want the best version of French toast or meat loaf or lemon bars?

Perelman includes opinionated homespun, fun-to-read commentary and pulls no punches.

Here's a, er, taste:

"Maple Bacon Biscuits"

"A whole big lot of the time, recipes come from disappointment, from something I'd ordered out somewhere, imagining it would taste one way, when really it tasted another way. (and not a good way)...It's hardly the most honorable of inspirations -- being convinced that everyone else is doing it wrong, that I alone can do things well...But it did produce a fine biscuit...The results of my complaints are sweet but salty, buttery and bacony and as light as can be.  You should probably serve them alongside eggs, but they have a tendency not to last long enough for you to scramble some."

"Iceberg Stack with Blue Cheese and Radishes"

"You can't eat as many iceberg wedges as I have without forming an opinion or two about them, and what some places get right, most get very wrong.  The first is bottled dressing.  Do you know how easy it is to make blue cheese dressing?  Seriously, just skip ahead to the recipe for a second, did you see that?"

OK:

  • 1/2 c. well-shaken buttermilk
  • 1/2 c. mayonnaise
  • 1 T. freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1/2 t. Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 small garlic clove, minced
  • 1/4 t. table salt
  • 1/8 t. freshly ground pepper
(In a medium bowl, whisk together...until smooth.  Adjust seasonings to taste)

And I do see...looks very easy and I am going to try it.

Her directions are detailed, easy to follow, and yes, opinionated.

There are breakfast recipes, recipes for salads, sandwiches, tarts, pizzas, seafood, poultry, meat, sweets and party snacks as well as an entire chapter devoted to vegetarian cooking and the whole book is beautifully illustrated and fun to read.

Rosy the Reviewer says...whether you like to cook or just read, this cookbook is a delight!

Thanks for reading!


  

See you next Friday 



for my review of  



"American Made"  


and


The Week in Reviews

(What to See or Read and What to Avoid)


 and the latest on



"My 1001 Movies I Must See Before 

 I Die Project."

  

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Check your local library for DVDs and books mentioned.
Next time you are wondering whether or not to watch a particular film, check out my reviews on IMDB (The International Movie Database).