130 minute running time but I only watched 20 minutes before fast forwarding to the end. Some funny bits but I wasn't in the mood for surrealist / absurdist / fever dream / capital A.R.T. art stuff, so I couldn't stick with it. Similar to Blancanieves in the sense that if you caught me in just the right mood, I might be able to sit through it. Not exactly a ringing endorsement. Red rating, avoid.
Margot surrounded by Red Wolves
113 minute run time but I only watched 20 minutes before fast forwarding to the end. You can't figure out at first why this girl with pretty good bones and a little boy with long hair are staying in this tiny room with only a skylight.
Later you realize, to your horror, that they are imprisoned there ... they're being held captive and the mother is being used as a sex slave by their captor. Then you realize the man must have fathered the child. Then you wonder, was the kid born in the room? Who assisted with the birth? Why have they not tried to escape? Surely they could get through that skylight if they put their minds to it? Why hasn't she slashed the man's throat in the ultimate version of coitus interruptus?
So it's a horror movie. SPOILERS: The little boy does finally escape (the mother fakes his death and the dumb captor didn't check before attempting to dispose of the body), as does the mother, but the whole movie is just idiotic on its face. Anyone being held captive like that would go nuts within seven weeks or seven months, let alone seven *years,* which was the story. The child would have been totally mad if held in captivity like that, not cutesy-filled-with wonder. I couldn't figure out who on earth could approach a nightmare scenario in this simple-minded a way, but then I realized the movie was made by Canadians. Red rating, avoid.
I have an expensive vase that looks exactly like that lampshade
129 minutes but nine minutes of credits so a two hour run time means a half an hour too long. Dramatic reenactment of how the Boston Globe put together and finally ran their stories exposing the systemic cover-up by the Catholic Church of pedophile priests in the Boston archdiocese (and by extension, everywhere). Lots of heavy piano music throughout. A reminiscence of when newspapers had power (because people read them).
Ray Donovan grows a beard and puts on wire-rimmed glasses to play a grumbling newspaper editor-in-chief. The pretty girl detective from that wretched season two of True Detective is also in it, but her main role here is saying hmmm and mmmm. Tom Buffalo Ruffalo plays a manic, squinting reporter with cocked head and pursed mouth. Michael Keaton looks good as an ageing bald man -- helps that he's fit.
There have been several documentaries made on the issue of pedophile priests and the systematic cover-up / payoffs carried out by the Catholic Church -- I haven't seen any of them because they're too depressing. "It takes a village to abuse a child," as Stanley Tucci Garabedian said.
The movie is well made, though overly long. I'm not sure how to rate it yet. Tentatively a yellow but I may upgrade it if I can't come up with ten good movies from 2015. (Rex loved it.)
Let me know how I can help, Marty! Loads of leather upholstery and wood paneling convey ... gravitas.
115 minute running time so at least 15 minutes too long, and probably closer to 25 minutes too long. I watched 40 minutes then quit. It's a mish mash of things: comedy, crime drama, romance, but none of it works. Maybe it's too black or too young for me to get, but it didn't work for me. Similar to Dear White People in that way. There are some funny bits, but then combining them with the real horror and violence of living in the 'hood just doesn't fly. Red rating, avoid.
Asking Zoë Kravitz to the prom.
Taking a massive loss in the Emerging Markets ... getting badly whipsawed after changes made following "Brexit" ... look at the inverse VIX since last Monday, yeah, people are getting destroyed out there. We'll see how bad the losses in the Q's and the Euro are when I finally take them.
100 minute running time, so just the right length. Starred the kid who starred in Starred Up (my favorite movie from 2014), except in this movie he didn't have much dialogue, he just cowers and grimaces (see screenshot below). Story is about a British soldier who gets left behind on the mean streets of Belfast (in 1971) after a house raid goes awry. Non-stop action, tension, a kind of nightmare dreamscape ... the movie was structured well, but for some reason I couldn't get into it even though I couldn't take my eyes away from it. I certainly didn't fast forward, so it gets a yellow rating. You have to turn on the subtitles for this one, as you did with Starred Up.
Maybe it's because the idea of a Catholic/Protestant divide leading to terrible violence just strikes me as absurd, and the double-dealing of the British army is kind of awful, but not unexpected ("this is war"). It's early days, but I still haven't found a movie from 2015 that I can recommend. (EDIT: Mad Max: Fury Road is one I definitely recommend.)
Cowering, again
109 minute running time so at least 10 to 20 minutes too long. Weird one. It's a combination comedy / horror / romance movie. Structure of it is bizarre, not well laid out. Noted blogger Jason Kottke gets in a bar fight and runs away to Italy to avoid the police, using the inheritance from his recently deceased mother. There he meets an exotic girl who is not all she seems. True love conquers all.
I assume it's a W.D. By movie, some smarty-pants trust fund kids behind it, maybe. Didn't fast forward so it gets a yellow rating. Also gets points for being filmed in a lovely Italian town on the Adriatic Sea. But I can't recommend this.
Blogger Kottke with his multilingual Medusa
83 minute running time, so the right length, but I quit after 20 minutes since it was no good, even in fast forward mode, anyone can see that it's no good. It's a horror movie but relies too much on the scary music cues to shock, the story is badly laid out, badly paced. Better if it had starred the dirt-floor cellar in the old house in which I grew up. This is a W.D. By movie, and a bad one.
Why this was on the Rotten Tomatoes Top 100 list with a 95% rating is a mystery -- actually, I know why, 43 reviews with only nine "top critics" weighing in, which means idiot bloggers and other kids have skewed the data once again. This idiot blogger is doing you a favor by issuing a red rating, avoid, do not waste your time.
Resident of dirt-floor cellar
Just a view of "unusual suspect" Tesaro, regular hours open at $68.78, some notes only comprehensible to me and my trading buddies.
Click to enlarge
H. Upmann has a series of cigars they call "The Banker," which I thought was kind of a cynical marketing ploy -- an attempt to appeal to idiots who work in finance. They have different names for the different sizes: Arbitrage (7 x 56), Basis Point (6 1/8 X 54), Annuity (6 x 52), and Currency (5 1/2 x 48). I got the Robusto since that's the size smoke I prefer.
Smelled like honey, which was promising! Lit it in a lot of wind with a dying lighter but it was very forgiving. The draw was good and burn even. It took about an inch to mellow which is typical of good-but-not-great cigars, and I spent 50 minutes on it start to finish, which is exactly the amount of time I like to spend. So despite the gimmicky name, it's not a bad cigar at all, it was quite pleasant, I'd smoke it again, unlike the Juan Lopez, which I am slowly but steadily giving away to the lawn guys.
In Arabic. 100 minutes long, so just the right length. About a Bedouin boy in Hejaz Province (the western part of the Arabian peninsula), 1916. He gets stranded in the desert and has to save himself. "If the wolves offer friendship, do not count on success. They will not stand beside you when you are facing death." A story of survival, self-reliance, strategic alliances, and honor. "The strong eat the weak." I didn't fast forward so it gets at least a yellow rating. After watching the other 90+ movies from 2015 on my list, I'll decide if it should be upgraded to green.
Taught by big brother
Discovered via the Spotify algo, bless the algo.
