Movies Watched -- Mommy

Added on July 8, 2016 by C. Maoxian.

In French. 140 minute running time so at least 40 minutes too long. I watched 20 minutes and then fast forwarded to the end. A very attractive middle-aged woman becomes less attractive when she opens her mouth (since she streams obscenities). She looks sort of like a Real Housewife from New Jersey. She has a teenage son who is a delinquent, also foul-mouthed like Mommy. Husband not in the picture (turns out he's dead). Somewhat less attractive middle-aged neighbor woman tries to help care for the troubled boy, I guess. Spoilers: kid tries to kill himself and ends up in the loony bin. I have no idea who could sit through 140 minutes of that, in French. Red rating, avoid.

Movies Watched -- Tangerine

Added on July 8, 2016 by C. Maoxian.

Pleased to announce that I've found the second movie from 2015 that I liked and can recommend: "Tangerine" (Mad Max: Fury Road was the first). You will be in the company of two black transsexual prostitutes for Christmas day (or was it eve?) in Los Angeles, as well as one Armenian cabbie, and a scrawny white prostitute fluent in jive ... and you couldn't be more thrilled! Hilarious, vivacious, touching, and ultimately about the power of friendship, I really enjoyed it. The run time was 88 minutes, which came well within the sacred 100 minute rule. Green rating, recommended!

I'm gonna keep it real with you, it kinda sounded a little old ... I sing myself!

Movies Watched -- The Forbidden Room

Added on July 8, 2016 by C. Maoxian.

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.

Movies Watched -- Room

Added on July 7, 2016 by C. Maoxian.

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

Movies Watched -- Spotlight

Added on July 6, 2016 by C. Maoxian.

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.)

The original Boston Globe story.