Movies Watched -- White God

In Hungarian. 117 minute running time so at least 20 to 30 minutes too long. Teenage girl with good Eastern European bones, has to stay with Dad for three months (parents divorced), takes along her dog, a mutt, Dad doesn't want dog, he's kind of a bastard, girl ends up losing dog when father throws it out of car after she smart-mouths him ... dog ends up in hands of dog fighter, scenes of training the dog for dog fights hard to watch ... girl ends up running away from home ... I watched 70! minutes of this before going to fast forward, couldn't take it, too depressing. Not sure how it ended but probably grim. In fact I've never seen a single happy movie from the Eastern Bloc (though my favorite movie in 2006 was The Death of Mr. Lazarescu). Red rating, avoid. 

Wes Morris also didn't think it was the cat's meow ... but he confuses the girl's father with her teacher/conductor (happens when you watch multiple movies a day?)

What happens when you shoot a dog up with drugs, sharpen his teeth, and beat him regularly ... an allegory for the Hungarian people?

ETF Trading Portfolio Update -- July 11, 2016

Taking a loss in the Qs as expected, Inverse VIX has yet to reverse (brutal, I know). Those reversals made post-"Brexit" were a total disaster, huge whipsaw losses, fortunately I didn't also get whipped out of gold, energies, small caps, bonds, etc. 

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Movies Watched -- The Gift

108 minute running time so at least eight minutes too long. It wasn't bad, watched without fast forwarding, a thriller, the first thriller I've seen among the 2015 movies (and in a long time), a revenge fantasy really. It's well made. The only reason I hesitate to give it a green rating is because (spoilers) if Bateman had ruined this guy's life, he would have remembered it when they first met again. He would have been less willing to have the creep over for dinner, etc. That part of the story didn't ring true. Also a simple paternity test would tell who the baby's real father is, so Bateman's mind wouldn't be poisoned for long.

Bateman is good at playing a sociopath salesman and Rebecca Hall, who plays his wife, is beautiful. Only a very good looking woman can rock hair that short. A typical yuppie couple from the 80s, now appropriately updated to the Hollywood Hills.  The villain/victim is played by some Australian guy whom I thought was Marky Mark at first (who happens to be the writer-director here, yes, it's a W.D. By movie). There are some horror-movie scare jumps within, so be prepared. Tentatively a yellow but easily upgraded to green when I finish the ~100 movies I'm watching from 2015. 

Look at all that awful statuary!

Movies Watched -- I'll See You In My Dreams

95 minute running time so within the sacred 100 minute rule, but that doesn't mean I watched it. 

So squarely aimed at upper-middle class white Boomers that it holds no interest for anyone outside that demographic. Stars an attractive widow in her late 60s, hard to say how much plastic surgery she has had, but she looks good for her age. Her dog dies, and she spends lots of time wasting the days away drinking expensive white wine or playing bridge with her widowed buddies.

Meets a handsome dopey bearded poetry major Millennial pool boy whom she is attracted to and bizarrely he is also attracted to her. Would never happen in a million years of course ... anyway, fast forwarding from 20 minutes in because I hate the movie .... she also meets the guy from The Big Lebowski who delivered that great line to The Dude, "Do you have to use so many cuss words?" She drops the pool boy for him.

Then her daughter visits, played by Bobby Flay Axe's Swedish wife from Showtime's Billions, the one who's pretty in that blonde-with-a-pudgy-face way. Old guy dies I guess. Goes back to the pool boy. Who the hell knows, or wants to know what this was all about. Red rating, avoid, unless you are a wealthy Boomer widow living in Southern California who fantasizes about the pool boy or roguish men your age with handlebar mustaches. 

Tasha Robinson got it partly right when she wrote: "the film lacks any visual snap or panache to offset the tonal and narrative blandness. At best, it’s a reasonably sweet, unchallenging character piece that won’t insult older viewers by reflecting them poorly or shallowly." ... It will only insult their intelligence.

I've added the chlorine tabs to the pool, grandma, now let go of me.

Movies Watched -- Güeros

In Spanish. Black and white. 106 minute running time but I fast forwarded from 20 minutes in ... did not grab me or hold my interest ... artsy shots, set-ups, timing ... I was not in the mood and never would be.  Red rating, avoid.

Mexican Injun with a couple of gueros (light-skinned guys)

Movies Watched -- Mommy

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.

Awful people taking an awful selfie

Movies Watched -- Tangerine

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

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 

Movies Watched -- Room

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. 

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I have an expensive vase that looks exactly like that lampshade

Movies Watched -- Spotlight

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.

Let me know how I can help, Marty! Loads of leather upholstery and wood paneling convey ... gravitas.