As I like to joke, just join the trend on the backside at a random time and ride it down risking Grittani’s $5,000 to high of day.
Movies Watched -- Outside In (2018)
109 minute running time so 10 minutes too long … might be easy to tighten up by cutting down on the dialogue-less mood shots, of which there were many. Written and directed by a woman so it’s not at all violent or flat-out dumb … it’s a character study and a love story of sorts … it’s not bad but it’s also not good enough to recommend. Edie Falco is good. Harry Bosch’s moody teen daughter is in it playing a moody teen daughter. The guy wasn’t properly traumatized after 20 years in prison … if you want to see a good “re-enter society after a long time in prison” drama, watch the TV series Rectify.
I probably know enough now to have a college degree in English
Movies Watched -- Motherless Brooklyn (2019)
144 minute running time so at least 45 minutes too long … Edward Norton vanity project (producer, director, lead actor) … the story wasn’t terrible, but it was just too long and convoluted, and something of a showcase for his actor buddies (“screen-chewing vanity” one critic wrote). If Norton had somehow made a 100-minute movie, it might have been good, but don’t waste your time with this.
Rex hated it: “so messy, confusing and pointless that you don’t know what’s going on half the time, and couldn’t care less.“
I have something wrong with my head.
The End of the Authoritative Source
From Peter Jennings’s interview on Booknotes in 1998:
“I don't think we know what the impact of the Internet is. I think we've come to the end of the century generally nervous — some of us generally nervous about the impact of technology, generally wondering where it will lead us in the next century. And I keep running into intellectuals who are afraid that what the Internet does is it puts so much information out into the society without any particular value on it. And so you never quite know what you're reading and you never know what source you're using.“
A newsreader at one of the broadcast oligopolies had reason to be nervous….
Alphabetically Speaking You're OK
The great Pierino with the Fontane Sisters singing ‘A’ You're Adorable in 1949:
Movies Watched -- You Were Never Really Here (2018)
95 minute running time … I loved this one! Really well made, violent, disturbing, weird. I’m not sure if the story made any sense, but it was so stylishly made that I could cut it some slack. Joaquin Rafael (born in Puerto Rico) Phoenix is a little younger than me … he’s a little guy but a talented actor (Best Actor award at Cannes for this? I had no idea). I guess this movie was previously titled “A Beautiful Day,” don’t know why they changed the name? The sound design is really good too.
Tony Lane is right to say “some strains of this fearsome film, to be honest, feel overworked and arch,“ but it’s still good enough to get a coveted green-go rating.
‘A’ you’re adorable, ‘B’ you’re so beautiful, ‘C’ you’re a cutie full of charms….
Movies Watched -- Searching (2018)
101 minute running time but I went to fast forward after 20 minutes since the gimmick of placing all the action on a computer screen got old fast … grimacing Korean-American father on the webcam, enough already … hot Tiger Mom dying young from cancer pretty grim … so the lady cop was a bad guy? Had a happy ending looked like. Bad. You can give this one a miss.
“All those typed Google searches and text message exchanges grow wearying to the viewer’s eye … in a clunky resolution, the story turns as flat as the screens that contain it.“ — Steven Winn
“The failure of ‘Searching’ is, conversely, an inability to integrate much of life at all into the world of screens.“ — Dick Brody
Hot Mom Gone Too Soon
Movies Watched -- The Destroyer (2018)
120 minute running time so at least a half hour too long … terrible movie … Nicole made up to look like death warmed over …. convoluted story-telling with multiple flashbacks. You can miss it.
Inexplicably spent her whole life scrappin’. Jealous, hungry, scared.
Movies Watched -- The Commuter (2018)
105 minute running time but felt much longer … idiotic story, just made no sense, start to finish … big budget action though with a CGI train crash .. dumb dumb dumb, waste of a borrow. Do not see this.
I am Hester Prynne
Movies Watched -- Serenity (2019)
107 minute running time but I went to fast forward after 20 minutes … this was terrible. Why would Anne Hathaway get involved in something like this? Does she need the money? Matthew McConaughey is one of those troubled guys so who knows what he was thinking … his pecs look amazing, he must spend five hours a day in the gym, his body looks fantastic for a 50 year old (he’s my age). I guess it was some kind of virtual reality bad stepdad revenge killing fantasy in the end, who knows. The F word every other word. What crap, a waste of a borrow. 20% on RottenTomatoes, sheesh.
Dick Brody writes, “‘Serenity’ is … full of ludicrous trivializations that bypass the story’s troubling implications.”
Rex is a little more direct: “…moronically written and directed with shocking, amateurish ineptitude by Stephen Knight, it’s a pointless bomb.”
Dad, I did something real bad. I made a terrible movie.