Author Archives: Ron

About Ron

I like to watch movies and share my thoughts on them. I have been writing reviews and distributing them since 2013.

Laura

Laura                     5 stars

This well known mystery from 1944 has been on my wish list for a very long time and I finally got around to seeing it.  Known as one of the best made mysteries ever, it stars Gene Tierney as the murdered Laura, a young socialite who is sought after by a number of men and Dana Andrews as Detective McPherson who must solve the case.  The story introduces a number of suspects who are questioned by the detective who becomes obsessed with the subject, Laura, who then strangely appears at her own apartment very much alive.  The film is well constructed as each suspect appears to have a good story for why they are innocent while important clues about the actual events appear.  It is still a masterpiece that holds up to the test of time and packs plenty of style and drama in the short 90 minute run time.  The film was directed by Otto Preminger in what was only his second directorial effort.  Also present in the movie is a young Vincent Price as a weak willed admirer of the young Laura.

Hotel Mumbai

Hotel Mumbai   4 stars

Hotel Mumbai tells the true story of the Islamic terrorist attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, India in 2008.  It’s a well done presentation of the absolute terror that the victims of the attack went through facing young men with automatic weapons and hand grenades while having no defense other than running and hiding.  It also depicts the acts of heroism that the staff of the hotel displayed in protecting the guests of the hotel, many of whom are quite wealthy.  The movie doesn’t hold anything back as it shows just how horrifying it must be to be to be experiencing such a terrible event.  I remember well the news of the attack back around Thanksgiving in 2008.  The attack seemed to go on forever before the Indian Special Forces finally killed all the terrorists involved.  At the end of the movie we are shown much about the outcome of the story.  In all well over 100 people were killed across the city.  Of the victims in the hotel, half were the hotel staff.  Also, it took 21 months to restore the damage left behind and reopen the hotel.  If you see Hotel Mumbai be ready to feel more tension and dread than you do from any horror movie.

Shoplifters

Shoplifters          5 stars

I had not heard much about Shoplifters before, last year’s Best Foreign Language film from Japan.  It’s about a very poor family living in a shack in Japan and what they have to do to survive including shoplifting from local stores.  It appears that there is a father, Osamu, a mother, Nobuyo, a grandmother and a teenage daughter and young son.  The couple find a little girl of about five freezing in the cold one night and take her in.  Rather than take her to the police they keep her and care for her as they surmise she was not treated well by her own family.  This movie develops very slowly and I thought that it was a movie mainly about the characters and how they relate to each other without much of a plot, something that shows how the less fortunate live.  However, there are signs along the way that suggest there is more going on here at first glance, so later in the film we learn that there are some hidden secrets that when revealed will test the strength of the ties holding this group together.  I was very presently surprised and impressed with how the film ended.  Rotten Tomatoes rated Shoplifters the second best foreign film of the year after Roma.

Us

Us                           4 stars

By now everyone has heard of Jordan Peele’s latest horror film Us. It’s his second directorial effort after 2017’s much heralded Get Out.  With Us he goes much deeper into the horror genre with his story about the Wilson family on a beach outing at their summer cabin.  We learn that the mother, Lupita Nyong’o, experienced a traumatic event at the beach when she was a girl.  In the present the family has a few strange encounters until everything explodes with the arrival of another family who look exactly like them except they are very different too!  This is truly a horror film with the odd developments and bloody encounters that you would expect with such a film.  Peele puts his own spin on the genre that has a moral message somewhere in the story.  As the film gets toward the conclusion there are some unanswered questions and some things that don’t quite make sense, but I think that’s ok for horror movies.  Be forewarned that there is plenty of blood and interesting ways of dying in Us.  It’s a film that’s probably not for everyone.

Green Book

Green Book        4 ½ stars

I finally viewed Green Book the much acclaimed Best Picture winner by director Peter Farrelly about Tony Lip, an Italian American bouncer from the Bronx who is hired by Dr. Don Shirley a world class black pianist to drive him on a concert tour that takes them to the Deep South.  Set in the early sixties, the travelers must depend on the Green Book, a travel guide published to allow black people find safe places for them to stay and eat in the days of segregation.  The two very different characters must learn to understand each other and deal with their differences to allow them to safely navigate some of the perils they are bound to face in this time of troubled race relations.  While certainly not a perfect movie, it has certain charms that will please audiences and first rate performances from Viggo Mortensen as Tony and Mahershala Ali as Don Shirley.  While the film touches on issues of racism in America showing us some the effects of it, it is not a deep study of the roots of the problem.  Green Book works best as a human drama showing us the value of trust despite our differences.

The Insult

The Insult            2 ½ stars

Critics and audiences alike seemed to like this courtroom drama set in Lebanon about a Lebanese man taking a Palestinian refugee to court over an incident in which the Lebanese man provoked an insult from the Palestinian.  The courtroom battle spills over into a giant media circus as the case gets nationwide attention and the population takes sides according to their political beliefs.  It was well acted and directed but I had a tough time relating to the story as the premise seemed somewhat farfetched to me.  Most people would settle such an incident privately.  And of course not being from the Middle East it is hard to relate to the cultural differences that would exist among the ethnic groups in Lebanon.  The Insult received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language film.

Mother Mary

Mother Mary     4 stars

I can’t say that Mother Mary by director David Lowery was not what I expected, since I went into the movie without first knowing anything about it. I can say that it is not about what you would think after viewing the first half of the movie and that it defies categorizing in any specific genre. We start out seeing the pop icon, called Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway (The Devil Wears Prada)) on stage at a stadium filled with screaming fans as the voice of someone else is heard expressing hate filled thoughts lambasting the object of their contempt. Mother Mary is a huge pop star a la Madonna or Lady Gaga, who is typically dressed in the most elaborate costumes one can imagine. But she has experienced a sort of nervous breakdown on stage that went viral, and now she feels she is not able to perform for her next gig because the dress designed for her does not feel right. So, she seeks out her former fashion designer, Sam Anselm (Michaela Coel (Chewing Gum, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever)) who was a close friend until a few years earlier. Sam now lives on a large English country estate where she is arranging a show for her work. Mary asks (or begs) her to make a new dress for her show in only three days. Despite being occupied with her own show, Sam agrees but only after making a few passive aggressive remarks to her desperate former friend, revealing how she felt betrayed by Mary. In her enormous barn that serves as her workshop, Sam and Mary have a very long discussion about what the dress should be like that takes up to half of the movie. But this discussion is not really about a dress at all. It’s about two people expressing their pain over a damaged relationship, just as the movie is not just about a pop star and a fashion designer. These two actresses perform the roles expertly, bringing an ever-increasing feeling of pain to the screen. As they delve into the past with previous performances of Mary’s played out on screen, the entire mood of the film changes and it becomes more of a psychological thriller, eventually blowing up into a nightmare. We find out that the two have even more in common than a past friendship. Let’s just say that there is a mysterious creepy presence and that a séance is involved (featuring the artist FKA Twigs). There will be chance for healing but only after the two suffer through some intense pain. David Lowery is previously known for a movie called A Ghost Story, about a couple that shares a connection. This gives a clue as to what Mother Mary is about. The pair of Anne Hathaway and Michaela Coel couldn’t be better matched to play their roles opposite each other. Both are top notch actresses. And it doesn’t hurt that some of the music was written by British pop star Charlie XCX. Hathaway is presently featured in The Devil Wears Prada 2 and Coel is starring in The Christophers, now in theaters. So, there is opportunity to see more performances of both!

At Eternity’s Gate

At Eternity’s Gate            4 stars

At Eternity’s Gate is director Julian Schnabel’s portrayal of painter Vincent Van Gogh through the last years of his life, when he produced some of his best paintings.  This film stars Willem Dafoe as the master painter in a truly outstanding role.  The story is not told as a typical biopic however, as it includes some very artistic expressions of the emotions that Van Gogh experiences in his life.  Some of these methods may turn off some viewers, but they certainly are imaginative.  Despite the troubles that Van Gogh has, the movie tries to show us the great optimism he has as he tells how he feels about nature and how it can lead people to meaningful experiences and bring us together.  It also shows how he was misunderstood which led to his being placed in an asylum for a period and the alternate theories surrounding his mysterious death.

Diane

Diane                                    4 ½ stars

I happened upon Diane purely by accident as I was intending to see something different but was foiled in getting to the theater on time.  Diane is a low key movie starring Mary Kay Place as a sixty something woman living in a rural area who selflessly looks after the well-being of those around her who are in need, whether they be sick friends, the poor needing to be fed at the soup kitchen or her drug addicted adult son whose life is a wreck.  At the same time she loathes those who could make their lives better but refuse.  While Diane appears to be a saint there is something in her past that she clearly regrets and has not gotten over how she wronged someone close to her.  This movie is something you don’t see very often in film, a serious treatment of a person from rural America as a realistic subject.  I really got the feeling that this was a real person going through some very troubling times, thanks to the very realistic and emotional performance by Mary Kay Place.  The film was aided by some outstanding performances by the supporting cast as well.  If you run across this film in your search for movies don’t pass this one up.

Long Shot

Long Shot                            3 stars

It has been a long time since we’ve had a good rom-com at the movies.  This week’s offering of Long Shot attempts to address that drought and goes a long way towards succeeding.  The movie stars the beautiful Charlize Theron as Charlotte Field, the youngest Secretary of State in US history and the wildly comical Seth Rogen as an out of work sharp witted journalist named Fred Flarsky who crosses paths with the Secretary at a big Gala.  Remarkably, the two have a shared past that involves a shockingly amusing episode when the two were only teenagers.  The Secretary then pitches to Fred the idea of hiring him as a speech writer which he then accepts which leads to more awkward situations.  Since this is a Seth Rogen movie there are plenty of sight gags, awkward sexual encounters and some serious drug use.  As this is also a political comedy, there are gags involving world leaders and celebrities that are based on some pretty absurd circumstances, such as, the president wishing to leave after a single term to pursue a movie career.  (But then in these times we live in who am I to claim something is absurd.)  Although it has its funny moments, it doesn’t quite measure up to the comedy I’m used to seeing in an episode of Veep.  One sign of the film’s shortcomings is the use of actors for the roles of TV news anchors instead of casting real anchors to play themselves.  I felt that would have helped it to look a little more authentic, like other political comedies have done.   One surprise in the film is the casting of Andy Serkis as Parker Wembley, a wealthy billionaire and media owner seeking to influence the politicians to favor his personal political views.  He was amusing and completely unrecognizable.