Keeping up with the Joneses

Actors: Zach Galifianakis, Jon Hamm, Isla Fisher, Gal Gadot, Patton Oswalt

Rating: 6 out of 10, It’s the typical plot where a suburban couple has a pair of super sexy secret agents move in across the street. You first have to accept that Zach Galifinakis could have ever scored Isla Fisher as a wife which does call for the suspension of a lot of disbelief. The women in this movie are so much better than the men. Gal Gadot is carving out a nice niche for herself as action hero and Fisher absolutely dominates a low cut dress. The rest of the silly plot was forgettable.  

MVP: Fisher and her wardrobe are the best thing about the movie

The Graduate

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Katharine Ross, William Daniels, Murray Hamilton, Elizabeth Wilson, Buck Henry

Rating: 9 out of 10, Quite possibly one of the best movies ever made. I never appreciated Nichols’ camera work until watching this again after many years. It’s a perfect insight into the waning years of the 1960s as a recent college graduate returns to his upper middle class home and languishes with no plan or prospects. He’s soon drawn into an affair with the wife of his father’s business partner. This has some of the funniest lines ever as Dustin Hoffman awkwardly fights well above his weight with Anne Bancroft as the immortal Mrs. Robinson. The movie takes a serious turn when Hoffman falls in love with his lover’s daughter and begins a hopeless quest to win her over. The final church scene with the swinging cross and doubt filled bus ride are eloquent comments on the times it portrays.

MVP: Anne Bancroft as Mrs. Robinson, evil and sexy

Life of Emile Zola

Actors: Paul Muni, Gloria Holden, Gale Sondergaard, Joseph Schildkraut, Donald Crisp, Erin O'Brien-Moore

Rating: 7 out of 10, A gift from a friend when I revealed this was the lone Oscar Best Picture winning movie I had never seen. It’s an interesting look at the life of Zola, known to most of the non-French speaking world for his involvement in the Dreyfus affair. It struck me as interesting, given the time frame this movie came out, just before World War 2. It is decidedly anti-military and almost 1960ish with its railing against the military-industrial complex. I enjoyed this very long movie which really crackles when Zola is summoned to a courtroom to defend himself against the French military. The film is dated, it came out eighty years ago, but it still speaks to the importance of truth and fighting the good fight.

MVP: Muni as Zola, hard to believe anyone else was in this movie

Born Free

Actors: Virginia McKenna, Bill Travers, Geoffrey Keen, Peter Lukoye

Rating: 8 out of 10, Another favorite from my youth telling the true life story of Elsa the lioness and the Adamsons who returned her to the wild after raising her as a pet. One of the best film scores ever along with the incredible nature photography make this more than worth seeing and it has aged well. I fell hopelessly in love with Virginia McKenna when I first saw this which may have sent me down a troublesome trail of absolute fascination bordering on worship of English ladies later in life, but I digress. It’s a great story beautifully told.

MVP: McKenna, of course, as Joy Adamson starting me out on English gals

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

Actors: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Patrick Heusinger, Aldis Hodge, Danika Yarosh and Holt McCallany

Rating: 8 out of 10, I’ve gotten over the initial rage I felt when I heard the pint sized Tom Cruise was playing the behemoth character of Reacher because Cruise did such a good job in the first film. He’s back in form here but this doesn’t resonate as well as the first. They drag in a potential daughter which wasn’t needed and added an unnecessary plot line. We don’t need to see Reacher’s softer side. He’s around to kick ass and take names. He gets to do the requisite amount of that and is ably assisted by Colby Smulders who apparently picked up some skills from her Avenger time. So not as good as the first one but that’s usually the case. Cruise at least doesn’t besmirch Reacher’s reputation and this should lead more people to read the books where they’ll meet the “real” Reacher. So this is, in fact, a public service film.  

MVP: Smulders as Maj Susan Turner the perfect female foil to the implacable Reacher

A Christmas Story

Actors: Peter Billingsley, Melinda Dillon’ Darren McGavin

Rating: 9 out of 10, A recent addition to my movie collection as I strive to own all of the favorite movies of my past. Anyone who doesn’t like this can be officially labeled as a bona fide Grinch. The film centers around Ralphie who longs to receive an air rifle as a Christmas present despite the legion of adults who warn that he’ll put his eye out. The story is told through the memory of the adult Ralphie with the whimsical exaggerations of the nine year old version of himself. I loved McGavin as the apoplectic father doing battle with the family furnace and the pack of neighbor’s dogs. It’s an ode to the schmaltzy, yet bone deep truths of family at Christmas and couldn’t we all benefit from seeing that.

MVP: Billingsley as the very focused Ralphie

Mechanic: Resurrection

Actors: Jason Statham, Tommy Lee Jones, Jessica Alba, Michelle Yeoh.

Rating: 7 out of 10, In the sequel Statham is transformed into an international man of mystery globetrotting around to arrange deaths for the villain holding his girlfriend hostage. He is in full Transporter mode and his stunts are worth the price of admission. Jessica Alba plays the love interest with absolutely no chemistry with Staham. I don’t know how someone as hot as Alba can come across as almost asexual on the screen. This is Staham back in his action personae which means bring a lot of body bags as the bad guy had a seemingly endless, target rich stream of cannon fodder to be mowed down. Tommy Lee Jones was criminally underused. I liked this for the action, exotic locales, and the occasional Alba bikini shot but I think it’s safe to say it will be assiduously ignored come Oscar time.

MVP: Statham as the very dangerous Arthur Bishop

A Few Good Men

Actors: Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, Wolfgang Bodison, James Marshall, J. T. Walsh, Kiefer Sutherland

Rating: 9 out of 10, I think this is the first film where I realized Cruise was a very good actor to go along with his action credentials as he holds his own in one of the most electrifying scenes in movie history with the iconic Jack Nicholson. The real star of this film though is the script which is smart, funny and a little self-important. I cringed a couple times at the extreme license taken with the military backdrop but it was too much fun to distract. The supporting cast is very good with Demi Moore before she became a caricature of herself and Kevin Pollack as Cruise’s conscience. The movie is worth watching in its entirety merely for that final confrontation in the courtroom.

MVP: Cruise as Lt Kaffe, defending two lone Marines against their commander

Torn Curtain

Actors: Paul Newman, Julie Andrews, Lila Kedrova, Hansjörg Felmy, Tamara Toumanova, Wolfgang Kieling, Ludwig Donath, Günter Strack, David Opatoshu

Rating: 8 out of 10, Another trip back to nostalgia with one of Hitchcock’s lesser known 1960s efforts. I got the impression Hitchcock and Newman didn’t get along well because Newman is almost a forgotten piece even though he’s the lead actor. He plays an American scientist (bit of a stretch there) who seemingly defects behind the iron curtain while trailed by his confused fiancé, Miss Andrews. While some of the spy craft seems puerile by today’s standards it’s an interesting view back to the days of my youth when the cold war was an omnipresent fact of life. 

MVP: Julie Andrews exuding star power was the loyal but puzzled girlfriend Sarah