Actors: Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Tony Randall, Thelma
Ritter
Rating: 9 out of 10, my journey with childhood crush
Doris Day continued with arguably her best film. This iconic film holds up extremely well over
five decades later. The chemistry
between Day and Hudson is palpable which is certainly a tribute to Hudson’s acting
ability. There was even a scene, so much more memorable
now with the hind sight of the intervening years, where Hudson feigns homosexuality. This movie actually takes other chances as
well which makes it all the more enjoyable. A professional woman in the 1950’s and the
beginning salvoes of the loosening of views on sex that came with the 1960s
among other themes. It provides a very interesting glimpse back in
time where there were party lines and completely different societal mores. I really liked the split screens which are
used extensively and Hudson
tries to first confound and then win Day.
This technique as well as the entire movie was spoofed in Down With Love
but here it’s a lot of fun. That is the bottom
line with this movie, its still very funny and a complete treasure.
MVP: Rock Hudson
as Brad Allen defining himself as the complete leading man of the 1960’s rom
com (little did we know)
Actors: Doris Day, James Garner, Chuck Conners, Thelma
Ritter, Polly Bergen
Rating: 8 out of 10, a true guilty pleasure movie
from my youth. I was wandering through
Amazon and happened upon some Doris Day movies from the 1960s and this one
brought back some nice memories. I put
it on my wish list and my dutiful daughter promptly rewarded me with it as a
birthday present. It hearkens back to a
more innocent time but it stands up well and is still incredibly funny. Day plays Garner’s wife who reappears from a
5 year spell as a castaway thought dead just in time to thwart Garner’s
marriage to Bergen. Light hearted fun and it even has the
Rifleman – Chuck Conners in a small role. I was fascinated with the back story
which I was unaware of. Apparently this
script was originally meant for Marilyn Monroe and they actually started
filming with her. She was fired for
unprofessionalism and died several months later so this was her last screen
work (still hot). The extras on the DVD
are fascinating because they show several of the scenes with Monroe and then compare them to the Doris Day
version. At the same time Fox was
shooting the Monroe version they were also
pumping ungodly amounts of money into the Liz Taylor Cleopatra movie which was
causing all kinds of financial problems for the studio at the same time Monroe was fired. It offers an intriguing look into the Hollywood of the early
1960s.
MVP: Doris Day as Ellen Wagstaff Arden proving
herself as the once and always queen of rom-coms.
Actors: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Martin Sheen,
Sally Fields, Rhys Ifans, Dennis Leary
Rating: 9 out of 10, when this first came out I
really questioned why because of the excellent Toby Maguire series (at least
the first two). I guess there was a lot
of scuttlebutt in nerd world that the earlier films got some things wrong but
nothing that made me think a new series was needed this soon. I’m sure a lot of it came from the success of
the Batman re-boot. As I stated when I
saw this in the theaters – I was very pleasantly surprised by this film. It all has to do with casting because there
isn’t a miss in the entire cast here.
The lead, Garfield,
who was so impressive in The Social Network, strikes just the right amount of
humor, wonder, and angst as Peter Parker.
The real revelation though is Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy who completely
elevates her role out of the mundane and becomes an equal partner to
Parker. I really appreciated the way characters
weren’t all completely good or evil – it leant a lot more depth to the
story. The plot was well done and moved the
action at a brisk pace without losing sight of the fact they had a story to
tell. This was a huge set up for future
sequels and given the quality of this offering I’m more than ready for those.
MVP: Stone – another in a long series of stand out
performances who makes Gwen so much more than just a pretty face – but she’s
got that going for her too
Actors: Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Alexandra Roach,
Harry Lloyd, Iain Glen
Rating: 7 out of 10, a Netflix rental that took a
very close look at one of the iconic figures of the later 1970s and 1980s, Margaret
Thatcher. She was Britain’s
Ronald Reagan and accomplished a lot of the same things for which she was pilloried
by the left leaning film industry. This
is a much more subtle look at her historic accomplishments and Streep totally
owns this role – is there anything she cannot do? The flashback technique was well done for the
first half of the movie but wore me down in the second half. This seemed to be a very honest appraisal of
her battles against the rigid class structure of British society that is so
prevalent but rarely talked about. The
supporting cast (many of them refugees from the Game of Thrones series) was fantastic,
especially Broadbent as the often maligned but solid Dennis Thatcher. I especially liked the scenes showing her
origins and her fight up the ladder. In the
end I felt the film fell a little short because it couldn’t decide what it
wanted to do – attack her, lionize her, or show the price she paid with her climb. The best part of the movie were some of her
quotes which rang true and could serve as a great indictment of today’s
political arena which seems more about form than substance.
MVP: Streep, the greatest actress of her
generation, convincingly portraying Lady Thatcher
Actors: Will Farrell, Mark Walberg, Michael Keaton,
Ray Stevenson, Dwayne Johnson, Samuel L. Jackson. Eva Mendes
Rating: 8 out of 10, this was a movie I had avoided
seeing because I thought it was another lame rip off like so many “parody”
films that try to capture the magic of Airplane or the Naked Gun (when it was still
funny). My son insisted I borrow his
copy of the movie and I snuck in a viewing (my wife hates Will Ferrell for some
unknown reason). I was so glad he had me
watch this because this is Ferrell back in his Anchorman and Talladega Knights
realm where he is so funny. This film really
works and is so funny because the actors (great cast) play the insanity straight. Walberg plays an able foil to Ferrell’s
understated accountant type and is showing a flair for comedy. There are several gags within gags such as a
truly heroic Prius and Ferrell’s impossibly hot wife, Eva Mendes. The small parts played by Johnson and Jackson
as the epically super cops had me literally rolling on the floor. The plot is only semi-important and mildly
incoherent, especially the last quarter but this movie is about getting as many
jokes onto the screen as possible, and that’s not a bad thing. A nice little comedy that works because of
the acting.
MVP: Ferrell, as Detective Gamble, playing the
understated psycho only as he can
Actors: Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Charlize
Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce, Logan
Marshall-Green
Rating: 9 out of 10, a movie that was hotly
anticipated as Ridley Scott returned to science fiction and to the Aliens plot
line. This was truly an epic movie as the
scope was just immense bridging the time from the origin of life on earth to
the distant future. Some sci fi fans are
bemoaning the lack of direct connection to the Alien movie but they are there
if you look and this plot direction made more sense in that it preserves the
secrecy of the planet where the Alien is eventually found by Ripley. Speaking
of Ripley, Noomi Rapace definitely lived up to Ripley’s credentials as the lead
actress. Anytime a character self-administers
abdominal surgery and then still goes out to the fight certifies her as a
genuine bad ass. I really liked this
movie but there were a couple of issues.
The plot is sailing along and then ¾ of the way through the movie
changes directions radically, becoming the story of Pearce’s character instead
of Rapace. This was kind of jolting and
not necessary. The story also severely underused
Theron which is criminal in its own right.
Great movie with tremendous scope and set up for the sequel where Rapace
will seek out the engineers. Fassbender
continues his streak of superb characters as the slyly evil cyborg who loses
his head (really his body). If you didn’t
see this on the big screen you missed out – a true epic.
MVP: Elba as the sardonic
and ultimately heroic captain, small part but it made it important
Actors: Robert Downey Jr., Scarlet Johannsen, Samulel
L Jackson, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Jeremy Renner, Tim
Hiddleston
Rating: 10 out of 10, that rare film that totally
lives up to the hype surrounding it and despite the remarkable special effects
present, it is the actors that make this movie. Joss Whedon must be some kind of genius
because this movie totally worked. These were serious actors playing silly
characters and by playing them straight – the entire movie was a treasure. How he was able to weave the story so that
each character had his or her own story line and screen time was astounding. I worried there was too much going on to be
coherent but that is certainly not the case.
When you consider the number of major characters and plot lines involved
and the fact that it still works so well – I am dumbfounded. This movie is a sci fi, action junkie’s
(guilty) ultimate high. I liked the way
Whedon was able to get CPT America and Black Widow involved in the action even
though they didn’t have the same level of super powers as some of the
others. Johannsen again demonstrated
that she is a lot more than just a pretty “face”. Ruffalo stands out with his almost sardonic
take on Bruce Banner. The Hulk has the
best moments in the entire movie when he sucker punches Thor and then disabuses
Loki as to his divinity. This was a
dream team of actors who sublimated their egos to produce a real treasure – as goofy
as the premise is, this was a great movie.
MVP: Ruffalo as Bruce Banner subtly finesses the anguish
of Bruce Banner
