Tag: movies

Movie Review: Beginners

The Jack Russell terrier got the best lines.

If you like your movie to start at the beginning and end at the end, you’ll hate Beginners.

Let me back up. Around the 4th of July, when the Wife and Daughter went to visit my parents-in-law, I asked the Wife what films she wanted to see together, and she picked Midnight in Paris and Beginners. Then a couple of weeks later, she said, “Guess what film I saw at the movies today? ‘Beginners’.”

OK. So I ended going alone on a hot Sunday afternoon to the Spectrum Theatre, using an old movie pass I discovered in a drawer not that long ago.
Beginners is the story of Oliver (Ewan McGregor), who is still mourning the death of his father Hal (Christopher Plummer). It was only after Oliver’s mother dies that he gets close to Hal, who, at the age of 75, finally came out of the closet and enjoyed his final years. Oliver meets the mysterious Anna (Mélanie Laurent) and wonders if he can devote himself to loving her with the same wild abandon that his father showed at the end. Goran Visnjic also plays a significant role.

A fair portion of the movie involved young Oliver, in flashback (Keegan Boos) dealing with his quirky mother Georgia (the wonderful Mary Page Keller).

I really cared about these people. That’s probably a function of writer/director Mike Mills, who was mining his own experiences. It’s billed as a comedy/drama, and it did have a few good laughs; the Jack Russell terrier got the best lines. It certainly wasn’t raucously funny, and it is a bit oddly uneventful in parts. And for reasons known only to me, I kept thinking that McGregor looked a lot like Jason Bateman in some shots. Beginners is an uneven film. but it has enough insights to mildly recommend.

MOVIE REVIEW: Midnight in Paris

I loved Woody Allen’s pictures. Annie Hall is my favorite, but I’m also fond of many other of his films from the 1970s and 1980s. But at some point, somewhere in the mid-1990s, they became really hit or miss for me. Now I only go if they are reasonably reviewed. So when last year’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger got mediocre reviews, I just passed on it, unseen. Bad Woody is painful Woody, because it really reminds me of what was.

So when Midnight in Paris got some positive feedback, I got the Wife to go to the Spectrum Theatre for a Tuesday night show; the Daughter was at the grandparents’ house.

And I loved it. The Wife loved it. This is my favorite Woody film since perhaps Purple Rose of Cairo. But I have a difficult time talking about it because the less you know, the better it’ll be.

I will say that Midnight in Paris is about an engaged couple, Gil and Inez (Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams) visiting Paris. Gil is a hack Hollywood writer who wants to create something more substantial and is finding his current location serving as his muse. Her friend Paul (played wonderfully by Michael Sheen) defines “pedantic”. Carla Bruni, the first lady of France (pictured with Wilson and Allen), adds context as a tour guide.

But the best parts are driven by Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody, and a group of actors I was unfamiliar with, especially Corey Stoll as Ernest. Not to mention Marion Cotillard, who I last saw as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, who plays a pivotal role.

This isn’t exactly sunny Woody, but it is engaging Woody, an evolving Woody, or Woody proxy in the surprisingly believable Wilson, whose sole voiceover early on could have been spoken by the writer/director 30 years ago. The film also LOOKS brighter than most Allen films, which works here.

A lllooonnnggg quiz from Sunday Stealing

My best friends I met the first day of kindergarten and the first day of college.

Which Jaquandor did a lllooonnnggg time ago.

1. Tell us who the last person that you took a shower with.

The Wife.

2. Tell us about your favorite tee shirt. Extra points if you show a pic. (We know. What can you do with freakin’ extra points?)

This is one of the T-shirts I got for becoming a Coverville citizen. The model, BTW, is Coverville host Brian Ibbott’s wife Tina. I also like the red one with white text that says, “Not the real thing,” a parody of the Coca-cola message.

3. Has anyone ever hit on you even though they knew you were taken?

Actually, yes, though not in years, thank goodness.

4. Do you plan what to wear the next day?

Generally not. I’m pretty decisive, though, in the morning.

5. How are you feeling RIGHT now? Why?

Hot. The spring went from too cool to too hot in about three weeks.

6. What’s the closest thing to you that’s black?

The computer mouse.

7. Tell me about an interesting dream you remember having.
Continue reading “A lllooonnnggg quiz from Sunday Stealing”

MOVIE REVIEW: Bridesmaids

Annie’s mom was played by the late Jill Clayburgh, and that made me a little sad as well.

The Wife and I have been to but one film since February, that being Made in Dagenham in April. It wasn’t for lack of movies we’ve wanted to see, but rather a lack of people to watch the child.

So when we had the chance to finally go on our (not-quite-) monthly date Saturday afternoon, July 2, we decided to go to the movies. I was surprised to discover that my demure bride chose Bridesmaids, which was on my list, especially since it’d been around for a while.

After dropping off the Daughter at a friend’s house, we went to the 12:35 pm showing at the Spectrum in Albany. The Spectrum is more an art-house theater but it shows mass-market films too, to balance the bottom line.

I should note that of the three movies in preview, the one I’d most like to see is Buck, which is a true story of a horse whisperer.

As for Bridesmaids, it was not really what I expected. It was a Judd Apatow film, so I anticipated it to be gross, but it wasn’t as raucous as I assumed. Or maybe I’ve gotten inured to it. The most tasteless sequence actually made some sense in the context of the movie.

Annie (Kristen Wiig, who co-wrote the screenplay, along with Annie(!) Mumolo) is a young woman with a failed business, weird roommates, a dead-end job she got because of her mother, and an unsatisfactory relationship (an uncredited Jon Hamm). But her BFF Lillian (Saturday Night Live alum Maya Rudolph) has gotten engaged, and Annie’s the maid of honor. She soon gets into a competition with Lillian’s much newer friend Helen (Rose Byrne), from which much of the comedy ensues.

The real revelation here is Melissa McCarthy. My wife and I watched seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, where she played the sweet friend Sookie, but my wife did not recognize her here as the take-no-prisoners sister of the groom, Megan. She was probably the best part of the picture. Not incidentally, the guy she sits with within the plane sequence, one of the funnier parts of the film, is played by Ben Falcone, Melissa’s real-life husband.

Mostly though, I thought that Annie was sad, and she was having a nearly movie-long pity party. Not that I didn’t think she was “real”, only that she wasn’t that much fun to be around. Or maybe it was me. Somewhere near the end, a couple of women behind us were laughing hysterically over something in the film, to which I said, as Annie might have, “Really?”

Also, Annie’s mom was played by the late Jill Clayburgh, and that made me a little sad as well.

Still, I “cared” about many of the characters, and I liked the ending. I’m glad I saw it, though I think my wife liked it better than I did.

X is for…

We all have at least one X chromosome.


I marvel at the versatility of the letter X.

It can be used as a signature that is printed in lieu of an individual’s signature…”Typically, individuals sign their full names when executing legal documents. Sometimes, however, individuals use only their initials or other identifying marks. For illiterate, incompetent, or disabled people, this mark is often the letter X. Documents signed with an X sometimes raise questions as to their validity and enforceability.”

Related, the X refers to a kiss. “The first mention in the literature of XXX for kisses at the bottom of a letter was in 1901, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The X itself is very old.

“The custom goes back to the early Christian era when a cross mark or ‘X’ was the same as a sworn oath. The cross-referred to the cross of Calvary and the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Xristos.” (Which is why Xmas does not bother me in the slightest; it actually has sacred roots.)

“Even as little as a hundred and fifty years ago, not many people could read or write. The ‘X’ at the bottom of a document took the place of a signature. They would kiss the ‘X’ as a crucifix or bible was kissed to emphasize the importance of the mark. It was this practice that led to the ‘X’ representing a kiss.”

Yet, X-rated is “vulgar, obscene, or explicit in the treatment of sex: an X-rated novel; X-rated graffiti.”

X is an algebraic meaning ‘unknown quantity’ (1660 in English). Yet X also means the specific, known location of the buried treasure; “X marks the spot.”

Finally, HISTORIANS of mathematics attribute the first use of the cross x as a symbol for multiplication to William Oughtred (…London, 1631).

And since we all have at least one X chromosome, one could argue that we all are unknown AND knowable, sacred AND profane.
ABC Wednesday – Round 8

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial