Review: Letters to Juliet

Review: Letters to Juliet

Rating: *1/2

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 45%

There's nothing really horribly wrong with this movie, but there's nothing really wonderfully right either. The plot is entirely predictable; the scenes of Tuscany are predictably breathtaking. Amanda Seyfried and Christopher Egan as the young lovers are disappointingly bland; Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero as the old lovers are nostalgically charming. It's basically a Lifetime movie with a few inspired moments from Redgrave. Think of what she might have done with some pithy dialogue!

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: City Island

Review: City Island

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 84%

Not too many people have seen this film, but it's a gem. It's the kind of film you'll come across on a cable station a few years from now. You'll watch it and wonder how you managed to miss hearing about it when it was in theaters.

It's about family. It's about a very dysfunctional family. They live on City Island, a part of the Bronx that floats in Long Island Sound. I've passed by it dozens of times traveling from La Guardia into Manhattan, but I've never noticed it. Vince Rizzo (the oh-so-competent Andy Garcia) is a guard in a correctional facility who yearns for a different life. His wife Joyce (the always appealing Julianna Margulies) is less than happy with the state of their marriage. Their children have issues. For a reason I will not divulge, Vince brings Tony Nardella (Steven Straight), a prisoner, home where he will remain in his custody. Hilarity, confusion, and near tragedy ensue. By the end of the film, all have learned, all have changed, all is well. The plot is reminiscent of Down and Out in Beverly Hills from 1986: a stranger enters a family and transforms their lives. That film is, of course, a remake of Renoir's movie, Boudu sauvé des eaux (Boudu Saved From Drowning). Moliere would have liked this film.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Kick-Ass

Review: Kick-Ass

Rating: No Stars

Nonna's Rating: #

Rotten Tomatoes: 76%

Kick-Ass was simply one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Don't waste your time. Hyper-violent children just don't do it for me. We can't excuse this as cartoon fantasy violence. It's much too real and over the top. The movie is disturbing on so many levels. Please, don't see it.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Where the Wild Things Are

Review: Where the Wild Things Are

Rating: ****

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 73%

Every once in a while a movie appears that simply transcends the art form. I could pick this film apart. Analyze it. Talk about some excellent performances. Comment on the music so perfectly in tune with the story--but I don't want to. This is one of those films that asks you to just be in "the now." Don't think about it. Don't try to figure out what's going on. Just be.

Be a child who hasn't been behaving very well. Be a child with a wild imagination. Be a child who loses himself to fantasy. Be whimsical and marvel. Live in a time when reality was flexible and controllable -- to a point. We are, all of us, after all, not so far from being wild things.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Rating: ***1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 85%

So, let me give you the warnings first. 1) The film is in Swedish and subtitled; 2) It's long --more than two and a half hours long; 3) There are scenes of sexual violence that are all too real -- some images may haunt you.

Now, if I haven't scared you away, go see this film. Noomi Repace, who plays Lisbeth, the female lead, owns the film. If you've read the novel on which the movie is based, it's difficult to imagine anyone else playing this complex, mercurial character. She's a powerful young woman, but early in the film, we watch as she is trapped in a web of sexual harassment by a man on whom she is totally dependent for her livelihood. The man's behavior is horribly mundane, but Lisbeth's ultimate response is not. She's a survivor who seizes her power and uses it to move her life relentlessly forward.

On top of all this, there's a mystery to solve. Lisabeth and Mikael, a journalist, delve into the question of what happened to a 16-year-old member of one of Sweden's biggest industrial families forty long years before. Tension builds and the mystery becomes a thriller. It's a stunner.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: How to Train Your Dragon

Review: How to Train Your Dragon

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 98%

Find a movie that will please a five-year-old boy who likes plenty of action, a twelve-year-old boy who may be on the verge of being too sophisticated for feature-length cartoons, and a grandmother (of no specified age) who has had her fill of movies replete with scatological humor and aimed at children. Find that movie, and you've got a winner -- and the critics and millions of families do seem to agree.

Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon boasts a solid story and plenty of action. Hiccup, a Viking youth, is something of a disappointment to his father, the leader of his village. Hiccup is clumsy and not particularly adept at hunting dragons in the usual way. However, he cleverly manages to bring a Night Fury dragon down, but he can't bring himself to kill it. Instead, he begins a tentative relationship with the dragon he dubs Toothless, a mesmerizing creation (powerful and menacing with a face like a benign house cat). Needless to say the two or them learn a great deal from each other and Hiccup helps his village learn to live in harmony with the powerful dragons they had previously feared. Beautiful animation.

(We saw the film in 3-D. My grandson Max and I agreed that we would have enjoyed it just as much without the special effects.)

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price
$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it