Review: The Artist

Nonna's Rating: $$$1/2

Rotten Tomatoes: 98%

Audience: 90%

What a lovable movie! How lucky we are that the filmmakers who had the notion to bring back the silent movie decided to focus on the early years of Hollywood and populate the film with charming, emotive actors and one very talented dog. So, it's been done -- and I don't think it can be done again successfully any time soon -- even with an entirely different subject. This is a film that should be seen in the theater where we can give it our full attention. At home we are given to distractions, pauses, and multitasking. It deserves better.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: Melancholia

Nonna's Rating: $$$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 78%

Audience: 71%

This movie is not for everyone. You are either going to love it or hate it -- and maybe walk out of it. The film is visually stunning but difficult and uncomfortable to watch. I've never seen a movie quite like it. I'm not giving too much away to say that the film begins with an apocalypse and then retraces the events leading up to the cataclysm. However, the movie that unfolds underscores the ambiguity of that end-of-the-world scene. Is its subject the apocalypse? Or is it one woman's depression? Whatever you decide, the film will haunt you long after you've seen it.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: The Adventures of Tin Tin

Nonna's Rating: $$$1/2

Rotten Tomatoes: 74%

Audience: 78%

The Adventures of Tin Tin was most definitely the best animated film of 2011 -- yet it wasn't even nominated in that Academy Award category. Nevertheless, it was thoroughly engaging and reminiscent of the first Indiana Jones movie: nonstop action, well-paced with an engrossing story line. The animation is stunning with its extensive use of motion capture. Within a few minutes of the beginning of the film, I had forgotten I was watching a cartoon. Andy Serkis as Captain Haddock is especially notable. Several reviewers suggested he should be nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Spielberg delivers a stunner in this film. Don't miss it. It delights both children and adults.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: Young Adult

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 81%

Audience: 58%

I'm beginning to suspect that when movies are so uniformly mediocre (as they were for most of last year), film critics conspire to give better-than-deserved reviews to some films in order to make sure people keep going to movies and they still have jobs reviewing them. I suspect Young Adult is one such film. Charlize Theron does a decent job portraying the main character, Mavis Gary, a hometown high school honey who has moved away to the big city -- Minneapolis -- and is the envy of all those who stayed behind. But Mavis has a problem: she's an alcoholic who has never outgrown the mean girl inside of her. She decides to go back home in order to seduce her high school boyfriend, now happily married with a new baby. The film attempts to be a black comedy, but it doesn't measure up. When all is said and done, it's just sad and shallow, and Mavis remains the same depressed, drunk woman she was in the beginning.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: War Horse

Nonna's Rating: $$

Rotten Tomatoes: 77%

Audience: 73%

Many movie critics have made the point that this film harks back to the golden days of Hollywood storytelling. Indeed, it made me think of How Green Was My Valley. But that comparison unfortunately calls up all the flaws in this well-meaning film. I disagree with some critics who have said today's audience just cannot abide such a slow-paced film. This movie is not just slow-paced; its pacing is off and it's boring. Somehow we never connect with the characters; their relationships with one another aren't compelling at all. I wasn't even moved by Albert's (Jeremy Irvine) relationship with his horse Joey. The cinematography of the film has been praised, but I find fault even with that. It's very derivative -- again of the great narrative films of the late 30s and 40s. There is one scene near the end, back on the farm, which is back lit by the setting sun. The sky is shot with orange clouds. It's pure David O. Selznick Gone With the Wind schmaltz.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 93%

Audience: 85%

It is what it is -- a very well-executed, very entertaining action movie. Who of us doesn't go to the movies every once in a while just to be guilelessly entertained? Amazing stunts and an interesting plot make this film delightful from beginning to end. And Tom Cruise, no longer the boy of Risky Business, defies aging by performing his own stunts.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: The Descendants

Nonna's Rating: $$$1/2

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

Audience: 91%

Without George Clooney, The Descendants wouldn't have garnered much notice, let alone be nominated as Best Picture. Clooney brings his ability to portray an ordinary, sincere guy convincingly to this movie. He manages to capture the angst of being a father raising daughters who have swum beyond his ken, the angst of being a husband cuckolded by his wife who recognizes the role he has played in her disaffection, and the angst of the hope and despair of waiting for someone to die in a hospital in the 21st century. He's honest, he's goofy, he's at loose ends. The film is finally remarkable in that it celebrates the ordinary moments of life, those that can pass us by without our noticing how filled with glory they are. Clooney's character learns to stop and notice.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: Margin Call

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 89%

Audience: 74%

I'm always a bit amazed when people who don't work 9 to 5 in cubicles in gray-walled offices portray the people who do -- so very well. And Kevin Spacey is such a master of the genre. He does a fine job here again. But there are other performances which deserve mention for their accuracy, their subtlety, and just how recognizable they are: Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Simon Baker, Mary McDonnell, Stanley Tucci, and yes, even Demi Moore. The film expertly explores the ethical and moral decisions of people developing squirmy investment vehicles at a unnamed New York firm.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: Hugo

Nonna's Rating: $$$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 93%

Audience: 82%

Hugo was the best movie I saw this year. Generally, critics liked it, but relatively few moviegoers saw it. I predict it will be one of those films about which, ten or fifteen years in the future, we will say, "How did people not flock to this movie? Why didn't they see what we see?" I have many reasons for my love of this film: 1. It's about movies; the birth of film. 2. It's impeccably directed by Scorsese. 3. The child actors, Asa Butterfield as Hugo and Chloe Moretz as Isabelle carry the film well. And Asa's blue eyes are riveting in 2D or 3D. 4. The 3D is so integral to the film and appropriate to the meaning, I lost my awareness of it and just enjoyed the movie. 5. The other actors, especially Sacha Baron Cohen, Emily Mortimer, Jude Law, and Ben Kingsley only add to the film. 6. And finally and most importantly, a magical story full of wonder helps us rediscover why we love to sit in large dark rooms with strangers and gaze at flickering patterns of light on a silver screen.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: My Week With Marilyn

Nonna's Rating: $$

Rotten Tomatoes: 83%

Audience: 79%

Kudos to Michelle Williams who is one gutsy girl -- doing her best to reanimate Marilyn Monroe in 2011. She almost does it -- which is saying a lot -- in this engaging film based on Colin Clark's memoir of the time he spent as 3rd Assistant Director (a gofer) on The Prince and the Showgirl -- a 1956 film directed by and starring Lawrence Olivier. If you've never seen it, I don't recommend you do. There is absolutely no chemistry between the two stars. Olivier is too old and Marilyn is too Marilyn.

There are several other notable performances in My Week: Kenneth Branagh nails Lawrence Olivier; Eddie Redmayne as 23-year-old Clark couldn't be more charming; Judi Dench as Dame Sybil Thorndike gives another impeccable Jude Dench performance; Julia Ormond as an aging Vivien Leigh is convincingly desperate and sad; and Emma Watson (Hermione!) shines in a small part which is a promise of things to come.

It's easy to say that Williams just doesn't have the body to pull off Marilyn Monroe -- of course what female star in the 21st century does! What's missing is more than a body though: it's that magical, ineffable, no-way-you-can-pin-it-down, essence of Marilyn.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip It

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 87%

Audience: 89%

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo repeats the Swedish version almost scene for scene. It actually sticks closer to the book, but that doesn't make up for its biggest problem--Rooney Mara who plays Lisbeth. She's competent and does a decent job, but Noomi Rapace, the Swedish Lisbeth, brings subtlety and complexity to the character that Mara doesn't even approach. Rapace expertly conveys a deeply troubled young woman who is capable of extreme violence and resolve, yet vulnerable and easily wounded. Rent the Swedish film.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip It

The Best Movies I've Seen This Year

1. Hugo, 2. Melancholia, 3. The Artist, 4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II, 5. The Descendants, 6. Jane Eyre, 7. Tin Tin, 8. Moneyball, 9. The Guard, 10. The Help,

Honorable Mentions in No Particular Order

A Better Place, Carnage, Dangerous Method, Albert Nobbs, Sarah's Key, Another Year, Barney's Version, Beginners, Win Win, Margin Call

Review: Martha Marcy May Marlene

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 90%

Audience: 74%

Martha Marcy May Marlene is a disturbing movie. I realize I'm not going to be particularly analytical, logical, or objective about this film. It's well made and well acted, a psychological thriller that does not belong to the realm of "this-could-only-happen-in-the-movies." What is particularly disturbing is the ordinariness of the of the main character, a young woman who slips in and out of a "family" which, at the beginning, has somewhat benign similarities to what might have been the early days of the Manson family. Evil resides at the center of this film. Not evil as depicted in the devil movie genre or evil as portrayed in thrillers about murderous psychopaths, but elemental evil: the darkness we might all be capable off; the darkness we choose to rise above. If you watch it, be with someone you can talk to afterwards.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip It

Review: Anonymous

Rating: *

Nonna's Rating: #

Rotten Tomatoes: 47%

Audience: 61%

I love a good Elizabethan romp with great costumes, plenty of dancing, and a touch of the Bard. But I was wary of this movie. It dug up the theory, long-buried by reputable scholars of English Literature, that Shakespeare didn't write his plays.

I decided to go to the movie with an open mind. After all, Shakespeare himself embellished and shuffled historical characters in his own plays -- and we still love them. At first, I was caught up in the Elizabethan fun. I kept reminding myself that it was just a fiction, but then, near the end of the film, there were truly preposterous revelations about the Earl of Oxford and Elizabeth I that simply burst the fragile bubble that the movie had become. It was, in short, a waste of time.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip It

Review: The Ides of March

Rating: **1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$

Rotten Tomatoes: 85%

Audience: 75%

Ides of March is well made, but you've seen it too many times before. Watch The Candidate again with Robert Redford to see it done extremely well the first time. In spite of that, individual actors' performances are excellent. George Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and the always amazing Paul Giamatti do a fine job. I'm afraid though, that films about political shenanigans can't keep up with the real life circus in Washington and the Governor's mansion in Illinois.

I must note, however, one magnificent scene late in the movie which takes place at a Roman Catholic funeral service. The church used is actually Episcopal -- Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, MI. And the fine actor playing the R.C. priest (although he has no lines and just sits there looking R.C.) is my friend Gary Hall, former Dean and President of Seabury Seminary.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip It

Review: Contagion

Rating: *

Nonna's Rating: #

Rotten Tomatoes: 84%

Audience: 62%

What were critics thinking when 84% of them gave this film a positive review? It's embarrassingly bad in spite of considerable star power: Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Bryan Cranston, and Elliott Gould! It's the story of a lethal virus which first appears around Hong Kong and which Gwyneth manages to bring to the U. S. on a flight from Hong Kong to Chicago. So, we watch some stars die and some survive. Too often the story line strains credibility. It's a mess.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip It

Review: Moneyball

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 94%

Audience: 87%

PACR ("pitchers and catchers report"). It's music to my ears. I do love the game of baseball, so it's not surprising I loved this film. However, my movie buddy Linda also loved it, and I doubt she's ever watched a game from beginning to end. Only Aaron Sorkin could write dialogue about statistics that would be absolutely fascinating. Brad Pitt as Billy Beane, the General Manager of the Oakland A's, and Jonah Hill as Peter Brand, his statistician, are the heart of the film and deserve their Oscar nominations. Phillip Seymour Hoffman's performance as Art Howe, the team's manager, is spot on and largely ignored by the critics. It's a delightful film, filled with true wit.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip It

Review: Sarah's Key

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 73%

Audience: 84%

Until this film, I had never warmed to Kristin Scott Thomas's acting, but she delivers an excellent, convincing performance in this movie. Based on a popular novel I have not read, the story revolves around Julia Jarmond (Thomas), an American journalist who discovers and investigates an old secret guarded by her French husband's family. The shameful story involves the removal of Jews from Paris in 1942 by French police in response to a Nazi decree. Julia's investigation leads her to discover truths about herself as well as truths about the secret.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip It

Review: The Guard

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Audience: 82%

A story about murder, blackmail, and drug-trafficking set in rural Ireland and replete with humor and surprises. Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is the marching-to-his-own-drummer cop, and the always watchable Don Cheadle is straight-laced FBI agent Wendell Everett. It's a marvelous film, although, I must confess the Irish accents had me straining to catch the nuances of the dialogue. I'm looking forward to being able to watch it with English subtitles. Gleeson very much deserved his Golden Globe Best Actor nomination for this film.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip It

Review: The Debt

Rating: **1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$

Rotten Tomatoes: 76%

Audience: 68%

This espionage thriller about Mossad secret agents moves back and forth in time to tell the stories of three operatives. The plotting and the story are passable; what makes it truly worth watching are the two sets of agents: when-we-were-young (Jessica Chastain, Sam Worthington, and Marton Csokas) and when-we-were-much older (Helen Mirren, Ciaran Hinds, and and Tom Wilkinson).

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: The Woman in Black

Rating: **

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 63%

Audience: 66%

I'm not a fan of haunted house or horror films. I just don't get a kick out of being scared. I was hoping this one would change my mind. It didn't. Daniel Radcliffe plays a Victorian father of a little boy mourning the death of his wife. He's a solicitor and is sent to a remote village to settle the affairs of a deceased client. The moody Victorian setting is fine and Radcliffe does a decent job playing a serious, if rather small, adult. Other fine British actors round out the cast. But Radcliffe spends most of his time walking around the client's brooding, cobwebbed mansion. Every once in a while, his strolls are punctuated by some ghost or other's white, bloody face with dripping black eye makeup. This is always accompanied by dramatic and loud music. It was boring and not at all scary.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Catching Up on Reviews

I've neglected this blog much too long, but I haven't neglected the Regal, 7 Bridges, Yorktown, or Glen theaters. So, I'm going to offer some thumbnail reviews. I must confess I don't even remember a few of the films on this list very well. Better forgotten. Here goes: