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