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:

Nonna's Review: Glee: the 3D Concert Movie

Review: Glee: The 3D Concert Movie

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 60%

Audience: 70%

If you like the TV show, go see the movie. It's as simple as that. The cast stays in character and sings some of the best songs they've performed over the past years.

And that's when the film is in top form -- not when it's playing documentary concert film and interviewing fans to show how affirming the TV show has been for kids who don't feel they fit in and admit they have big "Ls" on their foreheads. Those add-on stories just don't work -- even though Glee's message every week is that same affirming, love-who-you-are theme. More singing and dancing would have been better.

Each cast member gets his or her moment in the spotlight. Some more than others. I really wanted to see more of Chris Colfer. At least he sang "I Want To Hold Your Hand." The small audience with whom I saw the film made it even more fun: very vocal teenagers, who obviously had crushes on several cast members, squealed, sang along, and clapped spontaneously with gusto. I even spied one of the finalists in The Glee Project, Damian, in the crowd. I do hope that's a good sign because I think he'd be a great addition to the cast with all his Irish charm.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: The Help

Review: The Help

Rating: ***1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 73%

Audience: 93%

I actually liked it better than the book. I was prepared for disappointment, but the movie surprised me -- primarily because of a very powerful performance by Viola Davis as Aibileen, a woman who suffers with dignity. There is already Oscar buzz about Davis's performance. She doesn't have to say anything to convey the hurt, anger, and sorrow she feels as a black woman serving the needs of spoiled, clueless, racist white women in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s.

Some have criticized this film (and the book) because it doesn't portray the mindless, vicious violence perpetrated on blacks in the south fifty years ago. I can't agree with that criticism. That's not the kind of vile racism this film depicts. Instead, it illustrates the subtle, genteel racism of privileged white women who would never think of pointing a gun at one of their servants. Instead, they denigrate these women, assume they're diseased, accuse them of thievery, exploit them financially, deny them their families, prevent them from getting an education, give them unlimited access to children they've come to love, and treat that relationship as meaningless. And all for only one reason: they can. Yes, it's as if the 13th Amendment had never been passed.

There are funny moments in this movie. There are little triumphs, but, when all is said and done, there remains injustice masquerading as Christianity. All in all, it's horrific.

Octavia Spencer as Minnie delivers a fine performance as a woman who is mad as hell and won't take it any more. Emma Stone (Skeeter) is the amanuensis of this group of Southern black maids poised to step into the complex second half of the 20th century.

Movies have been pretty horrible this summer. Along comes one worth watching -- and talking about.

Nonna's Rating

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price

$$$ = Worth paying the Matinee price

$$ = Worth a rental

$= Wait for cable

# = Skip it

Review: Crazy, Stupid, Love

Review: Crazy, Stupid, Love

Rating: **1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$

Rotten Tomatoes: 75%

Audience: 86%

Crazy, Stupid, Love is a ** movie, but earns another half star when compared to other recent romantic comedies -- most of which have been formulaic, predictable, and boring. At least this film surprises us. Steve Carrell (Cal), who currently owns "sweet, lovable guy" roles, Ryan Gosling (Jacob), and Emma Stone (Hannah) all portray characters more authentic than those generally seen in romantic comedies. The supremely talented Marisa Tomei (Kate) could have been just as authentic but her over-the-top (over-directed?) performance is out of sync with the rest of the film. There was one very sour note at the end of the movie which spoiled the film for me. Not wishing to give the scene away, I only note that an older underage girl gives a gift to a younger boy which is, well, just inappropriate.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Seven Days in Utopia

Review: Seven Days in Utopia

Rating: **

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 9/2/11 Release Date

Audience:

I attended a screening of Seven Days in Utopia on August 4. Pastors and church leaders were invited. All I knew was that the film starred Robert Duvall (Johnny Crawford), Melissa Leo (Lily), and Kathy Baker (they're reason enough to attend) -- and that it was about golf. The acting was excellent. Duvall, as always, gave a subtle, nuanced performance. Leo and Baker did their best with mediocre material. Lucas Black, who plays a young golfer who has recently experienced a competitive meltdown, held his own with these stars and managed to be endearingly charming.

But the story just didn't work for me. Too formulaic, too similar to films like Bull Durham, The Legend of Bagger Vance, and Karate Kid; i.e., promising young athlete receives invaluable instruction from wise, seasoned veteran. Also, Lucas Black's character (Luke Chisholm) transforms effortlessly in a matter of seconds from a total jerk having a meltdown to a pleasant, humble guy willing to go along with Duvall's eccentric tutorial. Pretty unbelievable -- as was his all too easy reconciliation with his controlling father/caddy at the end of the film.

Finally, the movie was being promoted as a "Christian film"; however, I thought the Christian elements were tangential and included praying before meals, going to church, and generally being very kind and respectful to one another. Nothing to complain about, but the heart of the movie really is Johnny Crawford's seven step process to self-mastery (here applied to golf) which is more standard self-help fare than a Christian-based rule of life .

Instead of paying to see this film, rent Bull Durham.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Horrible Bosses

Review: Horrible Bosses

Rating: **1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$

Rotten Tomatoes: 69%

Audience: 82%

It's not a great comedy version of Strangers On a Train. It's not even as good as Throw Momma From the Train, but it has enough hilarious moments and wildly funny performances to make it worth watching. Three guys, trapped in their jobs, have horrible bosses. Jason Bateman (Nick Hendricks) suffers under the manipulative tyranny of Kevin Spacey (Dave Harken) at his nastiest -- a real tour de force. Jason Sudeikis (Kurt Buckman) loves his job at a family run firm -- until the patriarch dies and his coke-addled son who is bent on destroying the business takes over (an almost unrecognizable Collin Farrell as Bobby Pelitt). Charlie Day (Dale Arbus), a recently engaged dental assistant is terrorized by his dentist boss Dr. Julia Harris (Jennifer Aniston in a role that may save her from playing sweet girls next door in formulaic romantic comedies in the future.)

The three working schlubs decide their bosses need to be removed from the face of the earth. They engage the services of Jamie Foxx (another spot-on performance), whom they imagine to be a street-wise hitman. It all goes south from there. The film drags in the middle, but the dialogue is more clever than average and the audience spent a good deal of time laughing out loud. It's not for everybody: lots and lots of four-letter words and plenty of sexual and gross-out humor.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Another Year

Review: Another Year

Rating: ***1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 92%

Audience: 75%

Jim Broadbent (Tom) and Ruth Sheen (Gerri) play an older, comfortable, still-very-much-in-love couple with a grown son Joe (Oliver Mortman). The film covers four seasons of a year in their life, seasons in which they are visited repeatedly by Mary (Lesley Manville) a close friend who does clerical work in Gerri's psychotherapy office.

Tom and Gerri are the strong center of the story. Mary revolves around them: divorced, aging, desperate, and drinking too much. Gerri tries to fix her up with another friend, Ken (Peter Wight), but Mary is repulsed by this older, mess of a man who also drinks too much. Instead, she flirts with Joe, twenty years her junior and is devastated when Joe, to his parents' delight, brings home the girl he just might marry.

Not much happens over the course of the year. Things stay pretty much the same for Tom and Gerri. And Mary just continues her downward spiral. Superb acting sustains the film. The performances are almost too real -- especially Mary's. And just when I thought, "Wait. Gerri is a psychotherapist. Why is she enabling Mary's alcoholism," Gerri gently made it very clear to Mary that she would no longer play the non-confrontational ever-patient, tolerant friend.

Nothing much happens in this film. Nothing is resolved Life just goes on for another year.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Biutiful

Review: Biutiful

Rating: **

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 63%

Audience: 75%

Biutiful is the painful story of a dying father's love for his children. It's a mess of a movie, but Javier Bardem's performance is so compelling and so devastating, it almost redeems the film.

Bardem plays Uxbal, who dwells with his family in the slums of Barcelona. He is willing to do anything for his children -- and he does, living on the margin in a world of crime and danger.

And he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer -- news he keeps from his children as he does all he can to protect them from their mother, his bipolar, abusive ex-wife. It's a gritty, difficult film to watch except for Bardem's amazingly expressive face.

It was easy to forget I was watching a movie star on the screen -- to believe it was a documentary about a tragic family from Barcelona.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Barney's Version

Review: Barney's Version

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 79%

Audience: 78%

If you ask people who won the Golden Globe for best actor in a motion picture this year, most of them won't get it right. After all, it was Colin Firth's year for The King's Speech, wasn't it? Actually, Paul Giamatti, the Robert De Niro of his generation, won the award for this film. It's based on Mordecai Richler's 1997 novel of the same name and centers on a man, Barney Panofsky who meets the woman of his dreams at his marriage to his second wife. It sounds a bit like Heartbreak Kid, the 1972 version with Charles Grodin and Cybill Shepherd -- but it's that and so much more.

There are fine supporting performances in this movie from Minnie Driver (Mrs. P. No. 2) and Dustin Hoffman (Barney's dad Izzy), but it is Giamatti who carries the film. He brilliantly portrays all the highs and lows of 30 years of Barney's life.

Barney is an exasperating man given to eruptions of altruism and generosity, a fascinating man come to life through the gifts of Paul Giamatti.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Cedar Rapids

Review: Cedar Rapids

Rating: **

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 85%

Audience: 71%

Ed Helms of The Office plays Tim Lippe, an insurance agent from small town Wisconsin who is incredibly naive. He has never traveled out of the state, never stayed in a hotel, and hasn't had much of a love life. So, off he goes to a convention in the big city--Cedar Rapids. There he falls in with what might be called "bad company": John C. Reilly (Dean Ziegler), a wild and crazy party animal, Anne Heche (Joan Ostrowski-Fox), and Isaiah Whitlock, Jr. (Ronald Wilkes). They are all intent on breaking Tim in on the lampshade-wearing world of insurance conventions. Predictably, Tim plays along and gets in and out of trouble. Finally, all ends happily in the best of all possible worlds. It's a little movie for a quiet evening. If you enjoy Ed Helms' portrayal of sweet, innocent characters, you'll like this one.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: The Adjustment Bureau

Review: The Adjustment Bureau

Rating: **1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$

Rotten Tomatoes: 72%

Audience: 68%

Because Matt Damon and Emily Blount always manage to make any film they're in a bit more interesting, this movie is definitely worth watching. On top of that, it's based on a Phillip K. Dick story -- which, more often than not, forms the basis for a clever, innovative movie (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Screamers). Adjustment Bureau is no Blade Runner, but it manages to deal with theological issues in an action-packed way. In the film, we are confronted with a puppet master of Fate, possibly God, who predetermines and meticulously plans the destinies of human beings.

The story focuses on David Norris (Damon), a politician running for U.S. Senate who meets Elise Sellas (Blount), seemingly by chance, and wants desperately for most of the movie to get to know her better. The problem is that the master plan doesn't include their having a relationship. Norris thwarts the plan and becomes aware of the behind-the-scenes Adjustment Bureau, a group of suited, fedora-wearing "caseworkers" who ensure the plan is executed. With John Slattery as Richardson, the caseworker-"angel"-in-charge, the Fate-corps seem to be a cross between the Matrix people and the Mad Men people. So, rent this one for a quiet evening at home -- or pull out your DVD of Blade Runner. It never gets old.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Jane Eyre

Review: Jane Eyre

Rating: ***1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 83%

Audience: 82%

After 22 versions of Jane Eyre, do we really need another one? Most critics consider the 1943 Joan Fontaine version definitive, but this one gives it stiff competition. It's a Jane Eyre for the 21st century which preserves the Gothic moodiness but offers us a realistic young Jane (Mia Wasikowska) and the sexual tension that clearly exists in the original novel but which has been systematically ignored in most versions. Wonderful performances abound in this film. Perhaps Michael Fassbender is "not quite" Rochester, but he comes awfully close. Not to be missed by fans of Bronte's novel and Masterpiece Theater.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Super 8

Review: Super 8

Rating: **1/2

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 80%

Audience: 80%

My son Pete loved this movie. In 1979, the year in which the film is set, he was about the same age as the children in the movie. He went on and on about the music, the nostalgic artifacts, and product placements. As I said, he loved it. My grandson Max also enjoyed the film. He thought the "monster" was terrific. As for me, I was mesmerized by the train crash at the beginning, but I soon lost interest. In the end, the film is just Goonies meets E.T meets Alien, terribly derivative.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Larry Crowne

Review: Larry Crowne

Rating: *

Nonna's Rating: $

Rotten Tomatoes: 36%

Audience: 51%

So disappointing. How could two fine actors like Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts work so well together in a movie like Charlie Wilson's War -- and be so abysmally mismatched in Larry Crowne. How can people lose "chemistry"?

That's just one of the problems with this movie. It's also poorly directed (Mr. Hanks) and poorly written (Mr. Hanks again with Nia Vardalos). Is Hanks' life so separate from those of mere mortals that he's forgotten what it's like to lose a job, go to school, and fall in love? The characters are two dimensional and watching the film feels as if we're peering into an alternate, flattened universe. Finally, two good actors are absolutely wasted: Taraji P. Hensen and Bryan Cranston. And even George Takei, Pam Grier, and Rita Wilson could have been better used. It's a mess. Don't bother.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it

Review: Beginners

Review: Beginners

Rating: ***

Nonna's Rating: $$$

Rotten Tomatoes: 82%

Audience: 81%

Take two charming actors, Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor, mix in Melanie Laurent (Inglorious Basterds) and a photogenic Jack Russell Terrier, and you have, by definition, a better than average movie. McGregor plays Oliver, a a very sad 38 year old man whose father has recently passed away.

Through flashbacks, we come to know Oliver's story. His mother and father were married for 44 years. His mother has died five years before; at that time, his father (Plummer as Hal) came out of the closet after years of being surreptitiously gay. This new-found honesty has become the basis for strengthening the relationship of father and son. Hal, however, has died of lung cancer a few months before Oliver meets Anne (Melanie Laurent). The movie's portrayal of the sadness that can pervade a life after the death of a parent is sometimes painfully realistic, but not cloyingly so.

The film focuses on how Oliver and Anne learn to love one another; how each becomes an adult capable of commitment. The film's not perfect. The subtitles for the dog's thoughts are a bit much, but all in all the actors o a fine job of convincing us they care deeply about one another.

Nonna's Ratings:

$$$$ = Worth paying the Friday evening price
$$$= Worth paying the Matinee price

$$= Worth a rental
$ = Wait for cable
# = Skip it