Death to Smoochy 2002
109 minutes Robin Williams is a tired
and cynical host of a popular network show for kids. He gets fired for taking a bribe from a
father, who wants his kid featured on the show.
Smoochy played by Edward Norton in a purple rhinoceros suit is the
idealistic young entertainer who replaces
Robin. Smoochy is a real goody
two shoes and so naïve that he starts taking advice from an unscrupulous agent
played by Danny Devito. He also manages
to replace Robin in the affections of Nora, a hard-boiled network programming
executive played by Catherine Keener – we need to see more of her. By accident Smoochy befriends a punch drunk
ex-boxer, and the boxer’s Irish crime family is so grateful that they protect Smoochy
from the bad guys who want to exploit him, and the show goes on –
idealistically.
.
Divergent 2014
139 minutes Sometime in the
future when, as usual in the film future, the world has been devastated,
society in a city that looks a lot like the ruins of Chicago is divided into
five factions, Abnegation, for the selfless; Amity, for the
peaceful; Candor, for the honest; Dauntless, for the brave; and Erudite,
for the intellectual. Once a year at a
coming of age ceremony called Choosing Day, 16 year olds must choose a faction,
and the decision is irrevocable. They
usually choose the faction in which they grew up, but they may choose
another. Beforehand they are given an
aptitude test. Beatrice grew up in the
Abnegation faction, but she doesn’t feel like she is a selfless person. When her test results are inconclusive, the
tester tells her never to share these results because it makes her a divergent . Divergents are troublesome to this totally
organized society and are killed or cast out to live in the streets without the
support of a faction. She chooses
Dauntless and thus begins the path toward overthrow of the factional
organization of society. It’s based on a
first novel, and while it may not be George Orwell, it’s pretty good.
Double Jeopardy 1999
105 minutes Ashley Judd plays Libby,
a happily married woman with a son about 5.
Her husband is a wheeler dealer who is about to go broke, so he fakes
his own murder and makes it clear that Libby did him in. There’s a payout from a million dollar life
insurance policy, which Libby turns over to her son’s nanny and asks her to
raise him, while she’s in prison. While
still in prison Libby figures out that her husband is still alive and that she
was framed, tried and convicted for a murder that never happened. When Libby is paroled to a halfway house in
San Francisco run by Tommy Lee Jones, she tries to get in touch with the
Nanny. She’s disappeared with the boy
and the husband. Libby starts to search
and soon figures out that her husband has murdered the nanny and changed his
identity again. In her search, she violates
the conditions of her parole and becomes a fugitive with Jones in pursuit. He catches up with her in New Orleans just as
she has located her husband. She
threatens to shoot the husband if he doesn’t give her her son. She can do this without repercussions because
she has already been convicted of killing him.
He concedes, but as she turns to leave, he pulls a gun. Jones shoots him. (It was a clear case of self defense, but I was
left wondering if it were otherwise, could Jones have been tried for shooting a
dead man?)
.
Draft Day 2014
110 minutes This is Kevin
Costner at his best in a part he clearly loves.
He plays Sonny Weaver, the Cleveland Brown’s general manager, on draft
day. It’s the smartest wheeling and
dealing you are ever going to see as he parlays the number 6 first pick into
the number 1 pick plus two other first round picks. He gets the defensive end and the running
back he wants and passes on the quarterback who was supposed to go first. Sonny had a good quarterback and he figured
out that the new guy, despite his college record, wasn’t going to make it big
in the NFL. Among other things, he
learned that none of the quarterback’s teammates came to his heavily publicized
21st birthday party.
.
Killing Kennedy 2013
90 minutes I haven’t read Bill O’Reilly
and Martin Dugard’s book, so I can’t blame them for this turkey. It was shot for the National Geographic
Channel in 18 days and looks it. We all
know the story, and I think it rates something better than a low budget film,
so maybe this should have just stayed on TV.
Rob Lowe as Kennedy looks great, better than the original, but nothing
else works. I did learn a few things about Oswald. No wonder the Soviets didn’t want him.
Kingdom of War: Part
I 166 minutes and Part II
165 minutes This was a lot to
sit through but so strange it was almost worth it. In production terms it looked a lot like epic
films 50 or 60 years ago. The scene is 16th
C Burma where a young Siamese prince, Naresuan, spends his youth as a hostage
learning the art of war. He learns his
lessons well and in Part II King Naresuan the Great leads the Siamese people in
a revolt to free their country from Burmese control.
.
The Secret life of
Walter Mitty 2013 114 minutes
Danny Kaye was great in the original and Ben Stiller is at least his
equal in this remake, but very, very different.
Life Magazine is preparing its
final weekly issue some 40 years after it actually shutdown in 1972, and the contractor
who will fire most of the staff is already on site. Stiller is a photo editor and for years has been
the backup for a famous but reclusive life photographer played by Sean Penn, although
he has never met him. Penn has sent a
message to management that no. 25 on the last role he sent in is his
masterpiece which should go on the final cover.
Stiller can’t find it and sets off to find Penn. Kristen Wiig, looking gorgeous and somewhat
flaky, after all it’s Kristen Wiig, helps him figure out where to go to find
Penn: Greenland, Iceland, Afghanistan
and Tibet. It’s a great trip involving a
helicopter flight with a drunken pilot, a dip in the North Atlantic not far
from an iceberg, Stiller showing his mastery of the skateboard, an escape from
an erupting volcano, a telephoto shot of a snow leopard and a pickup game of
soccer with some sherpas. In Life’s offices in the movie, one sees
framed blowups of Life covers. They’re fakes. And the real last weekly cover had no
picture. In large type it said “The Year
in Pictures 1972.” Instead it should
have been something like the last picture in this movie.
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