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TxMike
Reviews
One Life (2023)
What an 'army of ordinary people' can accomplish.
This is a true story of real events in Prague right before the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 to start what became WW2. Nick Winton was a London businessman visiting Prague in 1938, what he witnessed floored him. Hundreds of people, including small children, barely surviving in squalor. He asked "How can we get them all to safety in England?" He was told it could not be done.
This is the story of what Nick did, with the help of many others that he recruited. The number of children directly rescued is 669. But it is estimated that 6000 people are alive today as a result of Nick's efforts.
This is a very good movie, not only is the story an important one, it uses top-notch actors and is made very well, alternating between 1930s England and Prague, and 1987 and 1988 England. It shows how otherwise ordinary people can band together to accomplish extraordinary things.
My wife and I watched it at home on DVD from our public library.
Immaculate (2024)
Religious theme horror story set in an Italian convent.
I like Sydney Sweeney, she is attractive but more and more is showing her acting chops. Here she also is a producer, and she stars as Cecilia, a young Michigan girl who recovered from a frozen lake near-death experience. She has decided, now that her own little church community has become defunct, to become a Catholic nun and travel to a convent in Italy.
I don't usually watch horror movies, they rarely interest me and I went into this one unsure. But with Sweeney I figured I'd give it a try. Aside from extended scenes of too long episodes of screaming, for the most part it kept my interest.
CAUTION - FOLLOWING ARE SPOILERS...
Cecilia wasn't there long before she started witnessing very strange things. Some may have been dreams, others maybe not. Shortly, in spite of never having been with a man they find out she is pregnant. With the doctor even affirming that her virginity was intact when she arrived. So naturally the other nuns began to think it was going to be a modern day virgin birth, perhaps a new coming of Christ.
But the truth is they had an original spike from the crucifixion and it had very slight traces of blood residue. So they built a lab and had been experimenting with the goal to impregnate an innocent young nun to produce a new Christ clone.
In the end, after several struggles and a few deaths Cecilia goes through the catacombs to find a way out, her water had broken, now she delivered a "baby." They only show us a blurred image on the ground but the noises coming from it are not a human baby. My best interpretation is that she delivered a devil child and had to make sure it didn't survive.
At home, on DVD from my public library. My wife skipped, not her kind of movie.
My Spy: The Eternal City (2024)
Mixed bag, some drama but too silly for my tastes.
I watched the 2020 version of "My Spy" and enjoyed it a lot as fun entertainment. This one features JJ and Sophie again, she is now 14, and the story involves a school chorus that gets an invitation to perform in Rome at the Vatican. There are of course crooks, pretty much the same type of crooks we always see in movies like this. There is the suspicion that small, portable nuclear devices will be detonated during the crowded celebration.
On the positive side I enjoyed all the main characters and most of the scenery is very attractive. One of my favorites over the years has been Anna Faris and I almost didn't recognize her as the brown-haired crooked mastermind. But overall I was disappointed with the whole movie. The writing is very uneven, while plenty of it is nice and tame, there are also sections with unnecessarily rude language. Then there are the scenes that are designed to be funny but I didn't find them funny at all.
I watched the whole thing but never really got invested in the story. It just didn't come across as a very good movie.
At home, streaming on Amazon Prime.
Lessons in Chemistry (2023)
Elizabeth Zott hosts "Supper at Six."
I like this series, to me it is almost flawless in the story arc and how it depicts the realities of the times. Here is why my connection to the show is so strong.
First, I am a Chemist (retired now) and I really enjoy spending time in the kitchen and experimenting with new things. My wife is grateful, she doesn't have to cook much at all and she enjoys my cooking.
However, going back farther in time, I started my career as a Chemist in a lab back in the 1960s. Yes, a few years after this 1950s story but with many of the same issues. In a large research lab we had no female Chemists, we had female lab technicians. When a female engineer needed to do work in the plant she had to get special permission from the plant manager to wear pants. In general female employees of all ranks were expected to wear dresses or skirts.
Then there is the case of my beloved high school Chemistry teacher. She finished college in the late 1940s, right after the war, she was bright and diligent but could not get a job as a Chemist, men were hired for those jobs. So she did what Elizabeth Zott did, found something else. In her case it was teaching high school Chemistry. And I do recall that she also included some cooking hints.
It makes me wonder how the younger generation react to a show like "Lessons in Chemistry", maybe they think it is exaggerated fiction. It is NOT, it very closely parallels what the scientific world really was like the 1950s and 1960s.
I really enjoyed Brie Larson's characterization of Elizabeth Zott, and the other actors are fine too. Kudos to Lewis Pullman, I had never seen him in a real featured role and he is really good.
For me, one of the best mini-series I have watched, interesting and entertaining from the first episode to the last. My wife and I watched it at home, two episodes a night for four consecutive nights. She read the source book first, as usual there are changes but she enjoyed the 8-part series as much as she enjoyed the book.
Land of Bad (2024)
Damn good military movie, good resolution.
This involves a "war" that is not really a war. It is the Philippines, a team of four is assembled for a nighttime helicopter para drop. Their mission is to encounter a known criminal and either capture him or neutralize him.
Not part of the air drop, Russell Crowe is in the key role as an Air Force Captain. He is an old-timer but still only a Captain, probably because he has a tendency to buck authority when he feels a need. His job is to work as a remote drone operator, and the arrange for additional air strikes when necessary. So he basically has a desk job, but a critical one.
Nothing about the mission on the ground goes right and it quickly turns into a rescue mission. The Captain ends up playing the most critical role in achieving a rescue in a very difficult situation.
There is a good human interest element, the youngest of the strike mission is also the most inexperienced and the other members treat him as such. But he experiences the most personal growth and ultimately is the key person on the ground to facilitate the rescue.
Even though he is now 60, and about 200 pounds overweight, Crowe shows that he is still one of the best in the acting profession. He is really good here.
My wife and I watched it at home, streaming. We found it to be a bit better than would have settled for. In some ways it has a "Top Gun: Maverick" feel to it, the way things develop and the rescue is facilitated.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
Welcome to Hollow Earth, perhaps Kong's new home?
By now these Godzilla and Kong movies are just trying to do one thing ... make a profit. Which is understandable, writers, actors, and post-production specialists need work to pay their bills.
While there are several human-centered stories, the main focus is the mostly unexplored Hollow Earth where mysterious signals are originating. The main portal (similar to wormholes in the universe) is in Barbados and when their special craft makes it down there we see a beautiful world full of greenery and unique animal species. But more important a previously unknown indigenous people, and some previously unknown ape-like species. (I found myself wondering, where do the light and shadows come from?)
The human interest stories are fine but the real focus is on the giants, mostly Kong and the apes trying to kill him. There is a bit about Godzilla, he pretty much destroys most of Rome before he curls up for a nap in the coliseum, but he seems mostly a distraction.
Everything is so far-fetched with action overload that after a while I found myself a bit glazed over. I can't help watching them but I really hope this is the last one.
The sound track is remarkably good, it gives your home theater surround sound and subwoofer quite a workout. At home on DVD from my public library, my wife skipped, she has watched enough of these sorts of movies.
Finding You (2020)
Violinist goes to Ireland to find her musical voice.
This movie stars Nashville native Rose Reid (20 during shooting) as violinist Finley Sinclair. As the movie starts she has an audition for a music school but is turned down. (Not shown in the movie, but included in the trailer, she is told her playing is technically good but it lacks emotion.)
Her brother had gone to Ireland for a semester of study so she decides to follow in his footsteps, the host family was still willing and, in fact, now owned and operated a bed-N-breakfast hotel near Dublin.
Part of the story involves Canadian actor Jedidiah Goodacre (30 during shooting) as Beckett Rush who happens to be a star of a series of action movies and very popular with the younger girls. He by chance is seated next to Finley on the flight over, she had no idea who he was until she noticed his picture on the cover of the in-flight magazine. There is friction right away which, in this type of movie, means they will become love interests.
As the script also dictates they also end up staying at the same place so there is plenty of time for interactions. Although he is successful and wealthy, his father manager is a thorn, looking forward to more roles and income at the expense of his son's happiness.
The movie is interesting (thanks Emily and David for the recommendation) and entertaining but at almost two hours is a bit long. It drags some in the second half due to several issues being addressed, including a dying older woman trying to reconcile with her younger sister and Finley facilitating it.
The trip to Ireland was fruitful for Finley in several ways, one was getting with an older Irish fiddler who helped her find her musical voice. Plus Ireland is beautiful and the cinematography accentuated that.
At home, streaming on Prime.
Irish Wish (2024)
Irish love story with a supernatural element.
I would consider this Lindsay Lohan's return to legitimate entertaining movies. She has had a very rocky road since her turns as a young actress in such movies as "The Parent Trap" and "Freaky Friday". In this one she is also an Executive Producer. It is a clean movie and in many respects made along the lines of a typical Hallmark Movie.
She plays Maddie Kelly, a writer who mostly works as an editor for a popular writer. They get a chance to go to Ireland for a wedding and, while she is walking around the beautiful countryside, comes upon a stone bench. It turns out to have some magical powers, someone appears and is able to grant her wish.
The wish, instead of making everything better, ends up doing the opposite. So, much of the second half of the movie is making things right.
Honestly, I didn't expect this to be good, my wife and I only watched it because the first movie we started wasn't good at all. We were surprised, pleasantly, it is a more interesting and entertaining movie than we expected. Lohan, now in her late 30s, is good.
At home, streaming.
Nowhere Special (2020)
Single dad's efferts to find a new home for his 4-yr-old son.
This is an interesting movie. Nothing much happens, it is a situation and character study, rooted in reality.
The writer director read in the news about a situation. A man had a small child and the mother had abandoned them. Then the man learned he had an advancing form of brain cancer and he had only a few months to live. Thus he needed to find suitable adoptive parents for his young child, with the help of local agencies.
He was unable to find out any more than was reported in the news, because of privacy laws. So starting with what he knew, he fashioned a fictional story on the subject.
The movie was shot in Northern Ireland, in the Belfast area. The father, John, is a 30-something window washer, mostly hired by homeowners with multi story homes that require ladder and squeegee to wash the windows. He has an old car and gets about with extension ladders secured to the roof. His Russian wife had abandoned them when the baby was only a few months old.
His young son is 4-yr-old Michael, a very bright boy, not fully understanding the situation.
My wife and I watched it at home on DVD from our public library. It is an interesting watch, mainly seeing how John processed all the information and the types of families that were seeking to adopt.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire (2024)
A continuation, and bringing back a few original cast members.
This newest installment of the "Ghostbusters" series features mostly younger generation actors. However they are able to bring back many of the original cast, at least among those who survived. It was especially nice to see Bill Murray back.
For me the most interesting was Mckenna Grace as Phoebe Spengler. The young actress got onto my personal radar when she was about 10, starring in "Gifted" where she played a Mathematics prodigy with a very ordinary single dad, after her Mathematics genius mother died young.
Here she is a teenager just getting her skills honed as a Ghostbuster but she is still too young. However in the end she manages to provide the key assistance that enables them to capture the new "Frozen Empire" ghost.
All in all a nicely entertaining fluff of a movie for anyone who has an appreciation of the older GB movies. My wife and I watched it at home on BluRay.
The "extras" are interesting, instead of trying to use the original Station 8 in New York City, they created an exact replica on a sound stage in Los Angeles, and used blue screen on the outside to make it look like it was in New York.
The Long Game (2023)
Based on the true story of unlikely golf champions in the 1950s.
I enjoyed this movie. I was predisposed to because of the parallels in my own life in the 1950s in a small southern town. The nearest golf course was 30 miles away so I built my own clubs from old broom sticks and pieces of 2X4 lumber. I built a small course in our long back yard. At one point my dad bought me a 9-iron and a few real balls. Finally in 1962 I made it to the course, I played with a borrowed set of clubs, it was the beginning of 60+ years of golf for me.
So these rural Texas kids, of Mexican parents, had a similar affinity for the game. Five of them worked as caddies at the local "whites only" country club. But they wanted to play the game so they spent leisure time crafting their own rough golf course, using balls they scavenged after hours and discarded golf clubs.
A new school superintendent who loved golf showed up for the new school year, he too of Mexican ancestry, found out about the five boys, and began the quest to form them into real golfers. Plus dealing with the racism of the time and overcoming it to grow into fine young men.
While the characters and the story are true the screenplay was built from a book written after extensive research and interviews. So it is authentic to the real 1950s story but of course includes fictionalized scenes and dialog to make it an entertaining movie. Much of the movie was shot in the nearby towns of Smithville and Bastrop in the areas west of Houston.
It is a well-crafted and entertaining movie. My wife and I, both avid golfers, enjoyed it, streaming at home.
The Beekeeper (2024)
Clever movie, the beekeeper protects the hide.
The opening of this movie, before any action begins, we are treated to a pictorial review of the types of bees and the role of each, to keep the hive running smoothly. Then we see newspaper headlines of killer wasps invading beehives to upset the status. This in fact is what the movie is about, instead of focusing on real bees it involves the smooth functioning of society as if it were a giant beehive, and the killer wasps are the scammers who illegally take advantage of others.
Jason Statham is a producer and stars as Adam Clay, retired member of an organization that is underground and unofficial, they call them the "beekeepers". Only a few in the CIA and the FBI even know about them. Their job, when called upon, is to take out people who are wasps in society, where normal rules of justice have failed.
Clay has retired to a life of actual beekeeping. The opening scene has him going into a barn to trap then destroy a hive of killer wasps as a foreshadowing of what the rest of the movie is about. He presses himself into action when an older woman, someone he is very attached to, takes her own life after being scammed and all her accounts drained, including a $2Million charity account she was administering.
Statham is very good in this role. Think Leon the Professional or The Equalizer but taken to an even more lethal level. For the action junkies there are several explosions and lots and lots of shooting and killing. A bit too much at times, but most of us can make exceptions when the good guy is hunting down the really bad guys in our world.
My wife and I watched it at home, streaming on Prime.
Ordinary Angels (2024)
Based on real people and their story, a very sick little girl needs a village of help.
The Louisville, Kentucky area, the events depicted here start in 1993 and extend into 1994. Snippets as the credits roll show us glimpses of the real people and some of the activities depicted in the movie and some closer to the present. As often happens some things were changed for dramatic (movie-making) effect but the core story is factual.
Hilary Swank is good as Sharon, the woman with serious, unresolved issues, mostly a result of her frequent binge drinking. She has long contended she is NOT an alcoholic but has to come to grips with reality. Her core motivation to help strangers is part of her helping herself. She enters their lives when they need it the most.
Strongman and star as "Reacher", Alan Ritchson is the dad, Ed. He is required to be understated and diligent, but also tender to his two young daughters. He plays the part very authentically. He doesn't want help, he is a proud, hard-working man, but Sharon is the type that seldom takes "no" for an answer. (One of the daughters is played by a very young actress named Skywalker. I'd love to know the story behind her name.)
The core story is, after Ed's wife died his 5-yr-old daughter was diagnosed with a serious illness that would require a liver transplant. Ed was already deep in debt and it was only to mount up further. He is a good man but didn't see a way ahead, Sharon was the one who took control and helped him accomplish the impossible.
It was also nice to see veteran Nancy Travis as the grandmother
Barbara. It isn't a large role but it is important and she is effective.
Good movie. While it has a faith-based element, it is more about friendship and how people banding together can solve the seeming impossible problems.
My wife and I watched it on DVD from our public library.
Space Cadet (2024)
Florida girl who grew up longing to go into space.
There are always people who go into a movie like this only to find flaws. That is why it has an unusually low rating, about 20% of the votes are "1" which makes no sense at all. It is more likely a "5" or a "6", compared to other goofy comedies. Yes, there are many flaws, the situations are implausible, the resolution at the end is implausible, but this movie was not made to be a realistic Astronaut training movie. It was made just to simply try to entertain and it does that pretty well. Just light entertainment, nothing more.
Cute Emma Roberts, now in her 30s, also produced this movie and stars as Rex Simpson. She grew up with a close bond with her mother, together they fanaticized about Rex becoming an Astronaut some day and explore space. Mom has died and Rex does odd jobs, like bartending and working with her dad in a fake haunted house business.
At her 10-year class reunion the old classmates expected Rex to be riding high, she had established a reputation for being inventive and solving difficult problems. But her mother's death short-circuited everything. So she decided to put herself out there, she became interested in a new class of "Ascans", the code word for Astronaut candidates.
But her good friend throws her a big curve when asked to proofread the application, adding in a number of fake credentials. Rex was accepted but didn't understand why. Until she was already at NASA.
Yes, the whole thing is implausible. However if one can get past that and just see where it goes, there is a fair amount of entertainment as we see how Rex handles all the new experiences.
My wife and I watched it at home, streaming on Prime.
Dune: Part Two (2024)
Blockbuster style telling of the Dune and Spice story.
I read some of the Dune writings way back when I was a lad but I don't remember much about the world depicted there. I read a few reviews of this movie and invariably there are a few who refuse to take this movie on its own and feel obligated to compare it to the book(s). And complain about what was left out, or what was changed. That is a totally nonproductive exercise, books are books and movies are movies, each should be considered on their own merits.
Having said that, I suspect this 2-part modern Dune movie is a real treat for die-hard fans. I am not a die-hard fan, I appreciate the stories for their place in literary history, and for their influence on stories and movies that came after it. So, not being a big fan just means that most of the locations, characters, and controversies are lost on me. I can't care about what I don't understand.
Dune, a far-away planet, is of interest only for "Spice." This Spice is not what we think of when flavoring our foods, it is considered the most valuable substance in the universe and it is mined in a hot and most inhospitable planet in a distant star system. Not the least of which are very large and fast Sand Worms, some over 400 meters long, that detect rhythmic sound in its search for its next meal. But as always when a valuable substance is at stake warring factions get into combats for it. "He who controls the Spice, controls the Universe."
I enjoyed the approximate 2 1/2 hour movie, that I watched at home on DVD from my public library, over two evenings. I had fun with the characters and the action. Lots of violence, lots of explosions. I have a sound system with a high-quality subwoofer and in certain scenes it rocked my viewing room.
A Family Affair (2024)
Reasonably interesting drama of a May-October relationship.
Nicole Kidman, judging solely by the expensive LA-area home of hers, is successful author Brooke Harwood. Her husband passed away some 11 years earlier and she is living a mostly quiet life with a 24-yr-old daughter who has moved back in while trying to get her movie or TV production career energized.
Her daughter works as an assistant for an often juvenile, demanding, and entitled actor, played by Zac Efron as Chris Cole. Strictly by accident Chris meets Brooke, not even knowing who she is. He is smitten, even though later the two characters say that he is 16 years younger than Brooke. (In real life Kidman is 21 years older than Efron.)
The daughter is played by Joey King as Zara Ford. King is one of the better actresses of her generation and her role here is no exception. In fact, even though Kidman and Efron are the bigger stars, and much of the focus in on their budding relationship, the story is more Zara's story. She knows Chris very well and she desperately wants to convince her mother that he is not good for her. Zara's character arc is to respect her mother and her choices.
The whole movie is more about Zara than anything else.
Also in a very good role is veteran Kathy Bates as the grandma,
Leila Ford. She has a special relationship with Zara and is instrumental in helping her face reality.
My wife and I watched it streaming, it is a better movie than we thought it was going to be.
The Old Oak (2023)
Social commentary on immigrants in working class villages.
This is a Ken Loach movie, now approaching 90 he says it is his last movie. Looking at both his own life trajectory and choices, plus the movies he has made, he has a strong "social justice" orientation. That is the thrust of this movie.
Filmed in the N. E. England area of Durham, a working class city of about 50,000, we see many families are just barely getting by. The local focus is the owner of the pub, the Old Oak.
Refugees from war-torn Syria are starting to show up, moving in, and being helped by sympathetic locals. This angers many of the hardened men who see this as simply taking away from them. Even though they are daily patrons of the pub they refer to it as "their pub" and they resent the change in scenery when certain things happen.
One of Loach's movies is the 2006 "Wind That Shakes the Barley". The theme is the history of Ireland's resistance of British rule in the 1920s. Here we see the resistance of some locals to empathize with displaced immigrants who just want to integrate into the local community and become productive members of that community.
Loach himself has said that he always wants actors speaking in their native accent at all times and not imitating another accent. Loach has said that use of subtitles is preferable to asking actors to change their speech. My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library, WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES ON, otherwise we might have understood 25% of the dialog.
Overall an interesting take on an important subject. A statement at the end credits indicates the stories are predominantly factual but presented in a fictional setting of this movie.
Jurassic Park (1993)
The Amusement Park that wasn't very amusing.
This was a landmark movie when it came out in 1993, now a bit over 30 years ago. The novel idea is based on a premise that an ancient mosquito trapped in amber can have dinosaur blood, therefore dinosaur DNA, to allow cloning and regenerating a variety of dinosaurs. The scientific fact is that DNA 65+ million years old would have degraded so much that such an experiment would not be successful. However, it is a fictional movie, so lets pretend for a couple of hours that it had been possible.
The director is Spielberg and the whole movie has a "Raider of the Lost Ark" feel to it, the way action is performed and the way characters escape danger just in time. I have watched this movie several times over the years but every few years is not too much. I found it today streaming on Peacock. It was 96 outside with a "feels like" of 108 so I had no choice, do something inside!
Jeff Goldblum is usually my favorite in most movies he is in, and he is my favorite here as the Scientist who is a vocal critic about the project. In essence his point is, just because we can doesn't mean we should recreate dinosaurs. After all they had their time, they became extinct and we should respect that.
Don't Bother to Knock (1952)
Suicidal babysitter.
I managed to find this 1952 movie on the Movies! Channel that specializes in older, often B&W, movies. Marilyn Monroe plays Nell Forbes. She was only 25 during filming but already had a number of good roles in her resume'. From her later movie roles it would be easy to consider her acting skills as marginal but as this role shows she was a very fine actress.
Essentially all of the movie takes place in a hotel. We don't find out until about half-way through that she had recently been released from a mental hospital, the healed scars on her wrists show she had suicidal thoughts. She travels to New York where her uncle works as the elevator operator for the hotel. A couple staying there need a sitter for their young daughter so they can attend a function downstairs. So Nell gets the job on recommendation from her uncle. Things don't work out very smoothly.
I enjoyed the movie mainly as a look at a younger Monroe. She is very good as the confused young lady. This was the time before TV, hotel rooms had radios in the walls for entertainment. And of course elevator operators. And for some reason their drink of choice was rye whiskey with about half water. I like rye whiskey, neat.
Arthur the King (2024)
Retelling of a true story from 2018.
First, a couple of things. While the story of finding the dog, then naming it Arthur the King, during an Adventure Race is basically factual, the story this movie is based on was a race in Ecuador, and the main human character was from Sweden.
In this movie Mark Wahlberg stars as Michael from Colorado and the race profiled is an Adventure Race in the Dominican Republic, and it was filmed there.
It is a heartwarming story but frankly isn't done that well. Both my wife and I said, about half-way through, "This isn't a very well written and acted movie." Something about it, the dialog often didn't seem authentic, and it mostly looked like they were making a movie.
I don't want to come across as too negative, it is a good story but considering the actors in it should have been a lot better.
At home, on DVD from our public library. The disc has several interesting "extras", including meeting the real Michael and his family.
Anatomie d'une chute (2023)
Interesting story but it moves along at a very deliberate pace.
I found this movie on DVD at my public library. First, I read several reviews and, as mixed as they are, I almost decided to skip it. But I relented and spun it up.
On the positive side it is a compelling story. A married couple with a young sight-impaired son live in a chalet in the mountains not far from Grenoble, France. Dad is French, it is where he grew up, mom is German and doesn't speak French well. So they use a "neutral" language at home, English. (Some dialog is in French but the DVD has subtitles.)
Both are authors but he spends much of his awake time renovating the top floor so that can have room for paying tourists. He has a habit of playing loud music while he is working, he says it keeps him calm.
One day as the son and his dog are returning from a walk in the snow he comes upon his dad, bleeding and dead in the snow. When an autopsy is done it reveals a very sharp blow to his head that probably killed him. Was it an accident? Did he just carelessly fall? Or did the only other person at home, his wife, cause his death?
All this happens to open the movie and set up the story. We see law enforcement, lawyers, friends, and a long process to build a case against the wife with lots of innuendo and supposition.
The bad part is that the movie runs well over 2 hours. In many scenes things, like the boy playing piano, or characters just wandering around, dwell too long without moving the plot forward.
I enjoyed it at a certain level but don't rate it very highly. It is a good movie for those who enjoy reading novels and don't mind if things move slowly.
I Am: Celine Dion (2024)
Famous singer losing her voice.
I was able to view this documentary today streaming on Prime. My own take may seem harsh to some but I believe what this shows is her narcissism. We see that from a very young age, in an interview she stated that she wanted to sing the rest of her life, but more important, to become a world-famous performer. As an adult she admits that being on stage, receiving applause from the audience, is like a drug addiction to her. She can hardly live without the approval and adulation of others, mostly strangers. That seems very narcissistic to me.
I find myself wondering what it is like to have only one goal, one obsession your whole life, forming your whole identity by how well you do that one thing, then start having difficulty doing it.
To me the most important part of this documentary starts at 1 hour 15 minutes into it. We are shown how it is now for her, to go into a recording studio to do one fairly straightforward song. Take after take, either her voice doesn't respond or when it does undesired vocal breaks enter randomly. Then the aftermath of that plus the rest of the presentation.
I have always had a mixed reaction to her singing. On the one hand, in her prime she had one of the best singing voices ever and it was always clear she loved what she was doing. But a comment she makes, that the song itself isn't so important, it is the way the singer sings it, and that explains why I strongly dislike so many of her songs. Too much vocal "gymnastics." Just because you can do fancy runs doesn't necessarily mean you should. Or at least not to the great extent that she does them in many songs. There is a fine line that separates welcome embellishment from unwanted extremes and she crosses it frequently.
I thoroughly enjoyed the documentary, I admit I had a tear in my eye when she was struggling so greatly and the doctors had to act fast to save her. Overall it is a sad tale, how the rare condition of stiff person syndrome (SPS) has wrecked her career. They seem to have hope it can be contained enough so that she can perform live again but it doesn't look very promising. Thanks to CDs and DVDs we never have to forget who she was and how she sounded.
The Three Musketeers (1993)
D'Artagnan seeks to become a Musketeer and avenge his father's death.
The biggest fun in watching this movie now, in 2024, is to see many now-seasoned, 50-something actors in their 20s. The main story is well-known, the ambitious Cardinal wants more power and part of his plot to get rid of the young teen-age king is to have the Musketeers, whose job is to protect the King, disbanded. Right about the time that young D'Artagnan is traveling to attempt to join the Musketeers.
The movie is done with much humor while still sticking to the basic story. For a movie over 30 years old it comes across very nicely. Most of the entertainment is from seeing the several now-familiar veteran actors.
At home, on DVD from my public library.
Killing Eve (2018)
Very well made spy intrigue. Jodie Comer makes it worthwhile.
I watched this on the advice of my daughter. Being 2024 now the show is old news, having started in 2018. If we believe that titles mean anything, and that the character Eve is in one fewer episode as her antagonist, maybe that indirectly tells us what will happen.
But I don't really know. I finished the first season, everything is built up but nothing is resolved. Frankly this is not my favorite type of program, where you have to follow story and characters for four years. I much prefer a 90 to 120 minute movie where the main story achieves some sort of completion.
However I really did enjoy season one. Jodie Comer as the assassin
Villanelle and Sandra Oh as the government agent Eve Polastri work very well off each other. Any competent actress could have played Eve, but it is hard to imagine anyone as good as Jodie Comer for her role.
I may or may not watch additional episodes in additional seasons. Maybe when I need to kill time but not as a priority. After a while it becomes more of the same just in different situations.
EDIT: A few days later I watched the final episode of season four, just to see where all the characters went and how things were tied up. Interestingly I will say. But then I have no real desire to go back and watch all the episodes between the end of season one and the very final one. It is all very well done, lots of violence and lots of humor and good character growth. I just don't want to invest all the time watching a fictional story.
At home, streaming.
Your Place or Mine (2023)
Old friends hook up again, long-distance.
It seems so recent that Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher were relative youngsters starring in movies and TV shows. Now they are both middle-age, rapidly approaching 50, and in this movie they take on quite mature roles.
Witherspoon is single mom Debbie Dunn, living in working in Los Angeles. Kutcher is Peter Coleman with a successful consulting career in New York City. The movie starts with a flashback to 20 years earlier, to 2003. As passionate 20-somethings they hooked up but it never progressed. He moved across the country, he says because he was afraid of earthquakes.
However they have stayed good friends remotely, calling and chatting regularly. They are fond of saying "I tell you everything" but as the movie progresses we see that isn't really true.
The story swings into a quicker pace when Debbie has to go to Manhattan for a week to complete a course required to get her desired credentials. Her good friend is supposed to stay with her young son but cancels at the last minute. On the verge of cancelling her trip, Peter convinces her to travel and stay at his place for a week while he flies down to California to stay with her son.
There isn't really much new here but the two stars make it a pleasant and entertaining watch. I found myself thinking, "If the two leads were Amy Schumer and Seth Rogan, would this be any good?" And my answer was "No", because this type of movie needs two charming and likeable leads, and Witherspoon and Kutcher are.
At home, streaming, my wife and I were entertained.