For the first time in about three years, when to the movies for a double-header (they were nearly empty):
TÁR - The good news is that Cate Blanchett is one of the few actors who, like Helen Mirin and Merrill Streep can “become” the part. The bad news is that just amplifies the plot which chaotically revolves around a woman going through a breakdown. It is not a fun movie and while Blanchett’s performance is excellent, the movie is not enjoyable.
The Menu - This is a horror/thriller (billed as also being a comedy - maybe irony, but not much comedy here). It actually works well and while gory in parts and probably not the best fare for children, it was entertaining until the end.
Jeff’s enjoyment of movies favors a mixture of comedy, violence and/or a bit of sex with plot being important, but secondary if the movie is funny enough.
Saw “She Said” a couple days ago. Unsurprisingly the Wall Street Journal gave it a poor review, and the NYT and WaPo were more enthusiastic.
I don’t think it’s in the league of “All The President’s Men” or even “Spotlight”, but it’s still a good story of how the media gets - and sometimes doesn’t get - the big story, in this case Harvey Weinstein’ sexual predation which went on for decades in Hollywood and was an open secret among insiders, but unknown to newcomers, who flock to Hollywood like so many flies to a sugar cube.
It’s gotta be hard to make a movie where the audience already knows the end, and which consists almost entirely of people interviewing people and staff sessions talking about, well, people interviewing people. Nonetheless it shows how hard it is sometimes to uncover and prove beyond a libel charge and other impediments and how expensive it can turn out to be, and how “big media” occasionally gets it right.
Next week, hopefully, “The Fabelmans” (the Steven Spielberg faux biography). We go to the earliest matinee on a weekday when there are generally a half dozen people in the theater. Occasionally we get lucky and we are the only ones.
Up in Boston seeing family for Thanksgiving. Had a very good time.
One of my sisters got us to watch an Apple Production of “Bad Sisters”.
Terrific.
A very dark often funny show/movie that comes in installments. Bad Sisters is about the needs of five sisters to kill one of the husbands, JP. It is done in a sort of rotating segments that go back and forth through time as two insurance guys try to figure out how JP died. The sisters have many secrets. JP was a sadist.
Need to add, Bad Sisters is about five Irish sisters. The entire show is shot in Dublin, Ireland. One of their main hangouts is the Forty Foot. My grandfather swam in the Forty Foot every day of his life for decades. Ireland in the background is beautifully filmed.
On the other side of the ledger is an ep of “Columbo”. Rich lawyer finds his live in g/f is a lying, cheating, golddigging, (woman of easy virtue). She drives back to his home that evening, after a hard day spending his money indulging herself, to find her suitcases on the front porch and the locks changed. She still had her looks. She could latch on to another rich old fool, but no. She blackmails him, to keep living in his big house, spending his money, and having her boy toy on the side. …and yet, she is the “victim” in the piece, because the rich old guy kills her and frames her boy toy.
Last movie I saw in the theater was the remake of “Dune”, a year ago. Wanted to see “Operation Mincemeat”, but it was never on around here.