Race to Nowhere (2010)

This reports that we’re putting undue pressure on our schoolkids & robbing them of childhood by overscheduling, teaching for tests, and assigning mountains of homework. Lots of good information here, but most of it is hit repeatedly, which doesn’t shore up the points so much as overdo them a bit. A tight 40 minute doc would’ve been more effective.

B

The Living (2015)

Young husband knocks around his wife while blackout drunk, but she’s willing to forgive him even if her mother and brother can’t. Because we got no backstory -- e.g. is this a recurring event? Is he truly sorry or have they seen this before? -- it was impossible to guess at whose attitudes could be justified.

The sense of inevitable in this movie was overwhelming to the point of oppression.

C

Chef (2014)

Gifted chef loses his shit all over a critic in the dining room of his restaurant and finds himself out of a job… can you say “blessing in disguise”? Set free of the constraints of restaurant life, he is once again able to cook what he wants how he wants. And if doing so allows him to bond with his child and become the man his ex-wife fell in love with, well that’s just gravy.

It's perhaps just a tad predictable, but it worked and we enjoyed it, so I’m not gonna pick.

B+

I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955)

Susan Hayward was just way too old for this role as I had no idea that her character was meant to be 18 when she had her first drink since, in reality, Hayward was closing in on 40 and looked it. But, even if the age had been right, the tone was hard to take unless you’re really into “shrill.” It pretty much played like a heavy-handed PSA on the perils of stage mothering and booze.

C-

The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933)

Palooka bartender gets discovered by a boxing manager when he easily disposes of an unruly patron. He meets a gal, gets married, and starts cheating on her immediately.

It's basically a rags to riches to swelled-head story that would’ve been better if the palooka were likable. At least Myrna Loy as his wife is sympathetic, even though we have to sit through her terrible lounge song “Downstream Drifter.” Twice.

C

Blue Ruin (2014)

A solitary man gets the news that the murderer of his parents is being released from prison, which sets him on a path of vengeance. It's thought-provoking and thrilling, with both the acting and the story packing a wallop.

Terrific, out-of-nowhere film.

A-

The Skeleton Twins (2014)

Just as Maggie is about to swallow a fistful of pills, she receives the news that her estranged twin brother Milo is in the hospital after an attempted suicide, so she goes across the country to bring him back home to stay with her for a while.

I liked this movie quite a bit because it kind of mirrors the way I am with my siblings -- my sister in particular. Both “we’re all each other’s got” shorthand and the disappointment in parents that only someone who had that same parentage can share were personally familiar. But I was also impressed by the way the film captured that desire to be away from those who remind you of less-than-awesome times. Wiig and Hader were very good in these departure-from-comedy roles.

B

Show Me Love (1999)

Fourteen-year-old Agnes isn’t popular and is rumored to be a lesbian, which happens to be true. After Elin (her crush) kisses Agnes to win a bet, things get very complicated for them both.

I loved the feel of this film. It was made in 1998, long before near-universal acceptance of homosexuality was in sight, so their angst is rooted in reality rather than just over-dramatic teens blowing things out of proportion. Agnes’ ostracization was painful and Elin’s fear -- of her feelings, of what everyone will think -- was palpable.

A surprisingly low-key and effective love story.

B+

The Past (2013)

A man returns to the home of his wife and her two daughters after 3 years to give her a divorce. What he didn’t know before arriving is that her new boyfriend and his son now live with them and she’s pregnant, which is why she wants the divorce. Oh, and her new boyfriend is married to a woman in a coma because she tried to commit suicide -- possibly because she was distraught over her husband’s affair.

I didn’t dislike it, but it felt a little weird. Everyone had secrets and agendas and I wasn’t sure what everyone was trying to do, exactly, nor why this guy was immediately pulled back into his ex-wife’s bullshit. I’ll admit that it was interesting, but it was also kind of miserable.

C+

Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (2015)

Though the premise is great, nothing about this movie delivered.

Kumiko, a Tokyo secretary, is weird. She doesn’t have friends or social skills. She’s older than everyone else at work because, as her boss points out, being an “office lady” is a job for the young. By age 29, she should be climbing the ladder or getting married. Instead, she’s frowning her way through life, feeding her bunny ramen and watching her VHS copy of Fargo so that she can figure out where, exactly, a case of money that is shown being buried in snow during the movie is. So, I guess she's less weird and more "not all there."

If I had been given any way to identify with Kumiko, that would’ve been helpful. But she’s joyless. Her belief in the “This is a True Story” blurb at the beginning of the movie Fargo is less a result of excited innocence than of sullen insistence. How was this person navigating life and paying bills when she can’t even use the internet to find out that Fargo isn’t real? She doesn’t come across as a childlike, she comes off as a downer without basic reasoning ability.

D-

Big Hero 6 (2014)

This movie has all of the right elements to make it heartwarming, but it somehow just didn't come together in quite the right way. Both Gary and I kept saying things like “I like it, but something’s off.” I thought that, perhaps, if they’d started out with a quick montage of Hiro’s early life/losing his parents/turning bitter (a la “Up”) that would’ve helped a lot to establish him as someone to root for. Instead, he was introduced as a (literal) know-it-all hustler and it was rather difficult to get on his side.

Baymax is about the most lovable character ever, though. Without him, the movie would be nothing.



B-

The Nun (2015)

Suzanne is pushed into a convent at age 16 when she starts to draw male attention from her older sisters. She expects to get out once they’re married off, but is pressured by her family to stay in and take the veil. Though she fights doing so, her mother convinces her -- by telling her she’s illegitimate -- to go back in.

It’s just one thing after another for this girl, though. During her second attempt at taking her vows, she faints and is sick for two days. Her beloved mother superior dies and there’s a new mom in town & she's not a fan of Suzanne. At all. Deprivation, torture, and ostracization become her life. She succeeds in getting transferred to another convent where the mother superior dotes on her... like “I’m cold, let me get into bed with you, Sue” doting.

Well acted, but the story could’ve used a bit of restraint. I’m guessing the author had more than a bit of an issue with the Catholic church.

B-

Middle of Nowhere (2012)

A woman puts her medical school plans on hold so that she can work and still visit her husband in prison on the weekends, knowing that she can handle it for the four years or so until he's released on good behavior. When his sentence gets extended for a violent infraction and his parole hearing exposes consensual sexual contact with a female guard, she has to evaluate whether she’s willing to keep waiting around.

While I liked it, the vibe was a slightly too low-key and the soundtrack felt packed with distracting wrong choices (quite a few sexy R&B numbers). Scenes with her sister, nephew, and mother shed some light on where she came from and helped to paint a full picture of this woman, but it could’ve gone further. I wanted more.

B-

The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (2004)

A mix of old-school samurai flick (complete with bright-red “blood”), slapstick, and Bollywood-style musical flourishes (including a full-blown dance number at the end). This was super-weird AND oddly boring despite everything they were throwing at the camera, including a transvestite geisha.

D+

Life Partners (2014)

Best friends in their late 20s are both single, but they’re OK with that because they’ve got each other. When one unexpectedly finds herself in a serious relationship, her priorities change and the friendship shifts.

I really liked this film. This captures perfectly that weird spot in life when peers are no longer keeping pace -- when jobs, relationships, children, etc. start making it hard to keep hanging with friends who are either not there yet or uninterested in ever being there.

B+

Time Out (2002)

Man loses his job but hides it from his family by pretending to get a position with the U.N., which has him out of town for days at a time. In order to make ends meet, he cons friends into “investing” in a made-up scheme so that he’ll have the cash to keep the ruse -- which even involves buying an expensive vehicle to replace his sufficient but not flashy minivan -- going.

It's possible I might have enjoyed this somewhat if the film helped us understand him a bit. Why did he feel he couldn’t tell his wife? Why did he work so hard not to work? He came off as completely out of touch with reality and possibly mentally disturbed.

C-

The Way (2011)

Comfortable widower receives a call that his nothing-in-common son was killed during a storm in the French Pyrenees. Once in France to claim the body, he learns that his son was just a day into walking “The Camino” -- a 500-mile pilgrimage across Spain. The widower decides to walk it, scattering his son’s remains along the way.

This feels like a standard “sad curmudgeon softens despite himself” movie (see: Up), but I enjoyed it pretty well. I'd never heard of this particular pilgrimage and it seems like something I could actually do -- Gary seems game to give it a go as well!

B

A Royal Affair (2012)

I have no idea why such a nondescript title was slapped onto this superb and deep movie.

The true-life story of Denmark's "mad" King Christian VII, his English bride Princess Caroline, and his personal physician Johann Struensee is told here -- and there's just so much to tell. It's undeniably fascinating and almost biblical in its level of angst and drama.

B+

Lucy (2014)

Lucy is forced into being a drug mule by her sleazy boyfriend. But, when the drug seeps out of its packet and into her bloodstream, she is able to use more and more of her brain -- which, apparently, means she becomes a shape-shifting robot.

After about the halfway point, the movie ceased both making sense and being entertaining.

C-