Butchie Boy

This was a light month moviewise. We were on vacation the whole middle of the month. We saw one movie then, Ratatouille, but we also saw it before we left. Here is what we saw:

Here are my reviews:

Ratatouille

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

If you like to cook and if you like Pixar movies too, this is one NOT to miss. Remy is a country rat with a passion for good food. While trying to get some rare ingredients he gets the attention of the woman whose pantry he is raiding. She starts firing a shotgun at him which leads to his colony having to flee for their lives. He gets separated from them and ends up in Paris in the sewers directly below Gasteau’s Restaurant. The deceased Gasteau is Remy’s hero and inspiration. Through a series of accidents he helps save the day for an inept garbage boy. As a team they become one of the best chefs in Paris. Remy is reunited with his colony which starts to pay him regular visits at the restaurant. Rats in a restaurant just don’t cut it and this makes for all sorts of action. There are two or three other side plots and the big showdown when they have to prepare a meal for the toughest food critic in Paris. There is a happy ending however.

Pixar’s animation just keeps getting better and better. The plot of this movie was more adult than most of Pixar’s other movies but that was ok by me. Kids don’t get short changed a bit. Although there are scenes that can be quite frightening. One child in the row behind us screamed when they were shooting guns at the rats. In fact, when anything scary happened.

Theater – 5 stars

How To Eat Fried Worms

I rented this movie but only barely saw it. I was babysitting my granddaughter Rachel that day. She was watching it on the computer while I was sitting next to her doing something else on another computer. I was following along but only looked over now and then. The story revolves around a new kid in school who gets into it with the class bully and gets trapped when he brags that he can eat worms. A bet is fixed and our hero has to eat a dozen worms by sundown. Most of the movie is about the different ways they cook the worms for him to eat. By the end the bully is dethroned and everyone is friends.

Netflix – 3 stars

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Narrowly escaping expulsion from school, Harry is having problems because there is a new headmistress at Hogwarts who has it in for him. Dumbledore has been put out to pasture. Nobody thinks Voldemort is back and so their defence against dark arts training becomes a joke. Just when they need the skills the most. Harry takes matters into his own hands and teaches his friends the spells he knows but this gets him deeper in Dutch. They realize that Voldemort needs to know what a prophesy was so Voldemort tries to trick Harry into helping him get it. The Deatheaters show up and do battle with the kids and there is show stopping wizards’ duel between Dumbledore and Voldemort at the end. Not too much is revealed in the movie, just continued story development. Those who like the Potter series will be well satisfied.

Theater – 4 stars

Stay

This movie is a confusing jumble. A psychiatrist is subbing for a sick friend and sees one of her patients who is suicidal. The patient also seems to be able to predict the future. But can he? What is the future and what is the present. When the psychiatrist starts coming unglued in time he doesn’t know what to make of it. The whole concept is handled pretty poorly in the film and the viewer is left not knowing what to think and confused about what has happened. The movie was wierd and not to my taste.

Netflix – 2 stars

Here are the movies we saw this month:

Here are my reviews:

Over The Hedge

A group of critters that calls themselves a family wakes up in the spring and finds their world radically altered. The woods they live in have been turned into a housing development and only the tiniest patch of greenspace remains. And that area has been surrounded by a hedge. In the mean time a raccoon has set about stealing a bear’s stores but gets caught in the act. The bear is going to kill the raccoon but is talked out of it when the raccoon promises he will have it all back when the bear is due to wake up officially in another two weeks. The raccoon happens upon the other critters and shows them how to raid the subdivision for food. He is going to steal it and give it to the bear to save his hide. The fortune is regained only to be lost again and they are down to one day to make things right. Their desperate measures are hilarious. Generally I don’t think Dreamworks makes as good of movies as Pixar and this one proves the point. The exception for Dreamworks is Shrek. There are practically no laughs in the whole first half of this movie. But when they do start coming, they are pretty good. At the end when they are desperate to retrieve the food, they give the already hyperactive squirrel a caffeinated, high sugar beverage and you couldn’t ask for more. The gag is great.

Netflix – 3 stars

Shrek 3

When Fiona’s father croaks, he names Shrek the next king. Shrek protests and is told there is one other heir, Arthur Pendragon. Our hero goes on a quest to find Arthur but while he is gone, the evil Prince Charming takes over the kingdom of Far Far Away. Fiona and the other princesses are taken captive and a trap is set for Shrek upon his return. Bringing Arthur back with him, Shrek only just keeps Arthur from being killed. A similar fate doesn’t appear to await Shrek. Arthur proves to be a skilled negotiator and orator and saves the day, demonstrating his capability to rule. As mentioned in the “Over the Hedge” review I generally don’t like Dreamworks’ animated features as well as Pixar’s. One exception is the Shrek series. At times I almost thought I wasn’t watching animation, the technique has improved so much. Some critics have panned this movie, saying it doesn’t match up to the first two. But while a little different, I think it is just as good. This almost made 4 stars, but not quite.

Theater – 3 stars

A Prairie Home Companion

The Fitzgerald Theater has been sold and the new owner is going to tear it down and put up a parking lot. It’s the end of the road for the Prairie Home Companion Show. The movie opens on the evening of the last performance. While there is the thinnest of plots involving Guy Noir, the security man, a mysterious blond stranger, and the Axman, most of the movie features a fictionalized performance. I had hoped for more from this movie. Robert Altman directed it and there were tons of stars, many of whom I particularly like. If you like A Prairie Home Companion, you will probably like this movie. I never cared for the show that much. Garrison Keilor’s vocal style sets my teeth on edge. It is a little heart warming by the end however.
Netflix – 3 stars

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End

This is the third in the Pirates of the Caribbean series. All the main characters have an agenda of their own. William is trying to get his father off the Flying Dutchman. Jack is trying to get out of Davie Jones’ Locker and maybe achieve immortality. The old captain is trying to get The Black Pearl back. Davie Jones is trying for redemption and reunion with his beloved Calypso. The East India Company is trying to rid the seas of Pirates. Arggh. There is a ton of swashbuckling, perhaps too much. There was so much of it that it became boring at times. The plot if that’s what you want to call the characters’ plans of action is so convoluted it is impossible to figure out just what is happening, let alone what is supposed to happen. But… The costumes and make-up are great. And there is a cameo by Keith Richards.

Theater – 3 stars

Reds

This was like seeing an old friend again. Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton as babies. This is the story of Jack and Louise Reed. It’s set in WWI and the Russian Revolution and follows Jack’s attempts at organizing workers and Louise’s efforts to be taken seriously as a journalist, all while the world is falling down around their ears. We have had so much negative propaganda about communism over the last 80 years that it is refreshing and startling to see the possiblity of it being possible in the USA. As something new and fresh, an unknown quantity. It clearly was something terrible to the capitalists, but the everyday guy was just discovering organized labor and communism is a logical extension of that. Jack has health problems and one has to wonder what might have happened but for those.

Netflix – 3 stars

Monster House

In this animated movie a kid lives across the street from a mean old man and his broken down house. The guy confiscates every kite, ball, or other toy that finds its way into his yard. When they try to recover something he hasn’t noticed yet, he takes them by surprise and the argument they have makes the man have a heart attack. Now they have not only the terrifying house to deal with, but the guilt of having killed the old man. After they take the old guy away, the house takes on a life of its own. It would seem to be haunted by his dead wife who was persecuted her entire life. The house goes crazy and with the help of two adjoining trees which it incorporates into its personna, it rips itself off its foundation and goes on a rampage. The old guy is not dead it seems but just hospitalized and returns in time to help the kids resist the house. The first half of the movie sets the stage and plods along, but when the house breaks free, so does the action. The rest of the movie is a roller-coaster ride.

Netflix – 3 stars

Scoop

When a prize winning journalist dies and jumps off the boat crossing the River Styx, he returns for a moment and tells a young journalist that one of London’s most eligible bachelors is the Tarot Card serial killer. This happens while she is in the transmogrification chamber of a two-bit magician played by Woody Allen. This is the scoop of her life and with the aid of Allen who reluctantly follows her posing as her father, she investigates the story. She falls in love with the socialite and has an affair with him that complicates the plot in oh so many ways. Throughout all this, the dead reporter keeps reappearing to give her a new clue here and there and keep her on track. Is the love interest really a killer? I won’t tell. As a mystery this is pretty average, as a Woody Allen movie you have to give him credit for turning another young actress into Annie Hall and suffer through lots of his tedious, bickering dialog, but you can’t argue that he has taken a novel approach here. On average, I came away from the movie with a positive attitude.

Netflix – 3 stars

Cherise wrote:
I have to say that if you give the New World the same 3-star rating that you give Citizen Cane, Shop Girl, Thank You For Not Smoking and Slaughter House Five, I have to totally disagree and come to the conclusion that I can never trust your opinion of movies ever again.
New World was at best a 2-star movie and that was because the Cinematography was beautiful. However, good cinematography is not enough to make up for the bad script and lack of character development to warrant a 3-star rating. Your ratings mean nothing if they all get the same 3-star rating with a handful that get maybe a 4 stars. Despite the fact that I can never trust your taste in movies again, you are still the best father-in-law a girl could ask for.
Love, Cherise

Two important things to remember when one looks at someone’s “star” ratings are “What do the stars mean to the person who does the rating” and “Do I generally like the same kind of movies as the person assigning the stars?”

The stars are just a shortcut. In my case all the movies Cherise mentioned fit neatly into the 3 star range. The New World would be at the bottom end of it and Shop Girl would be towards the top. The main thing is that the review is in what I said and not in the star rating. Reading the review of The New World you will notice that my comments on it have almost exactly the same feel as Cherise’s comments. It’s just that the negative things bother Cherise more than they do me, or that what she is looking for in a movie is not the same thing as I look for.

So how can my reviews help you? Here is how I go about writing them.

What The Stars Mean

1 Star – This is one of the worst movies I have ever seen! I would recommend that no one waste their time on it.

2 Stars – Generally I did not care for the movie for some reason. Usually the reason is pretty clearly stated in the review itself. Depending on your tastes, it may appeal to you. I’m not saying not to see it, but if your tastes correspond to mine, you probably won’t like it.

3 Stars – I consider these average movies that are slightly rated on the positive side. They were ok to watch and they run from “not the best, but ok”, to “I kinda liked that one but it wasn’t great.”

4 Stars – These movies are a cut above other movies. If I give a movie 4 stars, I am saying that I think you should see it, I liked it very much.

5 Stars – One of my all time favorite movies. Obviously, it means I think you should see it.

The Movie Selection Process

When picking a movie, who in their right mind says, “Oh, this really looks like a crappy movie, I think I’ll rent it!” I select movies I think I am going to like. So negative reviews are usually only given when a movie turns out to not be what I thought is was going to be. An example of this was “Beyond the Sea”, the bio of Bobby Darin. I always liked Bobby Darin so I thought I would like this move. But I hated it. I have only given 3 Netflix rentals 1 star and only 7 movies overall. I saw some of these before I started renting them from Netflix and rated them to help establish my Netflix profile.

Sometimes I actively tell Netflix the title of a movie I want to see, perhaps from a review of a recently released film, from a recommendation by a friend, or a reminder of a title I haven’t seen for a long time. Whenever I do that or whenever I rate a movie when I return it to them, they say I might like to see such and such other film. I usually review these and find movies I wouldn’t otherwise have been aware of. If they interest me, I add them to my queue. Sometimes these turn out to be good, sometimes not.

MOST, practically all, of the movies I see are ok by my viewing standards and therefore get a 3 star rating. In other words, you probably won’t go wrong watching them.

What I Like

So what makes a movie a good one for me? What am I looking for?

First and foremost, I like movies that entertain me. When I get done watching it, do I feel like I have spent my time enjoyably? Have I learned something? Is something clearer to me or has it changed my viewpoint? Or has it left me depressed or frustrated? Would I have been better off going to bed early?

I’m a guy. Action movies are going to be more entertaining to me. Documentaries teach me new things. I like that. I like to see movies that are beautifully filmed. I like movies that create different unusual worlds, different periods of history, that have a different look. I call these “costumers”. I especially like costumers from times and places that aren’t usually depicted. I liked Apocolypto because it showed the Mayans rather than Romans, not that I don’t like movies set in ancient Rome, but how many movies about Mayans have you seen? I like movies that are really clever. I like movies that have complex but plausible plots. I usually like movies where the good guys win, where good prevails and evil is thwarted. I like movies that are really funny. I like movies I come away from feeling warm and fuzzy.

I do NOT like movies where the main point is the social interaction of the the characters for its own sake and not what that interaction leads to. I especially HATE movies that depict betrayal. I dislike movies where characters are trapped in situations that they have no way of escaping and subsequently don’t. I do like it if they get out of it by being clever.

Here are the movies we saw this month:

Here are my reviews:

The White Countess

A recently blinded American diplomat is leading an unproductive life in 1936 Shanghai. A good day at the track brings him enough money to open his own nightclub. For a hostess he hires an exiled Russian princess who has done him a favor. Being young and attractive, the princess lives a sordid life to support her extended family who eventually abandon her for her doing the very things necessary to support them. A Japanese man helps him bring in an interesting mix of clientele and the nightclub becomes a success. But the Japanese fellow turns out to be a spy and was in Shanghai investigating what would make a Japanese invasion more successful. The movie ends with everyone trying to escape the now real invasion. The movie is fairly long, longer than it needed to be. Otherwise it presents an interesting story in an interesting time.

Netflix – 3 stars

The New World

The New World is a straight line history of the 1607 Jamestown Colony. It revolves around three main characters; John Smith, Pocahontas, and John Rolfe. The movie is beautifully filmed and the depiction of the people, both English and Indian appears to be very authentic. A little seen piece of our history. All that is pretty good but there are many bad things about this movie. The Indians speak in their native tongue and so do the Englishmen, which is almost unintelligible, west country or something. My son Lance says he often turns on the subtitles in this kind of movie. I should have. The dialog is practically never used to move the story along, mostly the viewer has to follow the action to figure out what is going on. There are strange cuts to beautifully filmed sequences that one can only guess at the significance. I only noticed two names mentioned in the story. One was John Smith, the first of the three main characters. The second was Rebecca, Pocahontas’s Christian name. They never said the name of the third main character, John Rolfe, Pocahontas’s husband. This movie was too long and would have benefitted greatly by being shortened to about 90 minutes.

Netflix – 3 stars

The Spirit of the Beehive

Set in 1940’s Spain, two young sisters go to a traveling movie presentation of the classic horror film Frankenstein. The younger one, Ana, becomes obsessed with finding the monster. When an escaped criminal (perhaps a political prisoner) arrives at the barn where the sisters think the monster lives, Ana brings him food and clothes. Later, the criminal is killed in a gunfight and the girl thinks her father is responsible some way so she runs away. She is later found dazed and confused. This is a Spanish movie with subtitles and won every kind of award they could give it. The father was played by the famous Spanish actor Fernando F. Gomez, who has received 5 Goyas, the Spanish equivalent of our Oscar. The little girl who played Ana, Ana Torrent, was only 7 when she played this part, her second movie. She is still acting to this day. This is an art film and foreign too so it’s a little hard to understand at times. There is something going on between the wife and someone else, perhaps a brother, or a former lover who is maybe the escaped criminal (maybe, can’t be sure). The father is a scientist studying bees and there is some tie in with the little girl’s confusion and the beehive he is studying. Again, the tie in is unclear. Maybe all of this makes more sense if you can understand Spanish. I liked it though, a change of pace.

Turner Classic Movies – 3 stars

One Last Thing

A teenager who is dying of cancer asks for a date with a supermodel as his last wish. She herself is on the skids; drinking, pill popping, and being obnoxious to those around her. At her agent’s insistance, she goes to visit the boy, only to blow off his wish. She gives him her number and tells him to call her if he is ever in New York City. Of course, the first thing he and his buddies do is take a road trip there. He meets her but she advises him to go home. Crushed, he returns to school with only a short time to live. She has a change of heart. They go fishing and camp overnight on the beach. The Netflix description of this movie gives one the wrong idea. They imply that the model is a shrew to the boy, that he should be careful what he wishes for. But all through the movie, while she does not intend to grant his wish, she is nothing but sweet and honest to the kid. Her change of heart at the end is his dream come true. A little movie, but nice.

Netflix – 3 stars

Slaughterhouse Five

We saw a screening of this movie at the Peace Center and that’s a whole other story in itself. The movie was based on the book by Kurt Vonnegut but according to those at the discussion, it followed the story but lost practically all of Vonnegut’s humor. It is about everyman Billy Pilgrim, a poor schmuck that becomes unstuck in time. He, and the movie, bounce around to various times in his life. He was a POW in WWII and was sent to a prison camp in Dresden so he was around at the time of the fire bombing. He marries a rich man’s daughter and becomes president of the Moose Lodge in the 1950’s. His son turns wild in the 1960’s and his wife is killed racing to the hospital to be with Billy after he is the sole survivor of a plane crash. And finally, he is abducted by aliens and transported to the planet Tralfamidore where they also abduct and bring him, Montana Wildhat, a hotsy-totsy he drools about. A mean guy from his army days has threatened to kill him and finally does. I’m not sure I ever figured this movie out.

Private screening and discussion – 3 stars

Sleeper

What a delight to see this old favorite. It holds up pretty well after all these years. Many people think this is Woody Allen’s funniest movie and I think I have to agree. There isn’t a lot of high brow humor here. It’s mostly slapstick; like him spinning around after he falls out of the gyrocoptor, or running over the Leader’s nose with a steamroller, or him running into the legs of the brain police with a wheelchair when they come to get him, or him fighting with the dinner guests for possession of the Orb. The plot? Fah! Who needs plot? It’s just there to set up the gags. This movie was made in 1973. We didn’t see it when it came out or Bananas either. But we did see them as a double bill a year or so later. In fact, we saw them the day after Nixon resigned from the Presidency. When they show the scene where the doctor speculates that the guy on the TV may have been a President (it was Nixon of course) but that he had done something so terrible that all records of him had been wiped out, the theater went wild.

Turner Classic Movies – 4 stars

Shopgirl

Mirabelle is leading a lonely life when she meets an aimless young man in the laundrimat. Their relationship seems doomed from the start. She tells him to take his life in his hands and make something of it. He goes on the road with a rock band as a roadie. In the mean time an older, rich man takes an interest in her. She loves him but he is not willing to commit. On a getaway weekend with him to New York City she bumps into the roadie who she finds is the right guy for her. I’m not sure why I rented this movie. On reading the description when it arrived it appeared that is was going to be a classic chick flick. I figured it would be like Broken Flowers or Lost in Translation. I was pleasantly surprised. It was more like Under the Tuscan Sun. It was kind of sweet and left you feeling good instead of wanting to blow your brains out.

Netflix – 3 stars

Super Size Me

A perfectly normal guy made this documentary about how bad fast food is for you. Before he begins he consults 3 different doctors; a cardiologist, a gastroenterologist, and a GP I think. All examine him and give him blood work etc. He is not overweight and is in great health. His challenge is to eat only McDonalds food, three meals a day, to try everything on the menu at least once, and to super size his order, but only if they ask him if he wants to. In a few days he gets sick after eating one of the meals, but then starts to be accustomed to it. However, his body does not. Every so often you get a “super” saying “Day 16” or whatever. He goes from bad to worse. At three weeks in, some of the doctors are saying things like, “You need to quit this experiment or you are going to have complete liver shut down.” That type of thing. But he does see it through. He gains about 20 pounds and his blood numbers go through the ceiling. As you can imagine, his vegan girlfriend is horrified by the whole business. When he is finished, she puts him on a strict vegan regimine and he does get back to normal with no ill effect. Throughout the day to day progress he does interviews with various people; customers, McDonalds employees, health professionals and he narrates general information on the fast food industry. This show is horrifying. I guarantee you will stop to think. I almost vowed to go on a strict diet but fortunately came to my senses the next morning. No fear, fast food is not a frequent part of our diet anyway. Just over indulgence.

Netflix – 3 stars

The Mystery of Picasso

IMDb says, “A filmed record of Pablo Picasso painting numerous canvases for the camera, allowing us to see his creative process at work.” This captures the movie in a nutshell. The first six or seven pieces are colored sketches which he does on a semi-transparent screen. He sketches on one side while you see only the result on the other side. Then he progresses to oil paintings. For these he paints a few details and stands aside, then the camera films the result for a couple of seconds. It looks like the picture is painting itself. There is no plot, there is no “action”, just Picasso creating one work after another. I have to say you will need to be someone interested in art to stick this entire film out. But if that is you, you will be rewarded with a wonderful view of Picasso’s creative approach and production technique. I liked it, you may not.

Turner Classic Movies – 3 stars

Thank You For Smoking

A tobacco industry lobbiest goes about his business defending tobacco companies wherever he can. Divorced and a non-custodial father, he tries to keep his son’s respect. A sexy journalist who is interested in a story ensnares him in an affair and extracts all the research she needs for her expose article while he is at his most vulnerable. The world starts crashing down around him. When he testifies at a Senate hearing, he redeems himself and makes everything right. It’s hard to imagine yourself being on the side of big tobacco but you really like the main character and want him to succeed.

Netflix – 3 stars

Art School Confidential

A nerdy, somewhat talented high school art student decides to attend an art school in New York City. The experience is an unending series of disappointments. He can’t get the girl. His teacher gives him advice only to fault him when he takes it. Students of lesser talent get the acclaim. And all through this there is a series of mass murders going on around the campus. You know that our hero is going to be mixed up in it somehow. Just how is the climax of the movie. I liked this film. It’s dark comedy, but there was a thread of reality running through it. It reminded me of some of my own experiences in the art world.

Netflix – 3 stars

Citizen Kane

The American Film Institute voted this movie the best film of all time. I’m not sure I understand why that is. It tells the life story of Charles Foster Kane, a character roughly based on newspaperman William Randolph Hearst. He is somewhat likeable but at least to me he is an unattractive character. Mostly, I suppose I just didn’t care what happened to him. My son-in-law Zach said as a “film” it deserves an A+ for its innovative techniques but as a “movie” it deserves a solid C.

Netflix – 3 stars

Here are the movies we saw this month:

Here are my reviews:

Shaft

John Shaft, a tough, cool, black private detective is hired by Bumpy the Gangster (as in Al Capone, not Gangsta) to find his kidnapped daughter. Enlisting the help of a local black power group, he goes up against the mafia which is trying to take over Bumpy’s territory and safely returns the girl. This movie holds up extremely well after 36 years. Shaft was the first of the blacksploitation films, but did not exhibit a lot of the other characteristics that later movies showed, pimps and criminals as the heroes for instance. The film is an intriguing time capsule. The characters are still using rotary dial phones and Shaft’s upscale apartment has a 7″ open reel tape deck. Other early 70’s furnishings are also a kick. But the best of all is that the mafiosi use Tommy guns, complete with round ammo magazines. The prerelease hype for this movie, back in 1971, played up the fact that a Black Panther type group was going to be featured. But I thought Shaft was a Black Panther himself. When the film finally hit the theaters, I thought I was going to miss it altogether because our whole family was in England at the time. These were the days before video tapes so I figured it was lost forever. Luckily, it came out as a second run shortly after we returned and I did get to see it.
Turner Classic Movies – 3 stars

The Skeleton Key

A hospice nurse from New Orleans accepts a private job to nurse a man who has had a stroke and is slowly dying at his remote plantation mansion. The wife gives the nurse a master key to the house, the skeleton key. She is asked to fetch something from the attic and discovers a locked room that the key won’t open. Intrigued, she returns later, fiddles with the lock and discovers something blocking the keyhole. She removes it, unlocks the room and enters. It is filled with voodoo stuff which she calls hoodoo. The man asks her to help him as best he can and the nurse returns to New Orleans where she consults someone in a voodoo shop. She describes the man’s symptons and is given a set of directions on how to make him better. After that, though only slightly recovered, he gestures that it’s his wife who is causing him his troubles. This is a mystery with some hints at the supernatural, the voodoo, but it is not a horror movie. There is a great twist at the end.
Netflix – 3 stars

Meet the Robinsons 3D

An orphan boy who loves inventing, is trying to create a machine that will help him find the mother that left him at the orphanage years before. When he enters it in a science fair, it starts a chain of events that takes him to the future where he meets a strangely familiar cast of characters. This is a great movie. The plot is better than normal for an animated feature. While I don’t particularly like Dreamworks’ style of animation it was ok. The way the villain is portrayed, complete with peg teeth and constant screw-ups is so over the top, you can’t help but like him. Pay the extra couple of bucks and see this in 3D, it’s worth every penny.
Theater – 4 stars

Aeon Flux

This is an action/adventure film set in the future with the heroine assigned to assassinate the leader of the government. It suffers a little bit from everything being so futuristic that the viewer sometimes has trouble placing the action in context and having a full understanding of what has just happened.
Netflix – 3 stars

Nanny McFee

When the last available nanny quits, a father of seven unruly kids is told by the employment service that what he needs is Nanny McFee. With his rich aunt threatening to cut off his absolutely critical allowance unless he marries by the end of the month, Nanny McFee couldn’t show up at a better time. She has five lessons to teach the children. When their efforts to drive her away are turned back on the children, the lessons are learned one by one. And, with each lesson learned, one of the blemishes on Nanny’s appearance disappears. Rather than doing battle with the chief prankster child, the oldest son, she enlists his aid in solving their problems. At the last moment, when the dad is about to marry the totally inappropriate stepmother-to-be, Nanny saves the day. The movie starts out a little slowly and you wonder if you have made a mistake by selecting it. But by about a third of the way in, the pace picks up nicely and by the end you find yourself cheering.
Netflix – 3 stars

Match Point

This movie is Woody Allen at his absolute worst. It has all of Allen’s tedious angst and none of the normal humor. The unlikable main character gets deeper and deeper into trouble with no satisfactory way out of any of it. You feel he deserves what he is getting. I did not like this movie.
Netflix – 2 stars

The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio

An intelligent woman who gives up her promising career to be the stay-at-home mother of ten with an unpleasant drunk for a husband, does everything she can to help make the family’s finances stretch. She enters every contest she can and wins prize after prize which she mostly converts to cash to make ends meet. This is based on real life events and the kids in the movie were all born around the same time as my brother and sisters and me. So the nostalgia factor from the set properties and dressing (pop bottles, laundry soap, tv commercials playing in the background) was as fun as could be. It was nice to see the real life kids at the end. All of them turned out ok but one has to wonder why the one who was a state attorney general ended up as a licensed massage therapist.
Netflix – 3 stars

The Notorious Bettie Page

Bettie Page was a pinup girl in the 1950’s. For the most part she has been forgotten, but she has a special place in the 3D photography community because she posed for many photos in front of a Stereo Realist camera. In fact, in the movie there is an amateur photo shoot she is at and a Realist is shown in the hands of one of the shutterbugs. The problem is that he was holding the camera vertically which would totally ruin the 3D effect. The action is a straight line biography of Bettie. Not much plot at all. It goes from her teenage years, through her pinup days, to her finding Jesus and quitting the posing. If I didn’t like the real Bettie Page so much, I probably would have rated this movie lower.
Netflix – 3 stars