Tina's September 2013 Movies

Some oldies but goodies appeared on this month's list of movies I saw, along with a few new ones.  Those newbies are marked with an *, and numbering picks up from the previous month.  They are rated on a scale of 1-5 cans of tuna, 5 being the highest accolade.

105.  A League of Their Own (1992) – You would think I would love this movie, and I so wanted to.  It is about the first women’s baseball league, based on the actual All-American Girls Professional Baseball League that debuted during WWII.  The men were off fighting the war, so women from small towns around the country were recruited to play professional baseball.  There is the requisite drama – a rivalry between sisters who are the star player (Geena Davis) and her petulant little sister (Lori Petty), an alcoholic, disinterested manager (Tom Hanks), and a bunch of female jocks trying to win games while they bond with each other.  It is a winning formula, but that’s the problem – it is too formulaic, too manipulative, and I didn’t believe for a minute that any of these women had ever thrown a ball or swung a bat in their lives.  Penny Marshall is the director (she also directed Tom Hanks in “Big”) and Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna are ballplayers.  I couldn’t get past the fact that the players always had dirt on their faces.  I mean, really, nobody had a towel?  And finally, if there really is “no crying in baseball,” why did they make an ending that made me what to shed a few tears?  3 baseballs.
106.  Jobs* (2013) – It’s difficult not to compare this dramatization of the life of Steve Jobs, creator of Apple Computer, with “The Social Network,” the story of the rise of Facebook and its founder, Marc Zuckerberg.  Both men were creators of goods and services that people don’t know how they could possibly live without, even though they had no idea they needed them initially.  Both men were brilliant, demanding, self-centered and with a strong sense of vision and purpose.  And both could be real jerks.  In this movie, based on the Walter Issacson biography that I read last year, Jobs is a drifting hippie who drops out of college, likes to smoke pot and eschews bathing and wearing shoes.  Working for Atari, he can’t get along with anyone and realizes that he has to be his own boss.  He brings in his geeky friend Steve Wozniak to help him with a project but when he sees that Woz is building a personal computer, he immediately understands how this device will change the world.  They start Apple Computer, which goes on to be a huge success, even as Jobs becomes more difficult.  He dumps his girlfriend immediately after she tells him she is pregnant, and he gives up visitation rights so he won’t have to admit the child is his.  He cuts long-time collaborators out of lucrative stock deals he doesn’t think they deserve.  And then he makes the big mistake of allowing someone else to run Apple, which ultimately unseats Jobs himself.  This movie is part history, part business story and part apocryphal – sometimes you can want something too much.  Ashton Kutcher is highly believable as a doppelganger for Jobs, and, while lots of details from the book are glossed over, the only thing really missing is how Jobs started using a mouse with the Macintosh.  If you like technology, you’ll like the story of a product proselytizer who believes everything he says.  3½ cans.
107.  Donnie Brasco (1997) –Though I detest violence, I somehow gravitate towards movies about the mob.  Here “Donnie” (Johnny Depp) is actually Joe Pistone, a real-life FBI special agent assigned to infiltrate the mob.  He latches onto Lefty (Al Pacino), a mid-level “made” guy who takes a liking to him and brings him along as the bad guys do bad things.  Brasco gets caught up in the life, and before you can say “fugetabouit,” he’s sawing dead bodies into pieces for the goons.  His undercover life doesn’t go over so well with his Jersey wife, as he begins to cross the line between good guy and bad guy.  There’s plenty of tension, with occasional laughs (the bad guys in their Florida outfits), and you worry about whether Donnie will survive without being unmasked.  This movie is based on the real Joe Pistone, and, despite the blood, violence and what must be a record for the use of one particular swear word starting with an F, I liked it.  4 cans.
108.  Goodfellas (1990) – And speaking of the mob, this classic Martin Scorsese film (based on a true story) takes us into the inner sanctum of the New York underworld.  Ray Liotta is Henry Hill, a kid who aspires to the life of the goodfellas.  They have money coming in from every quarter, and they pay off the cops and everyone else as they pull off their heists and pay their tributes up the line to the bosses.  Robert DeNiro is master thief Jimmy Conway, and Joe Pesci plays the volatile Tommy, who will shoot someone for making a joke or not serving a drink fast enough.  Hill marries Karen (Lorraine Bracco, who gives a great performance) becomes a player, gets hooked on drugs and eventually is busted.  But will he rat out the other wiseguys to save his own hide?  The movie leads the league in F-bombs and the violence is so relentless that you eventually get used to it.  There’s nothing like whacking somebody and then stopping at Ma’s house for something to eat (and a large butcher knife to chop up the body).  Mob movies are not for everyone, but this is one of the best of the genre.  4½ cans.
109.  My Favorite Wife* (1940) – A complete departure from the previous two movies, this trifle stars Cary Grant as Nick, a widower whose wife (Irene Dunne)was declared dead after a plane crash years before.  So imagine his surprise when she shows up on his wedding day.  Now he has two wives, a possible case of bigamy, and he tries desperately to keep new wife away from first wife.  Back in the day, these screwball comedies were quite in vogue, but the only appealing element to me now is the chemistry between the suave if confused Grant and the elegance of Dunne.  How she shows up perfectly coiffed and isn’t recognized by her own kids could make this into a mystery, but that wasn’t the film’s intent.  Good in its day, I suppose, but well past its prime.  2½ cans.
110.  Private Benjamin (1980) – I can’t think of an actress more irresistible in a role than Goldie Hawn as Private Judy Benjamin.  Spoiled, rich and ditzy, Judy is in mourning for the loss of her second husband (Albert Brooks in a very small part), who dies on screen in the throes of passion on their wedding night.  Her depression makes her succumb to an enlistment pitch to join the Army.  She sees pictures of a beautiful army base with nearby yachts and condos and figures, “This is for me.”  Not exactly.  Instead, she has basic training with a bunch of other recruits under the mean and watchful eye of Captain Doreen Lewis (Eileen Brennan, who is wonderful).  Soon she’s scrubbing toilets with her electric toothbrush and stuck wearing drab green fatigues.  She isn’t cut out for the life, but the alternative of going home to Mommy & Daddy again seems worse.  Hawn is perfect in the part, and the scene where she and her troop celebrate in the barracks by dancing to “We Are Family” is one of my all-time favorite movie scenes.  What a great way to start my day.  4½ cans.
111.  The Stranger Beside Me* (1995) – I was enticed to watch this Lifetime movie by a title I recognized as a murder-mystery from one of my favorite authors, Ann Rule.  Instead, this turned out to be the typical Lifetime drama, overwrought and underacted by stars Tiffani-Amber Thiessen and Eric Close as a young couple with a major problem: He is a rapist.  The neighborhood is not safe with this guy around, but, of course, his wife is shocked to learn the truth about her husband.  Close is handsome in a Rob Lowe kind of way, with his All-American looks masking his twisted persona.  Thiessen goes from loving to skeptical to shocked to determined with a minimal change of expression.  The real mystery here is why I kept watching.  No cans.
112.  Moscow On the Hudson (1984) – A very hairy Robin Williams exudes charm and vulnerability as Vladimir Ivanov, a Russian musician who defects in Bloomingdales.  Vladimir leaves behind his family – and his saxophone – but is befriended by a security guard and a sales clerk (delightful and spunky Maria Conchita Alonzo).  His English improves as he becomes more comfortable in the US, where he can buy toilet paper, shoes that actually fit and as much coffee as he likes, all without standing on a line as he did in repressive Russia.  This Paul Mazursky comedy-drama reminds us that everyone in the US is from somewhere, and especially reminds us to appreciate the freedoms we enjoy on the US.  3½ cans.
113.  Nine for Nine* (2013) – This ESPN production was actually nine separate documentaries airing throughout the summer that focused on various aspects of women’s sports.  There were profiles of legendary Tennessee women’s basketball coach Pat Summit and player Sheryl Swoopes, a look back at the exciting “99-ers,” the women’s Gold Cup soccer team from 1999, and many others, all having to do with the growth of women’s sports as a result of the adoption of Title IX legislation 40 years ago.  ESPN’s last series, “30 for 30,” was equally diverse, informative and entertaining, and I commend the network for rising above its usual sports banter and analysis to examine and highlight special people and unique subjects – like free diving – that might otherwise go unnoticed but for those participating in them.  Overall, 4 cans.
114.  Parental Guidance* (2012) – This misguided, predictable comedy wastes the comedic chops of stars Billy Crystal and Bette Midler with a hum-drum plot and little humor.  The stars are the parents of uptight mother Marisa Tomei, with whom they barely have a relationship, when they are called upon to care for her three issue-laden children while mom & dad go out of town.  The grandparents can’t do anything right – at least not according to firmly-establish new-age house rules, and their old-school demeanor is foreign to the well-programmed kids.  Of course, this set-up is doomed to fail, and we know that inevitably the kids will love their grandparents, who come in and change everything.  When the best part of a movie is the credits at the end, you know it’s bad.  The good thing is that, initially, this was supposed to be our family holiday movie last year.  Glad I caught it on HBO for free instead.  2 cans for the credits and a heart-warming ending.
115.  American Gigolo (1980) – I can never hear Smokey Robinson singing “Just a Mirage” without conjuring up the image of a handsome, young Richard Gere casually assembling his Giorgio Armani clothes on his bed in this movie.  Gere is Julian, a “man about town,” an escort (and more) for rich women.  He works for a woman who books his “dates,” but he also freelances, and on one such occasion, he goes somewhere he would have been better off avoiding.  This sojourn connects him with a murder of a California couple, and Julian gets drawn deeper into the seedier side of LA as he tries to establish his innocence.  Although the plot here centers around the case, the story is much more focused on Julian’s lifestyle.  He wears the best clothes, drives a cool car and lives a hedonistic life made possible solely because of his attractiveness to women.  When a politician’s wife (Lauren Hutton) meets him in a bar, he lets down his guard and lets her into his world at great risk to both them and her aspiring husband.  Can someone whose business is to gratify others truly enjoy himself?  This film is visually arresting, with much of the credit going directly to Gere, who plays the part to perfection.  Not a great movie, but you can’t take your eyes off the prize.  4 cans.