Tina's February 2015 Movies

February is Oscar Month, and I did my best to see many movies that have been honored, including several old favorites.  I have yet to see this year's Best Picture, "Birdman," but I'm sure I will catch up with it soon.  Movies are rated on a scale of 1-5 cans of tuna fish, 5 being the top rating.  Movies marked with an asterisk are ones I had not seen previously, and numbering picks up from the prior month to keep a running total for the year.

19.  Annie Hall (1977) – This is Woody Allen’s Oscar-winning Best Picture, and it is still my favorite of all his films.  A paean to New York, this classic movie brought us the delightful Diane Keaton, with her “la-di-da” title character, Woody as a morose, skeptical and nebishy comic who loves her, and more funny lines than I can begin to quote (but which I have memorized).  There is nothing about this movie that I don’t adore.  5 cans.
20.  Black or White* (2015) – Here is the question:  Is an 8-year old bi-racial girl better off living with the large and loving family of her black grandmother or staying in the place she has lived all her life with the white grandfather who loves her dearly but drinks too much?  Octavia Spencer is Rowena, otherwise known as Grandma Wiwi, and Kevin Costner is Elliott, the grandfather who raised the little girl with his wife since their daughter, the child’s mother, died in childbirth.  But when Elliott’s wife suddenly dies, he is left in charge of the little girl.  The girl has never known her father, who, despite being from a strong family unit, has suffered problems with drugs and served time in jail.  Grandma Wiwi decides that little Eloise would be better off with her and sues Elliott for custody.  There is a lot of anger and a lot of love on display here.  Costner is good as the loving and well-intentioned grandfather who drinks too much, and Octavia Spencer could get an Oscar just from her masterful “sideye.”  When she’s unhappy, everyone will know it.  How can these two adults compromise for the sake of the granddaughter they each love so fervently?  Good question.  3½ cans.
21.  Finding Vivian Maier* (2014) – Serendipity.  For auction aficionado John Maloof, finding a box of photo negatives at an auction was something he thought might help him illustrate a book.  This documentary depicts his quest to find out who took the thousands of pictures, undeveloped rolls of film and movies, which led him to Vivian Maier, a nanny by trade and a woman with a Rolliflex who photographed nearly everything she encountered.  Maloof found the people who employed Vivian, and uncovered more of her work and her life.  For a woman who captured so much about other people through her photography (which demonstrates an eye for composition, lighting and depth), she herself was a mystery.  Was she French (a highly qualified linguist calls her French accent phony), but she had relatives in France.  Why did she hold on to receipts, newspapers and all kinds of things most of us would consider useless?  And what did she intend to do with this huge volume of masterful, artistic work that she never showed to anyone.  Maloof is to be commended not only for exposing her photos to the public through galleries around the world, but for his research and insistence that she be recognized for her art.  This movie was nominated for an Oscar as Best Doumentary.  Fascinating, mysterious, and probably mentally ill, Vivian Maier – thanks to John Maloof – posthumously has been found.  4 cans.
22.  Castaway (2000) – I find this love story (Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt)/buddy movie (Tom Hanks and Wilson the volleyball)/adventure irresistible, so I am compelled to watch it nearly every time it airs on TV.  Hanks is Chuck, a FedEx exec who is in love with Kelly (Hunt).  When his plane goes down over the Pacific, he is stranded on an island for four years, somehow managing to survive on his own with only the company of Kelly’s photo and Wilson the volleyball, who becomes his friend and confident (I know it sounds ludicrous, but it seems entirely plausible).  True love never dies, and man’s ability to master his world is astonishing.  Forget “Wild.”  If you want to see someone conquer his fears and even an abscessed tooth, this is the movie.  Hanks was nominated for an Oscar for a performance of few words, and he is brilliant.  The ending always makes me cry.  5 cans from me for one of my all-time favorite movies.
23.  Unfaithful 23.  Unfaithful (2002) – Forget “50 Shades of Gray.”  If you want to see a hot, erotic movie, check out this Diane Lane-Richard Gere portrait of a happy suburban couple whose lives are changed when she meets younger/hotter Olivier Martinez on the streets of New York and starts an affair to remember.  The scene of Lane on a train after her first sexual encounter with her new lover is a remarkable mix of agony and ecstasy.  The film evolves with a twist, and there are telling moments where she knows that he knows and he knows that she knows, but the cops don’t know.  But I know, and I recommend this one highly.  4 cans.
24.  Trading Places (1983) – Before he started making movies that I left before they were over, and after hitting it big on SNL, Eddie Murphy made a few really fun movies to watch, like “Beverly Hills Cop,” “48 Hours” and this comedy with SNL vet Dan Aykroyd.  Murphy is Billy Ray Valentine, Capricorn, a street hustler in Philadelphia dropping hilarious lines on the cops, when he is gathered up by the ridiculously rich Duke brothers (Don Ameche and Ralph Bellamy) for a “social experiment.”  The Dukes frame their business partner and chosen rich guy, Louis Winthorp (Ackroyd), and replace him with Billy Ray.  Billy Ray has the better part of the deal, living it up with Coleman the butler (Denham Elliott) in a fancy house.  Winthorp is broke, shamed but, luckily, taken in by the proverbial hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold, Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtis).  When they discover the $1 bet made by the Dukes, Valentine & Co. plot revenge on a train and on the floor of the commodities exchange, where they corner the market in laughs.  Seeing this movie just makes me say out loud, “What a happy day!”  4½ cans.
25.  Murphy’s Romance (1985) – Never forget the charm and breadth of actor James Garner (see also “The Notebook,” sigh).  Here he is small-town druggist and all-around good guy Murphy Jones, who befriends lonely Emma Moriarty (Sally Field) and her teenaged son (Corey Haim) when they move to town to get away from her deadbeat former husband.  Murphy can do a little of everything, and, despite the age difference between them, he and Emma strike up a friendship that he seems to think will lead to something more.  Enter the ex-husband (Brian Kerwin), seeking to rekindle the relationship with Emma.  Field is plucky, as she was in “Norma Rae,” the other Martin Ritt film (for which she won an Oscar), but this charmer lacks the strident discord of the latter film.  Garner was never better than in this lovely romance.  This movie can be a little corny and too full of optimistic aphorisms, but it is lovely to see two people develop a friendship that leads to a romance instead of just hopping into bed first and building the relationship later.  By the way, how do you like your eggs?  4 cans.
26.  Prime* (2005) – She (Uma Thurmond) is a 37-year-old recent divorcee who confides everything to her therapist.  He (Bryan Greenburg) is an unemployed 23-year-old would-be artist who lives with this grandparents and has Jewish mother issues.  What they have in common is that her therapist is his mother (Meryl Streep).  The name of this movie shouldn’t be “Prime.”  It should be “Awkward,” because the situation is just that.  At first, Meryl doesn’t realize that the new love in her patient’s life is her son, and listening to their love life isn’t so bad.  However, when she has that moment of recognition, she declines to mention it to the patient and instead listens uncomfortably to details she’s rather not know – including comments about her parenting skills.  Betrayal, yes.  Compromising the doctor-patient relationship?  Definitely.  3½ cans.
27.  The Devil Wears Prada (2006) – In our last movie, Meryl Streep was an overprotective Jewish mother.  Here she is still a New Yorker, but her Miranda Priestly is the goddess of glamour, an unfeeling, unyielding editor of the biggest and most (self)-important fashion magazine.  What she says, who she favors can make or break a career.  So along comes young Andrea (Anne Hathaway), a Northwestern grad interested in writing for a magazine, decidedly unglamorous and bereft of any knowledge about the industry – including the identity of her prospective new boss.  To Miranda, the assistants are nameless (well, not exactly – she just calls them all Emily so she won’t have to bother remembering their names), faceless and largely useless.  Andrea is initially rattled by her boss’ tossing her bag, her coat and a stream of directives at her upon entering the office, but she soon figures out how to survive.  She just has to give up any semblance of a life and jump at each whim of this impossible-to-please woman.  Meryl is perfection as Miranda, and Hathaway blossoms from the “fat girl” Miranda hires to become a fashionista herself, with the help of loyal comrade Nigel (Stanley Tucci, who is great in any role he plays).  So much for her relationship with boyfriend Nate (Adrien Grenier).  But does Andy want this (lack of) life?  Will she ever be a size 2?  Emily Blunt plays assistant number one with a measured haughtiness and a nasty cold that gives Andy a chance to shine.  As we all know, Meryl can do anything, and playing an Anna Wintour clone is well within her wheelhouse.  4 cans.
28.  Non-Stop* (2014) – What does it say about a movie if you cannot remember whether you have seen it previously?  That it isn’t memorable?  This action-thriller with Liam Neeson and newly Oscared Julianne Moore seemed so familiar, yet I don’t normally go to the movies to see action flicks, so I’m just not sure whether or not I have seen this one.  What I AM sure of, however, is that if I saw Liam Neeson getting on my flight, or a train, or anywhere in my world, I’d head quickly to the exit.  The soft-spoken Neeson is making his living in this genre of action movies where his particular set of skills is put to good use killing people.  Even if he isn’t the bad guy – and here he is a sky marshal trying to save a planeload of folks from a ticking bomb on board – there are still dead bodies in his wake.  In this movie, everyone is a suspect.  I have trouble figuring out whether Professor Plumb did it with a lead pipe in the conservatory in the board game Clue, so I really don’t have a clue when it comes to identifying the actual bad guys.  Even after the movie ended, I still wasn’t sure.  I just know Neeson gets out alive, but I wouldn’t want to be on hand to see that for myself.  3 cans and a bomb.
29.  Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) – Meryl Streep Month continues.  Meryl had made only four movies before this moving drama about a mother/wife who abandons her young son/clueless husband to save her own sanity.  But you can see the greatness in her future.  Just the scene where she takes the stand in the custody battle that ensues when she gets her life together shows her incredible acting (and crying) ability, for which she was awarded Best Supporting Actress (her first of 19 Oscar nominations).  Her husband Ted goes from first class jerk to a loving father in the course of the film, and Dustin Hoffman was justifiably given the Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal.  Check out the two scenes where he makes French toast with his 8-year old son (Justin Henry), which range from chaotic to orderly.  The movie itself beat out “Norma Rae,” “Breaking Away” and “Apocalypse Now” as Best Picture.  How do you keep your sense of self with the constant demands of parenthood?  There is no answer.  4½ cans.
30.  Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) – Ellen Burstyn was the Meryl Streep of her generation – minus the accents – playing lead roles and garnering multiple Oscar nominations.  Here she is Alice Hyatt, a wife stuck in a loveless marriage and a mother to Tommy, a very quirky 12-year old son (Alfred Lutter, perfectly cast and annoying).  When her husband is killed in a car accident, nearly destitute Alice and Tommy take off for her hometown of Monterey.  Along the road, they stop in Arizona so Alice can make some money as a singer in a piano bar.  But when she meets the wrong man there, they move on to another Arizona town, where she ends up as a waitress at Mel’s Diner.  The fabulous Flo (Diane Ladd) gives every customer a piece of her mind along with their slice of toast, and the strange Vera (Valerie Curtain) comes to work on the back of a motorcycle driven by her “Daddy Duke.”  Handsome, rugged David (Kris Kristofferson) nearly sweeps Alice off her feet.  Alice has to face a delicate balance, dreaming of being a singer, stuck being a waitress and caring for the smart-mouthed son she loves dearly.  A very young Jodie Foster is cast as Tommy’s much more mature friend, Audrey.  Burstyn won the Oscar for her role.  This movie contains the worst joke in the world: “shoot the dog.”  4 cans.
31.  The Big Chill (1983) – You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.  The lyrics of this Rolling Stones song apply perfectly to a bunch of 30-somethings who reunite at the funeral of one of their own, the charismatic Alex (famously played by but not seen actor Kevin Costner).  The sensational cast is matched by perhaps the best soundtrack of any movie I know.  Glenn Close, Kevin Kline, William Hurt, Tom Berenger, Mary Kay Place, Jobeth Williams and Jeff Goldblum have complex relationships that have waned over the years but are still rooted in their formative years at the University of Michigan.  They have grown to be a doctor, an attorney, an actor, a People Magazine writer, an entrepreneur and at least one person who uses plenty of drugs to forget he is none of those people.  They are attractive, erudite, a bit smug and very horny, as they reflect back wistfully on relationships and times before they became cynical and when, together, they felt most comfortable and genuine, before the realities of the world and making a living sidetracked them from teaching in Harlem and defending the poor.  To me, this film was a hallmark for those of us who were in our 30s when it was released, and whose college experiences forged lifetime friendships that remain strong despite distance and circumstance.  I can never hear “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” without thinking of this bunch of people dancing around the kitchen.  4½ cans.
32.  The Other Woman* (2014) – As you know, I love movies of all kinds.  Just not this kind.  This sophomoric take on revenge on a cheating husband doesn’t approach the similarly-themed “First Wives Club” with its vindictive and smarmy plot.  Usually, I’ll provide you with my look at the movie’s artistry or a summary of the plot.  Consider this review a public service announcement: Run, don’t walk, if you see this movie coming at you – in the other direction.  Leslie Mann, Cameron Diaz and the voluptuous Kate Upton band together and stop at nothing to get revenge on Mann’s husband, who is cheating on her with both of them.  I stopped watching when Diaz’ character slipped the scheming creep something that gave him explosive diarrhea at a restaurant.  At that point I had no interest in anything but tuning out.  Consider yourself warned.  I’m just glad I didn’t pay to see this offensive piece of drivel.  Zero, that’s right, no, nada, not even one can.  No pun intended.