Tina's March 2017 Movies

It should come as no surprise that I watched several basketball movies since, after all, it IS March Madness!  Movies not previously seen are marked with an asterisk.  Movies are rated on a scale of 1-5 tuna cans, with 5 being at the top of the scale.  Numbering picks up from the previous months.

23.  At All Costs* (2015) – As a sports fan, it pains me to think about the business aspects of athletics, but that is the reality of athletics at ANY level.  This documentary about boys’ AAU basketball gives an inside look at “amateur” athletics, where basketball players as young as pre-teens are tracked and rated.  But the all-consuming monsters here are the AAU teams and leagues, funded generously by shoe companies and headed by well-meaning coaches who preside over their young charges with authoritarianism and the promoting the dream of a D-1 scholarship and an NBA career.  The coaches establish a rapport with the players and their families, but their altruism is tempered by their need to win, thus insuring future financial support.  The players criss-cross the country to play in showcase tournaments, elevate their visibility and garner that scholarship.  Gone are the days where allegiance to the hometown high school team was enough of a motivator.  According to this movie, the high school coach is a minor influence, supplanted by the AAU coach and organization.  Yes, some good can come of this in the form of educational opportunities, but with that comes more games and more chances to blow out a knee and miss out on a future so fervently desired.  Such are the demands of the meat market that is college athletics.  3½ basketballs.
24.  The Secret Rules of Modern Living: Algorithms* (2015) – Let me start by saying that math is not my forte. So why on earth would I be drawn to a documentary on algorithms?  Well, I like anything logical, that shows how things work, and algorithms – which are a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations, especially by a computer – are behind much of what we demand in today’s society.  That includes everything from internet searches to calculating directions to managing warehouse operations to on-line dating, where algorithms work behind the scenes to match and sort huge volumes of data very quickly to provide answers.  Google was built on a search algorithm.  The host of this BBC documentary does a masterful job of illustrating how algorithms work for us and highlighting how they help get information we depend on for everyday life.  I can’t explain algorithms in much detail, but I’m happy they are around, and I’m happy I stumbled on this demonstration of their importance.  3 cans.  PS – I know few people who would watch this movie but many people who would question my sanity and interest in it.
25.  Don Jon* (2013) – I thought I was watching an episode of MTV’s “Jersey Shore” with this movie.  Jon (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who also wrote and directed), is a “player,” an Italian stud whose mission in life is to score with the hot ladies and keep his apartment, car and himself clean and tidy in between sexual conquests.  He goes to church and the gym, works out religiously while chanting his Hail Marys as penance for the porn obsession that he confesses each week to his priest.  That’s until he’s hit with the thunderbolt that is Barbara (Scarlett Johansson), a gum-chewing Jersey girl with all the physical requirements he demands.  Yet no one and nothing can match the fantasies of the thrills he gets from watching porn.  When Barbara discovers that Jon’s sex life often does not need her, she dumps him.  After mourning for at least a few minutes, he strikes up a relationship with pot-smoking Esther (Julianne Moore), a much older classmate, who leads him into a better kind of existence.  Jon seems like a self-centered meathead who will never be satisfied with an actual woman and who will continue to indulge himself.  The only reason I watched this movie is that I couldn’t find anything else on a snowy day and that I like Gordon-Levitt (no relation) – but not so much here.  2 cans.
26.  The Railway Man* (2013) – The movie is based on the true story of British WWII veteran Eric Lomax (Colin Firth), a man who loves railroads.  He meets a young woman Patti (Nicole Kidman) while riding the train, and they get married quickly – before she really gets a chance to know him.  Soon she finds out that while serving as an officer in the British Army in Japan, Lomax was taken as a prisoner of war and tortured.  Ironically, he and his cohorts are forced into the hard labor of building a railroad line.  Years later, he feels drawn to return to the place where he was captured and to confront his torturer, a man named Nagase (Hiroyuki Sanada).  This is a moving tale of a man trying to reconcile his past and his present.  3½ cans.
27.  Mr. Church* 2016) – This quiet little melodrama stars Eddie Murphy in a role diametrically opposed to his more well-known turns in “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Trading Places.”  Here he is a man hired to cook for a little girl and her mother, a young woman who is dying of breast cancer.  He is a great cook, and soon becomes a treasured part of the family, but in a dignified, proper way, always called “Mr. Church” by his employer and her daughter Charlie.  Although the dying woman only has 6 months to live, she far exceeds her grim prognosis, and Mr. Church is always there for her and Charlie.  The movie builds through their unconventional relationship, which lasts for years.  It’s not possible to say more her without giving away the story.  There are numerous plot holes and a bit of maudlin play.  This movie reminded me in a way of “Driving Miss Daisy,” depicting caring black people in subservient roles, but Mr. Church himself kowtows to no one.  3 cans.
28.  Sunset Boulevard (1950) – Picture it: Faded silent screen star Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) easing down that long staircase and sneering into the camera.  “I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille.”  Now try NOT to picture Carol Burnett in the role, which she did as a memorable send-up on her hilarious TV show.  In this, the classic Billy Wilder film, Norma is desperate to regain her position as the Queen of Hollywood, a part she hasn’t played since silent movies became extinct.  She is holed up in a decaying mansion on, yes, Sunset Boulevard, reliving her glory days as her faithful servant Max caters to her every whim.  Then along comes screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden), who accidentally arrives there and is almost immediately drawn into the hands of the manipulative and exceedingly generous Madame Desmond.  But they are manipulating each other, he because he needs the work she offers (and doesn’t mind her lavish gifts) and she because she is used to being in charge.  Will Joe ever reclaim his real life?  Will Norma once again shine on screen?  There are signs of dementia as the increasingly demanding and desperate Norma tries to romance the much younger writer, who is torn between helping himself and saving her.  I watched as a pre-requisite to the Broadway musical with Glenn Close that I saw the next day.  The movie gets 4 cans.  The Broadway show was outstanding and gets 5 cans.
29.  Nights in Rodanthe (2008) – I guess if I were going to watch a movie with two of my favorite actors as the leads (Richard Gere and Diane Lane), I should have picked their much superior co-starring stint in “Unfaithful.”  This is your typical Nicholas Sparks story of two great-looking people in North Carolina.  They meet by accident and fall madly in love during a nasty storm.  Adrienne Willis has a troubled marriage.  Dr. Paul Flanner is divorced, estranged from his son, and, oh, by the way, a local resident died on his operating table and the family wants to sue him.  She’s tending her friend’s inn and getting away from her errant husband, and Flanner, the only guest, is in town to apologize to the family of the woman who died.  It rains – hard – and they have to batten down the hatches before they can fall in love.  This is a trite and manipulative story that I cannot reveal more of without giving away the ending.  Their attraction is immediate and their love is sudden; it rains and he goes away.  Watch it to find out the whole story.  One bonus – Viola Davis plays Adrienne’s BFF.  2½ cans.
30.  More Than a Game* (2008) – I admire people who are prescient enough to seize opportunities to record events and news before they become significant.  In this case, the filmmakers tracked the athletic success of a basketball team in Akron, Ohio, BEFORE its members were even in high school, when they played in an old community center.  And, as good fortune would have it, one of the members of that team became NBA superstar LeBron James.  James even as an adolescent was clearly a superior talent.  Together with several of his childhood friends and dedicated coaches, the kids had a chance to win a championship.  It took them until James’ senior year to move to the top of the national high school rankings and become the national champions, playing all-comers and flying around the country to do so.  As a basketball fan, I find this stuff fascinating.  James often looked like a man among boys, his body maturing faster and his strength evident while at least one of his teammates hadn’t cracked five feet tall yet.  I think this documentary also shows the influence that dedicated coaches have not just on developing winning teams, but also on the development of boys to men, and good men.  The young men in the movies remain LeBron’s best friends even today, while he was gone on to a career that puts him among the elite players in the game.  3 ½ cans.
31.  Redwood Highway* (2013) – Shirley Knight is one of those actresses who always come across as believable, effortless.  Here she escapes her assisted living facility to hit the highway – on foot – determined to spite her interfering son and walk 80 miles to attend her granddaughter’s wedding.  Along the way she is lucky enough to encounter people who help her on her mission, providing food, tips and even medical help when needed.  That’s where the story – to me – begins to unravel a bit.  She walks through a redwood forest to get to Oregon, where many years back she married her late husband, a man killed at a young age while in the Service.  She fantasizes a bit and demonstrates some possible signs of dementia, but she is determined and stubborn.  Nothing explodes, nobody gets hurt, and this is a bittersweet little movie worth seeing if only for Knight’s performance.  3 cans.
32.  Woman in Gold (2015) – I am intrigued by the premise here, so much so that I have seen two other movies on this theme and have visited the museum where the painting of the title is on display.  The superb documentary “The Rape of Europa” covered the seizure of art from Jews by the Nazis in the period leading up to and during WWII.  George Clooney’s “The Monuments Men” tried to inject some humor in the story of a team of men trying to recapture these treasures and return them to their rightful owners.  That’s where this story picks up, with Maria, having moved to the United Sates to flee Austria during the war, trying to reclaim the “Woman in Gold” painting of her aunt by the famous artist Gustav Klimpt.  But the Austria Museum where the painting has long resided claims its ownership, so Maria (Helen Mirren, terrific as always) teams up with a young attorney whose family she knows (underplayed beautifully by Ryan Reynolds) to bring a lawsuit first in Austria and then in the US to get the painting back.  The odds are long and the legal angles can be a little hard to follow, but this pair is ready to pull out all the stops.  4 cans
33.  Return to Me (2000) – This endearing movie is about a broken heart.  Grace (Minnie Driver) has lived her whole life with a bad heart and is failing when she is the lucky recipient of the heart of a woman killed in a car accident.  The victim’s loving husband Bob (David Duchovny) is devastated, until he meets Grace, having no idea that her good health is thanks to his wife’s heart.  When she figures it out, can she tell him, and will it change things between them?  Grace is surrounded by family and friends (including Bonnie Hunt, Carroll O’Connor as her grandfather, Jim Belushi) and has plenty of love and support, but can she give her heart to Bob once she knows it once belonged to his wife?  If I could pick someone to be friends with, Bonnie Hunt, who co-wrote and directed this charming gem, would be high up on my list.  This movie is charming and will make you smile.  Let’s just say it has a lot of heart.  4 cans.
34.  Custody* (2015) – Sorry, Viola Davis, but if I see that you are in a movie, I expect a very high standard.  Not that Davis’ performance is anything other than stellar, but the movie?  The only real reason to watch it is Davis herself, playing a stoic judge who runs a tight family courtroom and presides over a case with Sara, a young mother (Catalina Sandino Moreno) who is in trouble with the law but fighting desperately to retain custody of her two young children.  Davis may control her courtroom, but in real life, her marriage is falling apart and there are issues with her college student son.  Meanwhile, Sara’s public defender Ally (Hayden Panetierre) has her own issues – personally and professionally.  Too much time is spent on the arcane rulings of the court and not enough on the problems faced by these women, each of a different socio-economic class and each facing stereotypes.  Well done, but I wanted better.  3½ cans.
35.  Driving Lessons* (2006) – Not to be confused with “Learning to Drive,” this British movie is about 17-year old Ben (Rupert Grint), a socially awkward boy living with his religious parents and ready to break free.  He takes a job (at his mother’s urging; his mother is Laura Linney) as an assistant to Evie, an elderly actress (Julie Walters) who is as eccentric as you expect of older actresses in this kind of movie.  Although he’s not quite sure how to assist Evie and he’s not all that resourceful, he soon becomes essential to her existence.  This is a coming of age movies, as Ben must learn to drive and to deal with the demands of the women in his life.  Some of the situations are far-fetched, but the relationship between the demanding actress and her young charge is mostly heartwarming.  3 cans.
36.  The Loving Story* (2011) – Love is love, right?  Well, not in Virginia in 1958, when Richard Loving, a white man, married Mildred Jeter, a woman of black and Cherokee heritage, in Washington, DC.  After the wedding, the young couple returned to their home state to live.  Several weeks later, they were arrested, charged and convicted pf miscegenation, a law designed to prohibit the mixing of races.  Virginia was one of 21 states with miscegenation laws on the books then.  The Lovings had no idea they were violating the law and moved to Washington to avoid jail.  But their respective families lived in Virginia and they wanted their kids to grow up there, so they wrote a letter to then-Attorney General Bobby Kennedy, asking for his help.  He recommended they contact the American Civil Liberties Union, which they did.  The Lovings were not activists, and they were not looking to end up in front of the Supreme Court to make their case.  They just wanted to enjoy their married lives together in their home state.  I missed the dramatization of this case in the movie that came out in 2016 (“Loving”), but this HBO documentary covers the ground in a factual, low-key way.  It is truly abhorrent to remember that there were laws like this around as recently as 2000, when Alabama became the last state to drop its.  You can’t help but think about the irony of the name of this film – Loving – which well reflects the couple’s devotion to each other, to their families and to the State of Virginia at a time when state governments made it illegal for them to do just that.  4 cans.