And we're off! Another year and more movies and programs for me to watch. The ratings are from 1-5 cans of tuna fish, with 5 being the top. Asterisks indicate things I had not seen previously.
1. Love, Actually (2003, Peacock) – What more can I say about this movie that I have seen so many times? It still makes me smile, makes me feel good, and I love the way it celebrates love. And this version thankfully omitted the story arc with the porn actors that you don’t even miss. The fact that it has my favorite Christmas song (“All I want for Christmas Is You” by Mariah Carey) and ends with one of the best songs ever (“God Only Knows”) over the final montage just makes it that much more lovable, actually. 5 cans.
2. Elizabeth is Missing* (2020, PBS Masterpiece Theatre) – Glenda Jackson is remarkable as Maude, an elderly British woman with dementia and Alzheimer’s who is entrapped in a mystery when her friend and neighbor disappears. She deals with her diminished memory by keeping copious notes to remind her what to do and which give her clues about what happened to Elizabeth. She is also racking her brain with bits of memories about the disappearance decades before of her beloved sister. She is normally feisty, and now, confused, she lashes out against her caring daughter and granddaughter. If you are worried about Alzheimer’s, this movie will not assuage your fears. But the story of this tenacious woman, fighting the battle against time and memory loss, is something to see. 4 cans.
3. The Madness of King George (1994) – On a day of an unprecedented assault against democracy in the US, January 6, 2021, I took refuge in the curious and real story of a King who went mad. Nigel Hawthorne gives a stunning performance as King George, whose various ailments and strange behavior lead his advisors and family to presume he is mad. And if you were with this lot of folks, you’d go a little crazy, too. Helen Mirren is on hand as his loving but trepidatious wife and Rupert Freund plays his scheming son, just waiting for the old man to keel over so he can usurp the throne. It was interesting to see the screen version based on the true story of a British monarch gone mad with no one truly able to diagnose, treat or handle him. Sound familiar? 3½ cans.
4. Herself* (2021, Prime Video) – Sandra is a badly battered wife who finally takes such a severe beating that she and her two daughters flee. They are allowed to go into government-subsidized housing at a local hotel. But she cannot sever ties to her abusive husband because he is entitled to visitation rights to their two young girls. Sandra works at a bar and cleans and cares for an older woman for whom her mother worked. Stuck in the Scottish social welfare system and relegated to living in one hotel room paid for by the government while she waits on a long list for housing, Sandra decides to take matters into her own hands and build herself a house. Armed only with what she has seen on an online video, she sets out to order the materials and begin construction, aided by a local contractor who knows what a creep her estranged husband is. This is not a light and cheery film, and Clare Dunne, the lead, has few emotions to portray beyond sheer terror, frustration and hopelessness. But it does have a few moments of triumph, as Sandra’s circle of friends and volunteers pitches in to assist with the daunting construction project. 3½ cans.
5. Same Time, Next Year (1978, DVD) – After reading the Elin Hilderbrand book “28 Summers,” I just had to go back and revisit this charming movie with its similar premise. Two lovers, George and Doris (Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn) meet at a quaint California inn while she is supposed to be on a church retreat and he on a business trip. Although they are both married to other people, they strike up a conversation that leads to a 26-year affair that occurs on at the same time each year. Their timing isn’t always the best. One year he is very horny and she is very pregnant. When he’s become an uptight Republican, she has become a hippie. But their devotion and intimacy transcend any differences they have and even surpasses the guilt they feel for their clandestine annual affair. We see them every five years as they catch up, swapping stories about their spouses and kids and their respective lives. I might just watch this sweet movie same time, next year. 4 cans.
6. Schitt’s Creek* (2015-20, Netflix) – I checked into the Rosebud Motel in Schitt’s Creek this year and stayed happily for six seasons with the strange but endearing Rose family. Eugene Levy (with eyebrows like those of Groucho Marx) plays Johnny, the patriarch of a formerly wealthy family that is scammed in a Madoff-type deal and loses everything except the town they bought years ago, a rundown place with an equally run-down motel in a small town that – like every small town ever on TV – is inhabited by plenty of perky and quirky folks. Along for the ride are his wife Moira (long-time acting partner Catherine O’Hara), a barely accomplished actress with a huge collection of wigs that she treats as friends (they have names!) and his adult children David (Levy’s son and co-creator Daniel) and Alexis (Annie Murphy), who take time adjusting to their fall from grace and the lives of the rich and famous. This is a character-driven comedy, with Eugene playing the straight man to the chaos around him. The whole series was wildly entertaining as the family members got themselves into impossible situations, but in the end, the story was less about escapades and more about family and friends and acceptance. 4 cans.
7. Tiger* (2021, HBO) – Earl Woods was a mad scientist, determined to make, cajole, train and will his son Tiger to be the world’s best golfer, the standard carrier for Blacks in golf, a great humanitarian on the order of Nelson Mandela, and the best of everyone who ever lived. Now, Tiger, go out and TRY to live up to that standard. The first part went according to plan. Tiger excelled on the links. But Earl wasn’t the greatest role model off the links as a womanizer and someone who was too demanding, and Tiger’s life was never a normal one. This documentary, unlike the multi-part “The Last Dance” about Michael Jordan, doesn’t contain any actual interviews with Tiger himself. There are plenty of people once associated with him or Earl who were happy to comment on Tiger’s training and development, but clearly, this two-part series was not something encouraged by Tiger himself. Part two turns utterly salacious, covering the womanizing Tiger getting caught with his mistress (one among many) and having an auto accident at the gate of his Florida estate). His wife and the mother of his two young children was just NOT having it. Americans love to see the rise and fall and resurrection of our heroes, and perhaps Tiger Woods’ story surpasses them all. And while I don’t condone his behavior, I can understand why he veered off the path his father carved out for him, chafing under the control and the scrutiny of fame. I don’t have any sympathy, but I can see why the wheels fell off the bus. 3½ cans.
8. Pretend It’s a City* (2021, Netflix) – Acerbic author Fran Leibowitz teams up with legendary director Martin Scorsese for a 7-part series spotlighting her wicked witticisms. The humorist claims, “I have no power but I am filled with opinions.” And she goes on to demonstrate that point clearly with comments about technology, money, art and surviving in New York. Her loves in life are reading, smoking and the city – in whatever order. I’ve been a fan since I read her collections of essays in the 1970s (“Metropolitan” and “Social Studies”) and since we are the same age (she’s one whole day older than me) and are both writers (she is an actual writer; I fancy myself a writer…), I get everything she says better than ever. Just listening to her made me feel smarter – though not nearly as well-read as I should be. I felt like I spent the evening with a finicky, funny friend. 3½ cans.
9. First Love* (1998, Prime Video) – Jean (Beatrice Arthur) is having a tough time adjusting to the death of her husband nine months earlier, and despite encouragement from her girlfriends, she can’t seem to move on. Then she impulsively sends a letter to her high school love Sam (Richard Kiley), who responds with plane tickets to see him in California. They are comfortable together, but there is one complication – his part-time girlfriend, a vibrant and attractive woman about 20 years younger (Joan Van Ark) who wants to marry him and have kids with him. This movie is so old that when Jean (Beatrice Arthur) slams down the receiver, she is using a Princess model phone! And Bea Arthur looks like she came right off the set of The Golden Girls to play this part – and brought Dorothy Zbornack’s wardrobe with her. This is an inconsequential movie that does little more than prove that people in their 60s are not dead yet. 2 cans.
10. Love, Gilda (2018, Hulu) – It is hard not to love Gilda Radner, a phenomenal comedic talent who burst into prominence as an original cast member at the inception “Saturday Night Live” in the 1970s. Her indelible characters (Emily Littella, Roseanne Rosanadana and Baba Wawa) and her fearless approach to making everything funny set her apart from the other women on SNL. This loving documentary reminds us of a golden age in TV comedy and traces Gilda’s rise from a young girl to a comedy superstar to a woman diagnosed with deadly ovarian cancer. It is heartwarming and heartbreaking to relive her moments of glory knowing that the story will not have a happy ending. 3½ cans.
11. City Slickers (1991, HBO) – It has been 30 years since Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby became erstwhile cowboys leading a cattle drive under the tutelage of taciturn and wise Curley (Jack Palance). The boys are suffering a mid-life crisis, unhappy with themselves, their jobs, their relationships, when Ed (Kirby) encourages them to sign up for this different kind of vacation. This is a fish-out-of-water story combined with a buddy movie, and there are enough one-liners, funny bypasses on the trail and some poignant moments to satisfy the actors and the viewers. I hadn’t seen it in years and I loved every minute. 3½ cans.
12. Diane* (2019, Hulu) – Diane (Mary Kay Place) is a woman with a never-ending To Do List. When she’s not driving to see her dying cousin in the hospital, she’s delivering food to other relatives, working in a soup kitchen or in search of her ne’er-do-well son, whose addiction problems render him helpless and belligerent. This movie focuses on the little things – asking about a loved one, playing cards in the hospital – as it shows a woman with family members leaving her to remain in sadness and with regrets for making some wrong choices. This film is no bundle of lightness and joy, so if you are already in a dark place, this one won’t make you feel better. But it is a realistic look at life and carried by a noteworthy performance by Place. 3½ cans.
13. The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley (2019, HBO) – For some reason, this documentary about entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes’ quest to produce a diagnostic system that could perform hundreds of tests from a single drop of blood fascinates me. I have read a book on the subject of the rise and fall of her Theranos venture and I have seen several programs on Holmes and her insistence that the functionality of her proprietary technology would change the world. She might have been right – had it worked. Far from being the next Steve Jobs, whom she emulated in style and attire, Holmes turned out to be an overconfident (at best) fraud (at worst) who bilked investors out of money trying to make her venture – once valued at $9 billion – a success. The problem was that the device didn’t work, and despite her courting of powerful investors and board members, she was really biding time, trying to “fake it ‘til she made it.” Once a self-made billionaire, Holmes now makes her appearances not at big medical conventions, but in lawyers’ offices and courtrooms, where she fights battles against a myriad of lawsuits and regulators. The story and Holmes herself are compelling. 4 cans.
14. Heartland* (1979, Prime Video) – There’s not much to this story beyond the characters battling the elements to survive in the tough terrain of cold and windy Wyoming at the beginning of the 20th century. Elinore Randall (Conchata Ferrell) is a widow with a young daughter who needs a job. Gruff rancher Clyde Stewart (Rip Torn) is trying to make ends meet, tending to his cattle and horses, and he needs a housekeeper, so he sends for Elinore. There is always coffee on the stove, something baking in the oven and wash on the line with competent Elinore in charge of the household, milking the cows, gathering the eggs, etc. Clyde is a man of few words (very few, trust me), but the two manage to build a life together despite the rigors of living on the land. This isn’t exactly “Die Hard,” but you sure do get an idea of how tough it is to be a rancher. There was something about this movie that I found heartwarming, and I am a big fan of the recently deceased Farrell, whom you might recall from “Mystic Pizza” or “Two and a Half Men.” 3 cans.
15. Radium Girls* (2018, Netflix) – Think of this drama as “Erin Brockovich” without the decolletage. It is the early 1900s, and Bessie and Jo work at the American Radium Company, painting the glowing radium on the faces of clocks. Most of the women there dip the tip of the brushes they use to apply the paint-radium mixture into their mouths to keep them pointy, and when a mysterious sickness develops, their pleas for help from the big, bad company go ignored. But Bessie has already lost one sister and when her other sibling, Jo, starts exhibiting the same symptoms, she takes on the establishment. But radium isn’t harmful, right? It is used in a myriad of products and touted as an elixir for good health. The young women have to beat the clock to beat the company. This movie just didn’t have the fire of an Erin Brockovich, though I appreciate the important steps they took that led to greater safety for workers. 3 cans.
16. Saturday Night Fever (1977, Cable) – The music, the dancing, John Travolta strutting down the street swinging a paint can, the Italian family, the young men with no future living in Brooklyn and dancing at the local disco – if you haven’t seen this classic, what are you waiting for? The BeeGees scored some of their biggest hits with the songs on the soundtrack, and it’s enough to make me feel like “Staying Alive.” On the story side, just seeing young Tony Manero come alive on the dance floor, doing the one thing in life that brings him joy, is breathtaking. 4 cans.
17. & 18. Gone Girl (2014) and The Lie* (2020) – I’m covering these two together because they have similar elements. Both are based on deceit and full of suspense. In Gone Girl, Ben Affleck is Nick Dunne, whose wife goes missing on their fifth anniversary. Since suspicion ALWAYS falls on the spouse and there is plenty of circumstantial evidence, he is quickly accused of killing her, and he’s not getting much help or sympathy from her parents or the people in the town. But wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) is clever and cunning as the story twists and turns to an unresolved conclusion. In The Lie, teenager Kayla (Joey King) is a moody dance student on her way to dance camp with her father driving when they find her friend Brittany waiting for a ride and pick her up. When they stop the car for a bio break, Kayla and Brittany disappear, with Kayla hysterically telling her father (Peter Saarsgard) that she pushed Brittany into the river – intentionally. But did anyone see them? Can the father protect his daughter? They return home and enlist her mother (Mireille Enos) in the coverup as Brittany’s father turns up the heat to find his missing daughter. These are very bad people. I’ll give the pair of films an average of 3.75 cans and I’m glad I saw them on the same day.
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