Month: September 2021

I’m a sucker for stories, particularly romances, involving senior citizens. Unfortunately like Poms from two years ago, the story here is super light (essentially Mean Girls set in a senior community) and with a different cast wouldn’t be better than any Lifetime or Hallmark movie. Ellen Burstyn as the main character, an older woman who experiences a house fire and is forced to temporarily move to the community, brings quality to the role, as do James Caan, Jane Curtin, Ann-Margret, and Loretta Devine as her neighbors. Christopher Lloyd is also in the film but sadly under-used in his role as a resident experiencing worsening dementia.

This is a rather solid film noir directed by Orson Welles. Set on the Mexican-United States border, it’s a bit convoluted of a tale involving a bomb, a Mexican crime family, and good and bad crime fighters from both sides of the border. For viewers of Citizen Kane, it’d be no surprise that this one is filled to the brim with interesting camera perspectives and angles, though it sometimes sacrifices the story itself. Also taking away from the story a bit is a poorly brown-faced Charlton Heston portraying a newlywed Mexican prosecutor. 

I expected more from Denzel Washington’s directorial debut. The story of an emotionally troubled young man learning to come to terms with the traumas of his past with the help of a mentor isn’t particularly new. This version has a sailor prone to violent outbursts who is forced by his commanding officer to see a psychiatrist. It generally follows the expected tropes, except it speeds through the actual transformation of the main character so that it feels like a sudden, unearned change. One positive is that the acting is solid, particularly that of the actors during the flashbacks.

Growing older, it’s a mild worry as to how I’ll experience my own lessening mental facilities. Here the experience is shown from both the perspective of the one with a dementia diagnosis and their significant other. That these two people are played by Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth adds to the quality of the film, as the duo travel on one last road trip across the UK together. It’s not a new story, but it’s filled with beautiful landscapes and there is a real loving sweetness to how the actors portray their relationship.

When I was in college, my roommate introduced me and our mutual friends to both the Mortal Kombat game and the 1995 film. Those two items pair quite well together. I don’t know about later MK games, but this film doesn’t gel with the parts I’m familiar with. There’s too much time spent on a hackneyed story involving superfluous family characters. The music and fight choreography do nothing to adrenalize the viewer. Most of the actors feel rather miscast. There isn’t even a tournament. It does at least include quotes and graphic violence reminiscent of the original game.