The simply named Land is similar to the Reese Witherspoon movie Wild, in which a woman who has had a traumatic experience escapes from society into the mountains. Land is about a woman named Edie (Robin Wright) whose husband and son were killed in a mass shooting. She rents a cabin in British Columbia far from anywhere and stays there for two years, occasionally meeting other humans who help her to learn to hunt and plant.
That's all the plot there is. The movie is only 99 minutes long. The scenery is spectacular and best seen on the big screen.
Raya and the Last Dragon is the most beautiful Disney movie ever made, even prettier than Sleeping Beauty!
Raya is a teen in an apocalyptic country that has been overrun by evil beings who turn humans and all other life to stone. Raya is collecting lighted stones from five different warring countries in a hope to combine them and revive dragons, which will save the humans from the creatures.
Except for the last country, Raya really has little difficulty in regaining the stones. The story is episodic, as she goes through the different countries and meets their inhabitants, some of which join her on her quest.
The story takes place in an alternate universe Asia, where the different peoples look similar but have different cultures. I personally think Raya looks Vietnamese, with her woven straw triangular hat.
This is a computer animated film but it does not have the exaggerated features of people and oversized everything like so many computerized movies do. The colors are astounding. I don't know if this movie was based on an Asian fairy tale or not. Although there is no modern technology, the characters use contemporary terms such as "OK" and "dystopia" and even the nose touch word for babies "boop!".
Not sure how to categorize Nomadland. I guess it's a docudrama. The only professional actor in the movie is star Frances McDormand. All the other people in the movie are real people playing themselves. Nomadland is the story of a widow who leaves her small town and travels around in a remodeled van to campgrounds where others like her meet up across the country. Sometimes she gets a job for a few weeks. The people in this movie are not destitute and homeless; rather, they say they are "houseless." They live in their trailers and travel around in caravans. When they stop someplace, they meet with others like them. They give each other advice, such as getting a bucket to use as a toilet, where to empty it, and how to clean it.
The only reason the movie got an R rating was because McDormand stops to skinny dip in a stream and you see all of her. There is no cursing or violence whatsoever.
The movie wasn't depressing, just odd.
Not sure how to categorize Nomadland. I guess it's a docudrama. The only professional actor in the movie is star Frances McDormand. All the other people in the movie are real people playing themselves. Nomadland is the story of a widow who leaves her small town and travels around in a remodeled van to campgrounds where others like her meet up across the country. Sometimes she gets a job for a few weeks. The people in this movie are not destitute and homeless; rather, they say they are "houseless." They live in their trailers and travel around in caravans. When they stop someplace, they meet with others like them. They give each other advice, such as getting a bucket to use as a toilet, where to empty it, and how to clean it.
The only reason the movie got an R rating was because McDormand stops to skinny dip in a stream and you see all of her. There is no cursing or violence whatsoever.
The movie wasn't depressing, just odd.
How did you like this movie? Considering renting it...
Queen Bees was the only original movie playing at the theater complex I went to today. The other movies were: Black Widow (comic book movie) Boss Baby: Family Business (sequel) The Conjuring: The Devil Made me do It (sequel) Cruella (prequel) Escape Room: Tournament of Champions (sequel) F9: The Fast Saga (sequel) The Forever Purge (sequel) The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (sequel) Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway (sequel) A Quiet Place Part II (sequel) Space Jam: A New Legacy (sequel) Queen Bees starts out just like Poms did: an older woman (Ellen Burstyn) moves into a retirement home and is bored. Unlike Poms, her character doesn't try to get a bunch of the less popular residents together to fight the popular tenants; rather, she joins the popular, mean girls and ends up reforming them.
I think Poms was better; especially since it had better music. Bees is pleasant enough, but the characters in the other movie were more likeable.
During the pandemic, I was looking for books to read, and found my old college English literature book and started reading it from the beginning--all 1000-plus pages of it. A few months ago I read the 14th century epic poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
So yesterday I went to see The Green Knight, starring Dev Patel. Of course things were changed in the movie. His mother, Morgan Le Fay, is not in the book, but she appears a number of times in the movie, casting spells. That was fine, although it was a little confusing at times. The main problem is that the old poem has a happy ending, and the movie does not.
The movie was very slow, although the second half picks up a bit. The last 20 minutes is similar to The Last Temptation of Christ, in which you see what "could have been" with the characters. In fact, there are a number of Christ-like scenes in the movie.
Stillwater is an overly long crime drama with a confusing final half hour. The movie could have been shortened and the muddled conversations at the end needed to be cleaned up. When I left the theater, I thought I knew what had happened, but I guess I was wrong. I looked at the synopsis on Wikipedia this morning and what was written as the ending wasn't what I understood/misunderstood it to be. To me, it looked like there were plot holes in the last half hour, because I couldn't see how characters suddenly knew information when it was never explained how they learned it. I guess I just didn't properly hear what the characters were saying in English with their thick French accents.
The movie stars Matt Damon, the only actor I recognized.
Dear Evan Hansen is a musical about, of all things, teen suicide.
It's a disturbing and at times creepy movie with a convoluted plot. Maybe it works better as a stage play, because the first half of the movie was slow. I've never seen the play, but I think it would have worked better as a straight drama, without the depressing songs.
It reminded me of Catcher in the Rye and Ordinary People, both stories about a family dealing with the suicide of a teen son.
Normally I don't see remakes, but I wanted to see West Side Story because (a) it was a musical; (b) my first cousin's son, Michael Sean Breeden, was one of the dancers; and (c) it's been decades since I've seen the original movie and had forgotten much of it.
The new version of West Side Story has some changes. The lyrics of some of the songs have been rewritten slightly to be more current, and it is much more graphically violent than the original one was. That doesn't mean it was bad--the huge set was stunning and the dance numbers were awesome and I am glad I saw it on the big screen. But I thought the movie was a little slow (that may have been why I haven't watched the original for so long). And it is such a depressing topic for a musical, particularly one that was written in and set in the 1950s.
As for Michael, I don't know which one he was. I haven't seen him since he was a little boy and I wouldn't have known him just by looking for him.
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