Producer/Director Roland Emmerich likes to think up new ways for the world to end.
In the past he's made Independence Day (alien invasion)--a great movie with an awful sequel; Godzilla (no further explanation needed); The Day After Tomorrow (huge blizzard and climate change)--and one of my all-time favorite movies; and 2012 (Earth's core is coming apart). Now there is Moonfall, about the moon being an alien spaceship that's come out of orbit and is hurtling toward Earth, creating huge earthquakes and massive tsunamis.
Thankfully, the movie isn't slow, but it is very stupid, with a plot that can be confusing at times and has tremendous holes in time lines, considering how quickly things get done or how people get from one place to another. The only two cast members I recognized were Halle Berry (who must have had plastic surgery because she looks so young), and Donald Sutherland in a cameo appearance. There are lots of scenes and subplots borrowed from TDAT and 2012. Oh, and the weird smoke monster from Lost has somehow left its island and is now living inside the moon.
About 15 years ago there was a one-season TV comedy that I liked called I'm With Her, starring Teri Polo. The premise was that a movie star was dating a math teacher. That same story line is in the 2022 movie Marry Me. Marry Me stars Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson (the only actors I recognized). She's a mega pop-star and he is a math teacher. Through a complicated series of circumstances, they marry onstage in front of 20 million TV viewers, even though they'd never met until he came onstage.
It's a light little movie with no major conflicts and lots of music. I kept hoping that Lopez would sing "If Ever I Would Leave You" from Camelot but she didn't. That was my only complaint with the movie.
I broke two of my own movie rules this week. I saw a movie that was both a remake and a sequel!
The movie was Death on the Nile, Kenneth Branagh's follow-up to Murder on the Orient Express. I wanted to see it because I am a fan of both Branagh's and of costar Armie Hammer. Nile is physically beautiful--the cast and the costumes and the scenes filmed on location in Egypt. I never knew that the pyramids were so close to the river, and that there are mountains in the distance. The plot really keeps your interest and you have to follow it closely. I've never read the Agatha Christie mystery, but I understand there are more characters in the movie than there were in the novel. The movie is also appropriately creepy at times--I've seen too many horror movies filmed in burial crypts!
I am very glad I broke my own rule.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that Cyrano was both a musical and a stage play. I had expected a drama.
My only knowledge of Cyrano de Bergerac was that (a) he had a big nose, and (b) Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah made a contemporary movie based on it in 1987 called Roxanne.
I enjoyed this new movie and its music immensely. The costumes were lovely and the scenery was stunning. It reminded me of the musical version of Moulin Rouge with Nicole Kidman. The only actor I recognized was Peter Dinklage, and he's been in a lot of movie and TV shows, most notably Game of Thrones. His character must have been hard to play, as it was very sad.
Belfast reminded me, of all things, Apollo 13. Both movies took place at the same time--summer 1969 through spring 1970. Also, the actress who played young Buddy's mother looked a lot like Kathleen Quinlan did in A13. Belfast is a short, surprisingly fast story about a family in the city at the start of "The Troubles" and must make a decision to move away from the violence. Although the star is about a young boy and his family, it is not a movie for young children, as the topic is complex and the violence is very disturbing.
Kenneth Branagh directed the movie, but he is not in it. The only cast member I recognized is Judi Dench, who plays Buddy's grandmother, and she seems to be in everything!
Yes, we liked the movie very much, but it has a sad ending.
The latest snow rescue movie, in the line of The Mountain Between Us, Land, The Day After Tomorrow and Alive, is Infinite Storm, starring Naomi Watts. It is based on a true story, although the plot never mentions when the incident happened other than it is November. The tale takes place in New Hampshire, but was filmed in Poland.
A grieving woman named Pam who is a nurse and a search and rescue worker notices a lone car in her office parking lot and she figures that a hiker has gone up Mt. Washington without telling anyone. She gears up and goes after him, finding him hypothermic and dehydrated. She needs to get him back down the mountain before nightfall. Most of the movie takes place in one day, except for her flashbacks.
The movie is beautiful in places but, truthfully, isn't really nerve-wracking. It's a very mild R, with a brief shot of Pam getting into her bathtub naked, and a few mentions of the F word. There is no sex or violence and the movie really isn't that intense.
There is one interesting detail listed in the closing credits that I've never seen before, but I am sure it will soon become commonplace. There are credits for the COVID compliance officer and assistants.
Why do I torture myself by going to see movies about dogs? Why do all dog movies have to make you cry?
The latest one is entitled, quite simply, Dog, starring the human Channing Tatum with a costar named Lulu. You have to read the opening credits carefully, because you will not understand why Lulu was so traumatized at the start of the actual film.
Lulu had been a bomb-sniffing dog in Afghanistan. Now she is back at a training center in the American Northwest and is recovering from being very traumatized. Her original fellow soldier has died in Southern California, and the family wants the dog at the funeral. Tatum's character, a former soldier, is asked to drive the dog south because she could never handle being on a plane.
There's not much plot after that, except the human and canine begin to bond, and Tatum's character meets some oddball characters along the way. Dog is not necessarily a family film, because he meets with two prostitutes at one stop and a paranoid pot farmer in another.
I would suggest waiting to watch Dog on TV.
Linear Mode
