MOVIE - Puzzle

R (1:43)

Limited release 7/27/18

Viewed 10/16/18 at Gettysburg Majestic

RT Critic: 83   Audience:  83
Critic's Consensus:  Puzzle transcends its quirky premise with honest emotion -- and Kelly Macdonald, whose nicely understated performance proves she's too often underutilized.

Cag:  4.5

Directed by Marc Turtletaub

Sony Pictures Classic

My comments:  An interesting, thoughtful, very believable movie about good people with good intentions, but with different expectations.  One of those movies that make you think a lot.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  PUZZLE is a closely observed portrait of Agnes, who has reached her early 40s without ever venturing far from home, family or the tight-knit immigrant community in which she was raised by her widowed father. That begins to change in a quietly dramatic fashion when Agnes receives a jigsaw puzzle as a birthday gift and experiences the heady thrill of not only doing something she enjoys, but being very, very good at it.

MOVIE - Gifted

PG-13 (1:41)

Limited release 4/7/17

Viewed date 4/24/2017

RT Critic:  72  Audience:  85
Critic's Consensus:  Gifted isn't quite as bright as its pint-sized protagonist, but a charming cast wrings respectably engaging drama out of a fairly predictable premise.

Cag:  5 - It was really, really good

Directed by Marc Webb

Chris Evans, Octavia Spencer

My comments:  How do you know when yo're rating a movie on its merits or in the way it makes you feel and think?  What are the kind of criteria tht people use when writing a movie review?  Acting?  Stoy?  Characters and setting?  More and more, for me, it's how it makes me feel and think when I walk out of the darkened auditorium after the credits hae rolled.  There were only five of us in the theater, but I don't think there were many more in the other seven auditoriums on this Monday night.
     I loved this movie.  I loved the actors - Chris Evans is becoming a favorite.  I love that it was about a precocious kid.  I loved that it had heart ans surprises and even that I shed a tear or two.  Was it a great movie?  It was for me.

RT/ IMDb Summary:  Frank Adler (Chris Evans) is a single man raising a child prodigy - his spirited young niece Mary (Mckenna Grace) - in a coastal town in Florida. Frank's plans for a normal school life for Mary are foiled when the seven-year-old's mathematical abilities come to the attention of Frank's formidable mother Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) whose plans for her granddaughter threaten to separate Frank and Mary. Octavia Spencer plays Roberta, Frank and Mary's landlady and best friend. Jenny Slate is Mary's teacher, Bonnie, a young woman whose concern for her student develops into a connection with her uncle as well

MOVIE - The One I Love

R (1:31)

Limited Release 8/22/2014

9-18-14 at the Loft

RT Critic: 80  Audience: 78

Cag:  4/Liked it a Lot - Quirky

Directed by Charlie McDowell

Radius - TWC

Actors: Mark Duplass, Elisabeth Moss, Ted Danson

My comments:  As I was leaving the theater, I heard a women bemoaning, "I didn't get it."  There's only a little part that you're not supposed to get, it's what I call fantastic realism.  It was fun, clever, and really well acted.  SPOILER ALERT:  The two leads play two different people brilliantly.  Mark Duplass is particularly believable.  It makes you think, but not too hard....

Rotten Tomato Summary:  The highly anticipated debut feature from acclaimed author Charlie McDowell, THE ONE I LOVE is an original tale that continues to showcase McDowell's keen observations of human relationships with a distinct and comedic voice. THE ONE I LOVE, written by Justin Lader, was produced by Mel Eslyn and executive produced by Mark Duplass who stars opposite Elisabeth Moss. On the brink of separation, Ethan (Duplass) and Sophie (Moss) escape to a beautiful vacation house for a weekend getaway in anattempt to save their marriage. What begins as a romantic and fun retreat soon becomes surreal, when an unexpected discovery forces the two to examine themselves, their relationship, and their future.

MOVIE - Tiny Furniture

Pathetic protagonist - did nothing for me
Released 11-12-10 (Limited)
unrated (1:38)
Saw 2/4/11 at the Loft with Sheila and Ronnie
RT: 75% cag: 39%
Director: Lena Dunham (also the writer and lead actress)

No one is likable in this boring, who-cares? story of a girl who comes home after graduating from college with no motivation and only a fell-sorry-for-herself attitude.

None of the characters is likable. I wanted to push the mother off the Brooklyn Bridge and shove the sister's head into a gas oven. The newly-befriended loser who sponges off her should have been shoved in front of a fast-moving taxi. Only her two friends, one whom she treats abominably, are at all likable.

This movie shows that people who worry about the young people who are tomorrow's leaders DO have something to worry about. Are we supposed to empathise with this girl? She's a loser, whiner, and totally pathetic. Crappy movie.

MOVIE - The Secret Life of Words

Released December 2006 Limited
NR (1:52)
Netflix
RT: 69% cag: 83%
Director: Isabel Coixet
Tim Robbins

This thought-provoking look at the aftermath of war/insanity and the sometimes bizarre ways that lives come together fascinated me.

Almost-silent, hearing-impaired Hanna lives a self-imposed isolated life working a drone-job at a factory in Ireland. She is forced to take time off (she has worked at the plant for four years without taking a day off) and goes by bus to a coastal Irish town. There we find that she is a nurse, as she takes on a short-term job caring for a burned and broken oil rig foreman.

Out in the middle of the ocean on this huge shut-down-for-repairs oil rig, she allows herself to be drawn in by this somewhat older, cynical, sensitive man - Joseph - played by Tim Robbins.

The story - the few people she meets - the slowly reavealed informaqtion about Hanna's past, just keep getting more and more interesting.

Shamed on most Americans (including me) for knowing so little about what really happened in Yugoslavia - Serbia - Croatia - Kosovo --I'm only just realizing NOW...

Good story (in an interesting, off-beat, indie sort of way), good acting, Tim Robbins, and lots and lots of stuff to think about.