Movie - Little Women

PG

Wide release 12/25/2019

Viewed 12/29 in Carlisle with Sandy

IMBd: 8.3/10

RT Critic:  95  Audience:  93

Critic's Consensus:  With a stellar cast and a smart, sensitive retelling of its classic source material, Greta Gerwig's Little Women proves some stories truly are timeless.

Cag:  5.5/Loved it!

Directed (and written) by Greta Gerwig

Sony Pictures

Based on the book by Louisa May Alcott

Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Laura Dern, Timothee Chalamet, Meryl Streep

My comments:  What a fabulous movie, really cleverly written, going back-and-forth between the time of the original book and seven years into the future.  For the most part well cast, but there were a few that I wasn't so crazy about, particularly John, the tutor then husband of Meg...and there didn't seem to be enough chemistry between Amy and Laurie, at least not for me.  A wonderful movie to watch, hope it earns some awards.  Particularly loved Laura Dewrn as Marmie.  

RT/ IMDb Summary:  Writer-director Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird) has crafted a Little Women that draws on both the classic novel and the writings of Louisa May Alcott, and unfolds as the author's alter ego, Jo March, reflects back and forth on her fictional life. In Gerwig's take, the beloved story of the March sisters - four young women each determined to live life on her own terms -- is both timeless and timely. Portraying Jo, Meg, Amy, and Beth March, the film stars Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, with Timothée Chalamet as their neighbor Laurie, Laura Dern as Marmee, and Meryl Streep as Aunt March.

MOVIE - Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again

PG-13 (1:54)

7/20/18 Wide Release

Viewed 7/23/18 at Carlisle with Laura and Ella
IMBd: 7.3/10

RT Critic: 79   Audience:  76
Critic's Consensus:  Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again doubles down on just about everything fans loved about the original -- and my my, how can fans resist it?

Cag:  4/Liked it a lot - the music is awesome

Directed by Ol Parker

Universal Pictures

Based on the music of ABBA  (a 1970s rock group from Sweden)

Amanda Seyfried, Colin Firth, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard, Christine Baranski, Julie Walters, Andy Garcia, Cher, Meryl Streep

My comments:  Dancin' Queen....You can dance....you can jive....having the time of your life.....
I just returned from seeing this movie.  With some of it was disappointed, but with some of it I felt giddy.  Yup, giddy.  And the grand finale was GRAND!  Best part of the movie!!!  The scenes with the younger versions of the couples seemed over-acted to me, and a teeny, tiny bit off.  Loved it when the three females were performing together, young OR old.  The modern-time numbers were really wonderful.  As is the scenery...how would ANYONE want to leave that place?  Fantastic costumes, too.  And including Cher was a blast.  So. Much. Fun.  Ella really loved it, and immediately wondered if they'd make a number three!
      Perfect movie for three generations to watch together.

RT/ IMDb Summary:

MOVIE - Florence Foster Jenkins

PG-13 (1:50)

Wide Release 8/11/16

Viewed Friday, 10/14/16 at Century Gateway

RT Critic:  86  Audience:  74
Critic's Consensus:  Florence Foster Jenkins makes poignant, crowd-pleasing dramedy out of its stranger-than-fiction tale -- and does its subject justice with a reliably terrific turn from star Meryl Streep.

Cag:  4.5 It was really good, liked it a lot!

Directed by Stephen Frears

BBC Films

Based on a true story

Meryl Streep, Hugh Grant, Simon Helberg

My comments:  Biopics are truly interesting - usually I come away with a "No Shit!" kind of reaction.  This was quite a story, acted beautifully by the three protagonists.  Perfect for their roles, I was particularly impressed by Simon Helbert (of Big Bang Theory fame), his facial expressions and gorgeous piano playing blew me away.  I loved the end, when Meryl Streep got to sing beautifully, showing ho Ms. Jenkins pictured herself singing the entire time.  So poignant...and somewhat sad, I guess, though you don't come away from the film feeling at all sad.

IMDb Summary:  Florence Foster Jenkins, born Narcissa Florence Foster, was an American socialite and amateur soprano who was known and mocked for her flamboyant performance costumes and notably poor singing ability. The historian Stephen Pile ranked her "the world's worst opera singer". "No one, before or since," he wrote, "has succeeded in liberating themselves quite so completely from the shackles of musical notation."

MOVIE - Sufragette

PG-13 (1:46)

Limited release 10/23/15

Viewed at ElCon with Sheila

RT Critic:  72  Audience:  74

Cag:  4.5 Liked it a lot - learned a lot about the Women's movement in Great Britain

Directed by Sarah Gavron

Focus Features

Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Meryl Streep (for just a small portion).

My comments:  This was a heart-wrenching, eye-opening film.  The story of  the British women's rights' movement was quite unfamiliar to me previously, this was entertaining as well as educational.  A great movie experience.

RT Summary:  Academy Award nominees Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter, and three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep, lead the cast of a powerful drama about the women who were willing to lose everything in their fight for equality in early-20th-century Britain. The stirring story centers on Maud (played by Carey Mulligan), a working wife and mother whose life is forever changed when she is secretly recruited to join the U.K.'s growing suffragette movement. Galvanized by the outlaw fugitive Emmeline Pankhurst (Meryl Streep), Maud becomes an activist for the cause alongside women from all walks of life. When increasingly aggressive police action forces Maud and her dedicated fellow suffragettes underground, they engage in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse with the authorities, who are shocked as the women's civil disobedience escalates and sparks debate across the nation. Inspired by true events, SUFFRAGETTE is a moving drama exploring the passion and heartbreak of those who risked all they had for women's right to vote - their jobs, their homes, their children, and even their lives. 

MOVIE - Into the Woods

PG (2:04)

Wide release 12/25/15

Roadhouse Cinema Friday 1/9/15 with Cyra

RT Critic: 72   Audience:   58

Cag: 2/It was okay....

Directed by Rob Marshal

Walt Disney Pictures

Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, James Corden, Anna Kendrick, Chris Pine, Johnny Depp, 

My comments:  Well, I loved being at the Roadhouse.  I enjoyed the music, the set, and the costumes.  But the story, the plot, the way it all went together just didn't do it for me.  You were expected to know the stories (Cinderella, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk...and I'm still not sure about the baker, his wife, and the witch) so that big important chunks were only discussed after the fact.  The interlude with the baker's wife and Prince Charming (Chris Pine nailed this)????   (My favorite scene was the one between Prince Charming and his brother, Rapunzel's beau, at the waterfall.) What happened to the witch at the end...and why?  Interesting to note:  Some of the audience broke into applause at the end (and the ending stunk).

Google Summary:  As the result of the curse of a once-beautiful witch (Meryl Streep), a baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) are childless. Three days before the rise of a blue moon, they venture into the forest to find the ingredients that will reverse the spell and restore the witch's beauty: a milk-white cow, hair as yellow as corn, a blood-red cape, and a slipper of gold. During their journey, they meet Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Jack, each one on a quest to fulfill a wish.
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MOVIE - The Giver

PG-13 (1:40)
Wide Release 8/15/14
Viewed at El Con with Sheila 8/17/14
RT Critic: 32   Audience: 68
cag: 4.5/Liked it a whole lot
Directed by Philip Noyce
The Weinstein Company]
from the book by Lois Lowry

Jeff Bridges, Meryl Streep, Brenton Thwaites, Alexander Skarsgard

My thoughts:  If you're the kind of person that gets upset because there are a lot of changes from the book, you're probably going to be a bit disappointed in this movie.  There were definitely changes, but they all worked.  In the previews I couldn't help be sneer a little because it seems that they had added some sort of love interest for Jonas.  Considering the direction they took with the ending, it all worked perfectly.  Good movie.  Excellent, actually.  And I love the different actors that played the different parts.  The only questions I have, the only problem with it as I left the theater, was that the Meryl Streep character also seemed to have all the memories.  My problem was not that she had them, that no reference had been made to this fact.
          When the movie was over, a young couple sitting behind us made the comment that it was a little slow in places.  There was no slowness for me.  Granted, I've read the book seven or eight times at least so it was interesting to see all the wonderful changes and additions.  The story is certainly no supposed to be action-filled.  It is nothing like Hunger Games or Divergent.  The giver is the predecessor to all the current dystopian stories.  And I love and admire it as such.
          I've heard that Lois Lowry is quite satisfied with the end product.  If she is, so am I!

RT Summary:  The haunting story of THE GIVER centers on Jonas (Brenton Thwaites), a young man who lives in a seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment. Yet as he begins to spend time with The Giver (Jeff Bridges), who is the sole keeper of all the community's memories, Jonas quickly begins to discover the dark and deadly truths of his community's secret past. With this newfound power of knowledge, he realizes that the stakes are higher than imagined - a matter of life and death for himself and those he loves most. At extreme odds, Jonas knows that he must escape their world to protect them all - a challenge that no one has ever succeeded at before. THE GIVER is based on Lois Lowry's beloved young adult novel of the same name, which was the winner the 1994 Newbery Medal and has sold over 10 million copies worldwide. 

MOVIE - August: Osage County

R (2:10)

Wide release 12/25/2013

Viewed 1/28/2014 with Sheila & Connie - El Con

RT Critic: 65   Audience:  72

Cag: 5/ I ended up thinking it was quite an exceptional movie - both story AND acting

Directed by John Wells

The Weinstein Company

Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Julianne Nicholson, Chris Cooper, Sam Shepard, Abigail Breslin, Margo Martindale, Ewan McGregor, Dermot Mulrooney

My comments:  This is the story of the most dysfunctional of dysfunctional families.  I've decided I have a very (VERY) dark sense of humor, because this is another movie that when I started looking at it for the humor, I loved it.  Yup, it's a pretty dark story.  People dig themselves up out of a crappy childhood or they burrow themselves deeper.  This story contains a little of both.  And it's the kind of story that keeps adding layers after layer of "What the F?"  The lineup of actors was amazing, and the acting itself was, too.  I've got to give it to Meryl Streep - she doesn't care what she looks like or what kind of a woman she portrays, she gives it her all and her all is always unbelievably believable.  So I didn't even walk away from this could-have-been dark story with a cloud of darkness.  I enjoyed it very much, and I'm really glad I went to see it.  I loved it.

Reviews:  AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY tells the dark, hilarious and deeply touching story of the strong-willed women of the Weston family, whose lives have diverged until a family crisis brings them back to the Midwest (actually, Oklahoma plains, which I don't really consider midwest) house they grew up in, and to the dysfunctional woman who raised them. Letts' play made its Broadway debut in December 2007 after premiering at Chicago's legendary Steppenwolf Theatre earlier that year. It continued with a successful international run

MOVIE - Hope Springs

PG-13 (1:40)
Wide release 8-8-12
Thursday 9-13-12 at El Con with Sheila
RT Critics 74 Audience 67
I liked it a lot.  I laughed a lot.  Much needed.
Director:  David Frandel
Sony Pictures

Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carrell

This movie was a riot...also sweet and poignant and fun.  How Tommy Lee Jones and Meryl Streep could do some of those scenes without guffawing out loud is totally beyond me.

They play a married couple who have slept in separate bedrooms for a number of years.  There relationship is caring but anonymous.  They are devoted to each other, but there's no "relations" in relationship.  Kay coerces a very negative Arnold into accompanying her to Maine to a psychologist who specializes in helping put "oomph" back into marriages.  And what follows is just wonderful.

Most/much of the film was set in Hope Springs, Maine (which, I think, was actually Connecticut).  When they were out and about on the streets of this quaint little town, I wanted to be there, too.

I've always known that Meryl Streep is an awesome actress, and I've always enjoyed Tommy Lee Jones.  I MORE than enjoyed him in this film.  A Steve Carrell played the straight-man-psychiatrist really well.  Very cute and sweet movie.

MOVIE - It's Complicated

Cute with some good laughs
Released Dec. 25, 2009
R (1:54)
1-6-10 with Sheila at ElCon
RT: 50% cag: 86%
Director: Nancy Meyers
Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, John Krasinski

There's been a lot of talk about this movie, that every woman over 40 should see it, that audiences laughed like they had't in a long time, etc. Okay. Well. It was a very entertaining movie with some definite laughs. It was fun to watch. I'd recommend it. But it didn't live up to its "hype" for me. Maybe because I was never divorced? I'll have to ask some divorcees about what they thought. Because that's the premise of the whole movie.

I love the three major actors, and they were wonderful. But the most fun for me was John Krasinski, as the son-in-law-to-be. He was wonderful in a super role. He was made for this part. I don't watch "Office," which is the tv show he's on, but I might just have to now. This guy's got it down!

Streep and Baldwin divorced after almost twenty years of marriage, Baldwin started messing around with a younger woman. Now, ten years later, he's married to her. His relationship with his first wife is civil but strained. But now, his current marriage is souring and he becomes attracted once again to Streep. They travel from Santa Barbara to NYC to the college graduation of their son, and, after drinking too much, get together. And on it goes. Steve Martin, who is the architect for Streep's anticipated addition, becomes attracted to Streep, too.

So. Go see it. It's fun. Downright enjoyable. Well acted. Good laughs. Things to think about. Tell me what you think.

MOVIE - Julie and Julia

Wonderful movie - almost perfect!
Released Aug. 7, 2009
PG-13 (I'm not sure why....) (2:03)
Nov. 25, 2009 at Crossroads with Fran
RT: 74% cag 96%
Director: Nora Ephron
Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stnely Tucci, Chris Messina

Nora Ephron took two memoirs and wove them together. Beautifully. Then Meryl Streep BECAME Julia Child. What a performance! ! ! ! ! Superb doesn't cover it. She was incredible. Believable. Lovely. Special.

Amy Adams' Julie Powell, unhappy to have moved to a tiny apartment above a pizza shop inQueens and with her cubicle-telephone job taking calls concerning the World Trade Center, takes on a personal challenge. She loves to cook. She adores Julia Child, so decides to make every single recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. In one year. 365 days. And....to blog about it all.

The movie weaves Julie's story - with its many ups and downs AND her super-supportive husband with Julia's story - with its ups and downs and HER super-supportive husband (go Stanley Tucci!) beautifully, beautifully. Two hours and three minutes (with five or six previews beforehand) is a long time to sit, but I could have doubled that. Just plain fun.