Juiced Up

This month via Netflix streaming I finished watching an old BBC series and viewed several movies with streaming rights about to expire. A couple documentaries on healthy eating advocated drinking home juiced vegetables and were effective enough to get us to incorporate green drinks into our daily regimen.

Some of the movies that were up for various Oscars this month have been added to my library hold list, but it may be a few months before they show up and get listed here.

One of my two or so readers [Hi Shirley] wondered how she could search for a review I might have written on a particular movie. The way to do it is to use the search box at the top left of the blog web page (the blank that has the magnifying glass). Put the title in quotes, then click on the magnifying glass and it should take you to a web page list which includes the movie review, and maybe also some pages where the movie is otherwise mentioned by name. As with any search box, if the title is also a generic phrase, you may get some hits where the phrase is used without it being a movie title.

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. [The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar].  

Downton Abbey (Season Three) – 2012 (3.5). The classy BBC soap opera continues the earlier story lines and adds some new ones, maintaining its high quality, but perhaps with a feeling toward season’s end that too many big developments are happening too fast. A story line about economic troubles that threaten the Abbey adds an effective new dimension. Brash American mother-in-law Shirley MacLaine visits in the opening episode but thankfully does not return. 

The Wildest Dream – 2010 (2.9). This nicely paced documentary from National Geographic Entertainment integrates the story of mountaineer George Mallory, who died near the top of Mount Everest in 1924, with the story of the man who found his body 75 years later and then decided to try to figure out whether Mallory could have actually been the first man to reach the summit and then died on his way down. A new expedition is mounted to recreate the equipment from 1924 and see if the final assault could have been accomplished with that gear. The integration of close up filming of the modern quest with vintage footage of the 1924 expedition is very effective.

Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead – 2009 (2.9). This entertaining documentary first tells the story of very successful Australian entrepreneur whose dietary and lifestyle abuses resulted in him becoming extremely obese and caused or contributed to a malfunctioning of his auto immune system. He uses his own freshly juiced vegetable drinks while he conducts man in the street interviews with people about their food and weight issues, first for a month in NYC and then for another month traveling around the USA. The last half of the film shows how some of the people he met gave the juice regimen a try and what results they achieved. Limited use of talking heads, cutely relevant animation, a genuinely engaging Aussie and some appealing protégés make for an uplifting movie.

Hungry for Change – 2012 (2.8). There is plenty of good information from nutritional experts in this documentary about our overly processed food supply and the medical conditions we suffer from eating it. The most interesting interviews are with people who had medical conditions, particularly morbid obesity, and then achieved a healthy state by dietary and lifestyle changes. At times there seemed to be too many talking heads saying pretty much the same thing.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home – 2011 (2.8). This dramedy had a script that was different enough to hold audience attention as we followed one day two adult brothers who don’t get along and their widowed mother who wonders what is going to happen in the rest of her life and the lives of her sons. Pat, the oldest son, has a disintegrating marriage, while Jeff, the pot smoker, feels his destiny is calling, but he doesn’t know for what. Sincere with a brash gentleness, it ends with some effective emotion.

Poldark (Season One) – 1975 (2.8). This old BBC series has an interesting time and place, Cornwall after the American Revolution, but it is quite dated with low production values, soap opera theme music, theatrical acting and melodramatic scripts. That said, it does offer authentic scenery, quality performances and interesting characters struggling with societal issues that were part of the reason for the Revolution. There is a second season, dealing with the impact of the French Revolution.

J. Edgar – 2011 (2.4). The underlying reason for making this movie is not clear from watching it. The overlong script jumps around in time and attention between the growth of the FBI, Hoover’s personal life and his paranoid obsession that he had to be the savior of America by corruptly becoming the most powerful man in the country. Interweaving the stories of his intense relationship with his mother, his apparently frustrated homosexuality and his empire building at the Bureau was never effectively accomplished. The unrealistically dark low key lighting in the interior scenes may have been intended to create some feeling of time past, but was instead just annoying. If intended as a biopic, some scenes of Hoover’s early family life and schooling would have been helpful, and showing how a man trained in the law was driven to push law enforcement to use scientific methods would have been enlightening. To make a good drama about the abuses of power by Hoover, we should have been shown one or more adversaries and critics trying to rein him in or end his regime, rather than merely being given the one scene of a Senate hearing where he is embarrassed for his publicity seeking. Di Caprio did a good job playing a man with a rather flat personality. Tolson’s makeup in old age looked like a cheap mask.

Me and Orson Welles – 2008 (2.4). Full of Broadway theater name dropping from the late 1930s, this drama sports high production values and decent acting but suffers from a slow starting script that doesn’t have much to deliver when it finally starts to get going a little, right before the end. A way too old looking high school student (and no, making his classmates look as old as him does not solve the problem) easily gets a role in a new play adaptation of Julius Caesar that Orson is debuting on Broadway. Depression, what Depression? We know nothing about this kid other than his wide eyed ambition and at the end he has only learned what everyone was saying from the start – Orson is a pompous ass who sleeps with all the attractive women.

Nothing But the Truth – 2008 (2.4). Inspired by the Valerie Plame outing as a covert CIA agent, this drama tells of newspaperwoman who writes an agent outing story given her by a source and corroborated by two other sources, none of whom she will reveal to a special prosecutor, who refuses to take no for an answer. Though some serious questions are touched on in this movie, the script is muddled as to what the news story actually said and why it was newsworthy beyond just outing an agent. There were implications regarding a report the agent wrote and op-ed pieces her husband published criticizing the Presidential administration, but they were never developed in any way that made sense.

The Homecoming -1973 (2.2). I streamed this TV version of the Pinter play because the Netflix rights were about to expire, and honestly I snoozed through a lot of it. Some of it was absurdly funny. I know there is supposed to be meaningful symbolism and deep meaning behind this. But it is just not my cup of tea.

Ho Hum

As this short and uninspiring list shows, I have not been watching much to write about lately. Not going to movies in theaters, renting them from kiosks or getting them in the mail from Netflix does not leave many sources. Netflix streaming and DVDs from the library offer much to choose from and I have about 40 in the Flix queue and another 230 on a list to get from the library someday, but I have just not been inspired to sit down and watch. Because it has been over a month since the last list posting, this short one is offered. At least it will provide a new place for John to comment about what he has been seeing.

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. [The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar].

Modern Family (Season Three) – 2011 (3.1). As regular viewers have learned to know the characters more intimately, it is fun to watch them encounter new problems with the vestiges of the old ones. The wise choices made in the second year to not distract with guest stars and to keep the concentration on the central characters and their interactions continues into the third year and the scripts always feel fresh and continue to be quite funny.

Come Back, Little Sheba – 1952 (3.0). Shirley Booth is one of the few actors who won the best actress Tony, Oscar and Emmy. She only made five movies, and Sheba was the first, for which she repeated her stage performance and won the Oscar, perfectly capturing the middle aged Lola character, both pathetic and sympathetic. The movie is by nature talkative, making the direction a bit static, but overall it does not feel claustrophobic and holds its age well. The opening music over the credits is annoying, but the movie itself is devoid of obnoxious music because of the prevalence of dialogue and the integration of radio music into the script. The changing times have made the mannerisms seem dated, which they are, but the problems they encountered are still here.

The Abolitionists – 2012 (2.8). From PBS American Experience, this three part documentary covers the abolitionist movement to end slavery in the United States. Using dramatic reenactments and interviews with historians, the focus is on the leaders of the movement, primarily William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass and the ultimate affect they had on President Lincoln after decades of dedicated work. It is hard to avoid the dreaded “What If?” historical inquiry as to how the slavery, Civil War and Lincoln might have turned out significantly different but for Garrison and Douglass.

Bernie – 2011 (2.8). Jack Black gives a fun Golden Globe nominated performance as a dedicated Texas funeral director who becomes involved with an ornery but wealthy widow in this droll drama based on a true story. The interspersed interviews with local residents reveal the knowledge writer and director Richard Linklater has of his native Texas. The ultimately unsettling involvement of the criminal justice system in the story seems to call out for a documentary detailing that aspect.

My Fake Fiancé – 2009 (2.8). This ABC TV romantic comedy was better than expected thanks to good chemistry between the leads (who are also in an ABC situation comedy series, Melissa and Joey) and a script that had some tersely satisfactory exposition of why these two people had missed the love boat to marriage and were desperate enough to concoct a phony engagement and schedule their marriage in order to get the gifts. An early developing subplot about a loan shark and his goons is a weak cartoonish story line but thankfully it is not too disruptive if you prefer to ignore it.

Big Love (Season One) – 2006 DNF. A couple episodes of the first season of this HBO drama series about a modern day Utah polygamist and his three wives and seven children failed to encourage me to keep watching, especially knowing it goes on for five seasons. I found the characters and their beliefs and problems unappealing.

Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life – 1983 DNF. This was funny in 1983, if it was your kind of humor and if you were in the right mood. Trying it 30 years later, possibly in the right mood and open to the type of humor, after the first couple of enumerated parts, it was not funny enough to keep watching.