Ed's Review Dot Com

Lascaux Films, Latitude Productions, Revelations Entertainment,

Michael Cristofer, Diane Keaton, Morgan Freeman, Cynthia Nixon, Claire van der Boom, Korey Jackson, Carrie Preston, Sterling Jerins, Josh Pais, Miriam Shor, Alysia Reiner

Ruth (Diane Keaton) and Alex Carver (Morgan Freeman) have been married for over 40 years. Most of their married life they have lived in a walk-up apartment in Brooklyn, and the 5th floor, and without an Elevator. Alex is an artists, and loves his home, but Ruth is worried that they are getting older and sooner or later they won’t be able to climb five flights of stairs and need to find an apartment with an elevator. So with the aggressive help of Aunt Lily Portman (Cynthia Nixon) who is a realtor, the decide to put their apartment up for sale to see what they can get for it. That is Lily and Ruth put it up for sale, as Alex wants nothing to do with it. We’re blessed with Alex’s reminisces of their early life and how they met and fell in love in a series of flashbacks. But several unexpected events makes it as though fate is out to destroy everything. This is a touching “elders” film that is really well done and right on point.

This movie has the feel of a stage play in the way it tells the story. IT feels very unscripted, although it is based on a novel, but it’s the skill of the primary actors, Diane and Morgan and Cynthia Nixon are really talented actors, and they just work together in one of the most comfortable and believable stories I’ve seen in a long while. I would suspect anyone who like character driven films would love this movie and appreciate its charm, but it’s perfect for those of us around retirement age as we realize the problems and troubles they experience are very similar to our lives. Ruth was a free and easy flower child in her youth, and her decision to enter into an interracial marriage in those times was pure grit and stubbornness. It’s fascinating to see how it has morphed into today, when they’re both elderly and to see how it worked out and how much they care for each other, but still have issues today, even though much less that earlier days. There is a side story about their only child, their dog Dorothy who has grown old with them and has serious problems of her own. Facing her crisis and in turn facing their own mortality is a very pleasant and touching story in itself. This is a slow and steady character piece without a lot of action, and yet it’s very suspenseful at the same time and you can’t wait to find out how it’ll end up. This is a really wonderful story told in the charm of New York City, by terrific actors, and is well worth watching. What a nice experience it was to watch this story.

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Avenue Pictures, Ananta Productions, Metalwork Pictures,

Garrett Hedlund, Richard Jenkins, Jessica Brown Findlay, Anne Archer, Jennifer Hudson, Jessica Barden, Terrence Howard, Amy Adams, Daniel Sunjata, Sterling Jerins

Jonathan (Garrett Hedulnd) is a Los Angeles based musician who travels home to New York because his estranged father, (Richard Jenkins) has decided to take himself off life support where he’s dying of cancer. The family including Mom (Anne Archer) and his sister, really can’t accept that he is really going to die. He was given six months to live over 10 years ago and beat the odds. The range of emotions the family has to face from each of the family members is wildly different. To add to the problem Jonathan and his father have not seen each other in many years, and his denial was helped by the friendship of a young lady in the same hospital who is dying of bone cancer, and the friendship they build as they bond to each other is touching. This certainly cries for the creation of a new category “Tear-jerker” as that is truly what this remarkable movie is.

This is truly a tear-jerker, and one that is very hard to watch, but extremely worthwhile. It is difficult to watch because with the R rating, they can take us through the whole range of feelings this poor family has to go through. There are many question raised and each one is fully answered as we delve through this film. There are so many characters and dynamics and even though it is not overly slow paced, the development of each character was really well explained. We learned where they came from, and why they feel what they feel, and all the actors are able to pull the heart strings as their feeling vary from scene to scene as they must face what will happen in two days. The clock ticks very slowly as we go through the many farewells and last goodbyes as the characters really put forth a fantastic performance. This kind of feels like a play in some way, as it does have a lot of dialog and only a few settings, but the motion picture really adds to the story in a huge way. It’s very well done, and unless you are facing or have recently faced the untimely death of a love one, which would make this hit too close to home, I highly recommend this for adults and older teens. This is an extremely well done story and an great life lesson that we all need to see. Though it feels sometimes like we’re too close to the family and should give them some space, it is very highly moving and you should see it.

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Bold Films, Brothers Dowdle Productions, Living Films,

Owen Wilson, Lake Bell, Pierce Brosnan, Sterling Jerins, Claire Geare

Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson) has lost his company, but found a lucky opportunity to work for a large American Water Company in an Asian developing nation to upgrade their water system. He takes his wife Annie (Lake Bell) and their two young daughters to an upscale hotel to begin his new job. But they’ve landed right in the middle of a local uprising and Jack has to use all his skills and wits to stay a few steps ahead of the coup that is killing loyalists and foreigners on sight. With the help of an unusual character Hammond (Pierce Brosnan) who knows his way around pretty well, they are trying to find a way to get to a safe place to ride out all the violence.

This is a rapid fire suspense thriller. Owen Wilson was really a good casting decision as he really got to sink his chops into this one. The script is good, and the level of confusion they feel come across to us on screen as the terror builds. This is a situation that feels really accurate as the situation can get out of hand in a few minutes. There we are trapped with them in a foreign country with no idea what anyone is saying and no way to read any of the signs. Finding someone who can speak English is a real help in a horrible situation like this. The script is full of suspense and they literally are never out of grave danger. The audiences are seemingly enjoying this as the theaters are crowded, and I felt it was a really good roller coaster ride through the jungle.

I have to share an epiphany that I had while watching this film. It hit very close to home. In the year 1972 I was serving on a mission in Manila in the Philippines. One morning we had planned an exhibit right in the heart of Quiapo, the main area of the government buildings. Surprisingly no one came to see us, and as Americans we were often mobbed by people, mostly kids, who wanted to see us because we were different with the hairy arms and blue eyes and such. But no one came around and everyone walked with their eyes down without looking left or right. As we gave up and packed it in, we noticed that there were no newspapers anywhere on the street. The driver of the taxi turned on the radio and moved the tuner up and down the dial but there were no stations on.
At 7PM, the TV and Radios came back on, but only on the channels Ferdinand Marcos owned personally. It started with a military style march about Filipino pride, and Marcos came on to explain why he had declared martial law. The situation was very grim, and he had been planning this for many months. In order to pull it off, he had planned a vote on a new form of government using the Parliamentary System and was going to release all the Senators and Congressmen. But unfortunately a man, Ninoy Aquino had released a leaked plan of President Marcos’ plan to stay in power after the end of his term. Like the US, the President is only allowed to run for two terms and his time was ending. Aquino had spilled the beans and forced his hand, so he declared martial law, locked up Aquino and hundreds of other politicians who were against him, and took control for 10 years. Fortunately the population (kind of to my surprise) turned a blind eye, rolled over, and walked quietly around without a whimper. I could have been caught up in the middle of a coup, just like this little family in the movie. It could have been very frightening, but being 20 years old and feeling like nobody would ever mess with an American, we we on day after day as usual. But we learned a lot about how something like this can happen, and how it can change in temperament in a few minutes. It was a weird experience to think of this while watching this film. There is, of course, much much more to my story, probably enough to fill a book, but as to the film, I think I am not the only one who really enjoyed this movie. It’s kicking it in the box office, and rightly so. It’s rated R because of the graphic violence, but if you are not squeamish of that, this is a film you ought to see. I highly recommend this one as one powerful thriller.

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