A gentle love story starring Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson. I haven’t seen Dustin Hoffman in a while in a character movie, so this was refreshing.

Dustin plays Harvey, a failed pianist who makes his living composing and playing scores for commercials. And he is apparently failing at that, too. He loses his job. His only daughter is getting married in London. The daughter lets him know at the wedding that she would rather her stepfather give her away at the wedding. Everything about the wedding is awkward for Harvey. The man is seriously down on his luck.

At the airport, he meets a Kate, a woman who conducts interviews of passerbys. He dismisses her rudely when he first meets her, but later notices her in a bar when waiting for a plane. And thus develops a tender relationship of two lost souls who both seem to have nowhere else to go.

We watch the story and enjoy it, even though it is predictable and some parts of the movie are trying to be funny but really are not. Dustin Hoffman’s superb skills make it happen though, and we remain entertained and captivated.

At the end, we feel good when the credits come up. Down on his luck, and up in his spirit, Last Chance Harvey walks off along a path in the park.

Rating: ***

This is a story of desperation in the 1950s played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. The young couple, Frank and April, meet at a party, get married, has two children, a house in the suburbs, a car, furniture, parties, drinks after work, cigarettes all the time, and empty hearts through and through.

They dream of throwing it all away and moving to Paris, she working as a secretary or translator, he following his dreams, which he does not even know what they are.

Life in the 1950s was simpler. The only electric gadget was the black and white TV. To entertain yourself, you had to read, go out to the bars and dance, have dinner with the neighbors or take a walk in the woods. It’s hard for us to imagine now how that can be stressful.

But Frank hates his job, set in a cubicle surrounded by many others like it, a secretarial pool down the hall, glass corner offices where the bosses scheme things. He works 8 to 5, wears a suit and hat, while April stays at home, takes care of the kids and lives in deep longing.

American Beauty comes to mind, the movie where nothing is what it seems.

With Frank and April, everything is what it seems, a quiet and sometimes loud desperation, but neither they themselves, nor the neighbors, nor the real estate lady, fess up to it. 

Until the real estate lady and her husband bring over their adult son, with a Ph.D. in mathematics, but committed  to a mental institution. They call him crazy, but it is obvious that the only thing crazy about him is that he detects the truth about everything and everyone around him instantly, accepts no hypocricy from anyone and speaks his mind so brutally honestly that if feels like he’s using martial arts. It’s like he’s slicing the bullshit in the air with a Samurai sword. He is truly joy to watch among all these stale and zombie-like people. No wonder they locked him up.

But Frank and April don’t quite have the strength to listen to him, face their own demons, and more and more they slip into despair.

Watching this film and all the smoking in it made my eyes water. But it was worth it.

Rating: ****

On December 9, 1980 in the early evening I was driving my maroon 1977 Chevy pickup from Jamestown to Cassadaga, New York. There were snow flurries outside, it was perhaps 27 degrees or so. I was going home to a cold, dark and empty apartment where I lived by myself.

On the radio, on every station, they broadcast about the murder of John Lennon. All night, the radios played John Lennon songs. He was only 40 years old. Today, that seems a very young age to die.

In this documentary, we follow Lennon’s career as he picks up the anti-war movement and becomes a peace activist, getting the attention of an ever more jittery government, which acts increasingly more bold and finally illegally to try to silence him. Eventually, Nixon falls of his own doing and Lennon holds steadfast.

As you might guess, the soundtrack takes you back to the Sixties and Seventies, and you learn about events and happenings you only had superficial knowledge about. Lennon is an icon, and you feel like you are getting  to know him, his passions and his joys.

And then he dies.

Rating: ****

After just reading about Genghis Khan in Time’s Eye, this movie caught my eye and interest.

It tells the story of  Genghis Khan before he became the great conquerer of the middle ages in Asia, starting out when he was a 9 year old  boy by  the name of Temudgin the 1180 time-frame.

The movie is the first of a trilogy, and we can now look forward to Khan the warlord. It’s all in Mongolian (made in Kazakhstan) with English subtitles. I was glad they spoke Mongolian. Having them speak American English would simply not have worked.

Life was rough in Europe, but this view into Central Asia makes medieval Europe seem like a cushy place. There is terrible carnage, senseless wars, brutal killing of innocent people in all directions. The movie is full of very bloody war scenes. Every time somebody gets stabbed the blood seems to squirt all over the screen. We never see arms or heads fly, but they must have, but we see blood everywhere. We cannot imagine how anybody can walk away alive from one of those battles.

This is a historical epic unlike what you see coming out of Hollywood, and for that reason alone definitely a worthwhile movie to watch.

Sit back, have some popcorn, and be glad you are alive today, and not in 1200.

Rating: ***

It seems that our country always keeps a war going somewhere so we have a steady supply of veterans coming home and trying to adjust to life in the good old USA. The Lucky Ones tells the story of three soldiers that come home from Iraq, two for 30 days R&R, one for good.

Tim Robbins does a great job as the lifer who just got out. Rachel McAdams plays Colee, a young private who is open, bubbly, optimistic and always positive, albeit without anyone to spend her 30 days with. Her lover and soldier friend died in Iraq and she’s on a mission to return his guitar to his family. Michael Pena plays TK, a sergeant brimming with confidence and optimism.

All three are injured lightly. The girl was shot in the leg, the lifer has a bad lower back, and TK had shrapnel in the groin, which gives him concern about his masculinity. Those are their physical injuries, but they are the least of their worries. Coming back from the war, they find nothing left in their country to be excited about, and we watch their realizations unfold.

We need a steady stream of veterans movies to keep us thinking. On Memorial Day we think about all the soldiers that have given their lives — or shall I say — whose lives we have taken. But we forget about the scores of men and women whose lives we have changed forever, either by maiming injuries to body or mind, by uprooting their family lives and careers to the point where they can never settle back, and by implanting pictures into their memories that they can never let go.

The Lucky Ones are lucky because they are alive. And they paid dearly. The only question is: Did they pay that price for a worthwhile bargain?

Rating: ***