Three Movies and A Streaming Series (no spoilers!)

Because so much is being covered today, these critiques will be shorter than usual.  Here goes.....

"The White Lotus"

HBO has given us a second season of this Emmy Award winning series from 2021.  (My thoughts on that season can be found HERE.)  Season Two gives us more of the same: gorgeous scenery, this time in Sicily instead of Hawaii, beautiful, but not real likable people, twisty plot cliffhangers at the end of each of the seven episodes, and dead body at the very beginning, followed immediately by a flashback to "One Week Earlier".  

There are three separate plot lines following (1) two very attractive, very rich young couples;  the guys were college roommates who have both struck it rich in business, but will they remain friends, and will they remain happily married (if they ever were to begin with) as the week unfolds? (2) three generations of men from an Italian-American family (Oscar winner F. Murray Abraham is the grandfather and "The Sopranos" Michael Imperioli is his son) who are in Sicily to find their family roots, (3) Tonya McQuoid, played by the wonderful Jennifer Coolidge, the only recurring character from Season 1, who is at the White Lotus with her new husband, and (4) two beautiful - of course! - young Italian prostitutes who somehow manage to interact with all of them.  Oh, and throw in the story of White Lotus resort manager Valentina, who makes some steps towards self-discovery herself.  Mix it all up, and you have a wonderful melange of high quality soap opera-ish entertainment.

I think that I liked this season more than the first one, if for no other reason than many, but not all, of the characters in this season were people that you actually like and root for.  This is not a spoiler, but when the three De Grasso men do discover their ancestral home and some of their cousins?  Let's just say that the results are not what you would see in a Hallmark Channel movie.

The Grandstander gives this Three and One-half Stars, as he anxiously awaits Season Three in late 2023 or early 2024.

"See How They Run"

In 1953, an unscrupulous Hollywood producer (Ardian Brody) wants to make a movie from Agatha Christie's hit play, "The Mousetrap".  Trouble is,  no film production can be made until the play's run in London ends (SPOILER ALERT:  the play is still running in London, seventy years later), so what can be done to end the play's run? And what about the changes in the plot that Brody wants to make that are infuriating the screenwriter (David Oyelowo)?  A murder takes place, a whodunit unfolds, and the crime gets investigated by a half-assed Scotland Yard detective (Sam Rockwell) and an extremely overeager Women's Police Constable (something new in post-war England) played by the wonderful Saoirse Ronan.  As regular readers know, I love Miss Ronan in anything that she does, and she played this role to comic perfection, and the unraveling of the Whodunit makes for great movie-viewing fun.

Two and One-Half Grandstander Stars.

"Weird: The Weird Al Yankovic Story"

"Weird" is an apt title for this movie.  It is a send up of the kinds of movies we have seen in recent years about artists such a Freddie Mercury and Elton John, and told in the mockumentary style of "This is Spinal Tap".  Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame plays the adult Al Yankovic, and he proves to be the exception to the Hollywood tale of child actors not being able to make it as adults and outgrow the childhood roles that made them famous.  This is a fun movie and worth watching for two things alone:  (1) how young Al's father deals with a door-to-door accordion salesman, and (2) the original song that Yankovic himself sings over the closing credits.  If you're a person who leaves the theater or turns off the TV when the eight or nine minutes of credits start to roll, do NOT do so in this case.  It's hilarious.

This movie is available only on the ROKU streaming service, which I just learned is free.  Who knew?  Not me.

Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

"A Christmas Story Christmas"

Did a sequel to the now classic 1983 film "A Christmas Story" really need to be made?  Well, no it didn't, but that shouldn't stop fans of the first movie from seeing this.  Peter Billingsly, who played the air rifle longing Ralphie back in '83 returns as the now adult Ralph Parker.  The fact that Billingsly, who has spent most of his post-"Christmas Story" career as a producer got involved in this gave me hope that this would not be a cheap knock-off.  Anyway, the story takes place twenty-something years after the original, in 1972,  Ralph is an aspiring novelist with two kids of his own who learns that just before Christmas that his "Old Man" has died.  So, it's back to Indiana to settle affairs, celebrate Christmas, and, not incidentally, write the Old Man's obituary for the local newspaper.

The movie has many of the same characters and tropes from the original, adult Billingsly exhibits the same facial expressions as the kid Billingsly did, and his voice over narration of the story does full justice the the job that author Jean Shepard did in the original.

If you liked "A Christmas Story", and who didn't, I cannot imagine you not liking "A Christmas Story Christmas."

Three Stars from The Grandstander.