The New Year's Eve Movies of 2019

So the first Grandstander of the new year and new decade will be a look back to the final day of the old year and decade, December 31, when The Grandstander and his Better Half  doubled down on our New Year's Eve tradition of attending a movie - this year, we saw two movies and here is a quick look at them:

"Ford v Ferrari" tells the tale of the Ford Motor Company's failed bid to purchase the Ferrari Motor Company in the late 1960's and the subsequent decision to get into the racing game and beat Ferrari on the race track.  Great performances by Matt Damon as driver/designer Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale as driver Ken Miles make this worth seeing.  Also,  a scene with Tracy Letts as Henry Ford II riding as a passenger in the race car that Shelby is driving is  almost worth the price of admission to this one.  It is a well told tale, and the car race scenes are stirring and exciting, but, in my opinion anyway, they go on a bit long, and the movie itself also goes on a bit longer than it should.

Two and One-Half Stars from The Grandstander.

The second half of our NYE double feature was seen in the comfort of our home via Netflix.  "The Two Popes" tell the story of Pope Benedict XVI's almost unprecedented decision to resign as Pope, and his discussions of that decision with Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the man who would become his successor, Pope Francis.

Not sure what it was, maybe I was just tired at the end of the day and a busy holiday season, but I was kind of underwhelmed by this one.  I am guessing that  much of what the screenwriter put before us was speculative and unconfirmed.  As a drama that presented two different philosophical elements of the Church, it made its point, and that can cause one to think, which is what good drama is supposed to do.  Still, this movie just didn't engage me as I had hoped that it would.

Anthony Hopkins and Jonathan Pryce and Benedict and Francis, give good performances (they even look like the Popes that they are portraying), but it wasn't enough to get this one more than Two Stars from The Grandstander.

Coming later today, I will give my Top Ten favorite movies for 2019.  I know that you are all on the edge of your reclining theater seats waiting for that one!

Movie Review: "Suburbicon"

In terms of pedigree, "Suburbicon" has everything going for it.  Produced and written by the Coen Brothers, directed by George Clooney (who co-produced and co-wrote it as well), and a couple of attractive stars in Matt Damon, Julianne More, and Oscar Isaac, this is a flick that had "I can't wait to see it" written all over it.

Let me get right to the point.  This is one of the most unpleasant movies that I have seen in a long, long time.  And I knew ten minutes into it that it was going to be that way.  If I was watching this on television at home, rather than having spent my own greenbacks at the theater, I'd have quickly grabbed the remote and switched to HGTV.

The movie starts as a satire on suburban conformity in the 1950's, takes a turn as a commentary on racial prejudices of that same era (which sadly, still exist out there today), then takes an even sharper turn into home invasion, infidelity, murder for hire, and insurance fraud.  Any single one of these trails could have produced a good and entertaining flick, but the way this one was put together produced something that was all together completely unpleasant.  Yes, that is the second time that I have used that word to describe this one, but it is the most effective one that I can come up with to summarize this movie.

This movie has produced some advance buzz among the film festival crowd and critics, probably due to that aforementioned pedigree, and while I have seen no reviews as yet, critics will no doubt rave about the acting, writing, cinematography, editing and its other technical aspects, and they may well be correct, but when it all adds up to a totally, and here's that word again, folks, unpleasant viewing experience, that makes it a bad movie in my book.

I'll give this movie one star, solely for the performance of Julianne Moore, and solely for one specific scene when she is being interviewed by insurance investigator Isaac.

Save your money and skip this one, folks.  Don't even spend a buck and a half when this one comes to the Redbox.

Movie Review - "Jason Bourne"

We took in the new Jason Bourne movie that is titled, appropriately enough, "Jason Bourne".  When you go see this one, take a deep breath before the movie starts, because this is one non-stop, kick-ass, action movie folks.  The action never, and I mean, never stops.  Lots of shootings, bare knuckle fights, explosions, and car crashes.  Lots and lots of car crashes.  Lots of scenes of feet hitting brake pedals and gas pedals.  Director Paul Greengrass delivers it all!  And as for scenery, I lost track halfway through of how many cities we saw in this one....Reyjavik, Athens, Rome, London, Washington, Las Vegas, and I am sure that I have forgotten a few.

As for the plot, forget about it.  There are more McGuffins in this one that Hitchcock could have ever shaken a stick at, so don't even try, just sit back and enjoy the ride.  Matt Damon, fresh back from Mars, reprises the role of Jason Bourne and let me tell you, Damon's Bourne makes James Bond, as played by anyone, look like a complete and total namby-pamby.  This has got to be one of the toughest guys ever put on a movie screen.

A craggy faced Tommy Lee Jones plays the CIA Director.  Is he a good guy or a bad guy?

An attractive Alicia Vikander played a Deputy CIA Director.  Is she a good guy or a bad guy?

Both Jones and Vikander are Academy Award winners, and both chew on a bit of scenery as this movie plays out, but what the hell, this movie isn't supposed to be great art, it's supposed to be exciting and fun, and it surely does deliver on both counts.  And, yes, it ends  with a perfect set up for the NEXT Jason Bourne movie.

Three stars from The Grandstander for "Jason Bourne".

As an aside, the Cinemark Theaters has a new public service announcement that they play before the movies asking that all in the audience turn off their cell phones.  It is delivered by Director Oliver Stone, and it's hilarious.

Movie Review: "The Martian"

Everybody has been raving about the latest movie from Ridley Scott, "The Martian", so let me add my voice to those raves.

You probably know the basics of the story.  A manned NASA mission to Mars is in place, when some sort of catastrophe occurs.  In this case, it is a severe storm on Mars.   The six person crew struggles to get aboard their craft and leave Mars, cutting short their planned mission.  During the storm, astronaut Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, gets separated from the crew and is killed.  The crew barely boards their spacecraft, but they are able to take off and is head for home.  However, surprise!, Watney isn't dead.  He has survived the catastrophe, but he is now alone on Mars, no one knows he's alive, and even if they did, there is no way to get to him and save him.

So, what does Watney do once he realizes his predicament?  How can he possibly survive, and what do the scientists (and bureaucrats at NASA) do once they realize that their fallen hero is alive?  Well, I'm not going to tell you.  The details of what follows make for a terrific story and a great movie.

You may think that this is purely a science fiction movie, but it's not.  It is an old fashioned, edge of your seat "rescue movie", if there is such a genre.  I couldn't even begin to understand the science in the movie, and I doubt that half of the audience wouldn't either, but it's not important to understand how Watney produces water or if the thrusters are being operated properly.  Just sit back and enjoy the ride.

Matt Damon is positively terrific in this movie.  Probably 95% of the time he is on screen, and he is on screen for most of the movie, he is all by himself.  That can't be an easy thing for an actor to do.  An Oscar nomination for Damon as Watney would surely not be an injustice, but we'll see how that plays out once the big "important", Oscar-worthy movies are rolled out towards the end of the year.  Others of note in the movie are Jeff Daniels as the NASA Director, Chiwetel Ejiofor and the Mission Director on the ground, Jessica Chastain and the Mission Commander, and Kristin Wiig and the NASA PR Director.  All are great, but I might quibble with the way Daniels plays his role as the uptight NASA Director.

This movie has been compared with both "Gravity" and "Apollo 13" and not without merit.  In my mind, it is much, much better than "Gravity" and certainly on par with "Apollo 13".  In my own mind, I might rate "Apollo 13" a bit ahead of "The Martian" because the story of Apollo 13 was, you know, true.

Visually, "The Martian" is stunning.  Scenes on the Martian landscape make you really feel the vastness and desolation.  Amazing stuff.  I saw the movie in 3D, which is cool, but I am not so sure that the movie would have been any less spectacular had I seen it is two dimension, so maybe you can save yourself a couple of bucks there.  Also, it is long, maybe a little too long at two hours and twenty minutes.  So you might not want to buy a large soda before entering the theater, if you know what I mean.  

Four stars all the way on this one.  Don't miss it.