By watching "Theory of Everything" today I have now seen all Best Picture Nominees, all but one Best Actor, all but two Best Actress, all but one best Supporting Actor, and all best Supporting Actress. Today's movie was a treat: Great acting, Great story. Let's face it the story of Stephen Hawking is fascinating. Eddie Redmayne mastered all the mannerisms and features of the real person that has been widely seen through the years. He did a great job and will be one to beat. The Oscars like actors who portray handicaps and "NAILED IT!"
The actress, Felicity Jones, who played his wife did a great job as well. Stories like this reminds us that life behind the headlines is equal to the little that we know about Famous People. This also shows us the tragedy of Lou Gehrig's disease.
Finally got to see "Whiplash". It is an astounding story of dealing with pressure, drive and proving merit. The story pits an aspiring drummer studying at a renown music school with a tyrannical instructor who demanded perfection while using methods that a Marine drill sergeant would find harsh. This is a tense, tense well acted movie. J.K. Simmons should get Best Supporting Actor for this.
Having majored in a subject where the professors intentionally try to weed out the students, I understood this story.
Note: If foul language bothers, you will not survive this movie. If condescending language and politically incorrect talk offends, stay away. The Instructor humiliates, condemns, belittles and totally messes with students' minds. This is the music version of "Seal Training".
It is great directing, acting and story-telling. There is a truth in this story that while "over-the-top" exists in many facets of life.
Recently I set through a talk by a professor who stated that one can not set through a two hour R- rated movie without affecting our brains, He was mainly talking about movies that he considered pornographic or debase. On one level I understand his point: If you go to stimulate yourself and be a voyeur, I can see that. A movie is not bad or debase because it is an "R". It is bad when it has no merit. There have been many movies based on Bible Stories that I don't find fit to watch, but it's because it is a bad movie.
I agree that an R-rated movie will impact the brain. If it is good it may have a profound effect.
In the summer of 1964 my parents and I drove to Tampa,Florida to see my brother and his wife. I was a senior to be in high school. We drove through the south (before interstate highways) on two lane roads. We were about 20 miles south of the famous Selma March when the events of this movie happened. I remember listening to the news and my Mother worrying that we might get "mixed-up" in this. I also remember seeing billboards along the way stating that Martin Luther King Jr. was a Communist! We would stop at diners along our drive only to find big Racks of KKK handouts and signs that degraded Blacks. As a boy from Oklahoma that grew up in Segregation, I was still shocked. I had not been exposed to this depth of hatred.
The movie, "Selma" is a great movie in its retelling of the times. It is excellently acted and the drama is first class. It is emotional for good reason. My disappointment is the rewriting of history to make LBJ look like the bad guy. History shows him to be one of King's allies and it was LBJ who freely butted with George Wallace and sent in Federal Troops. While the movie is certainly more dramatic in its telling, truth would have served as well.
It is a worthy movie though and I give it ***1/2 stars. 2015 movie #7
Take an awkward little man in a moustache give him a deep accented language (this time British) and make him bumbling and half crazy: You either have the new movie "Mortdecai" or the old movie series Pink Panther featuring Inspector Clouseau. The results are similar.
It is interesting that Rotten Tomatoes gives this movie an 8 out of 100 and the critics hate it. I will say again that critics want comedies to be biting and almost perverse to be considered funny. This movie is a throwback to the 1970's. It is silly on purpose. AND it is fun. It is not rocket science either. It is "R" rated because they wanted it to be (hence two f Bombs placed in very forgettable ways to earn the R). Otherwise it would be PG.
The recurring Gag scenes between Johnny Depp and Gwyneth Paltrow were great.
As one reviewer said, this is an anti-war movie and a pro-war movie. "American Sniper" is the true story of Chris Kyle, the number one sniper in U.S. Military history. It is also about what someone sometimes gives up for a passion. Clint Eastwood directed this excel;;went movie about a real American hero. The hero term gets lost in our society because anyone who does what they agreed to do is a hero if it frightens the rest of us. Bradley Cooper is great in the title role which is Oscar worthy. The Movie is hard "R" because it is a hard story. Nothing is timid. Nothing is restrained.
We were Garthed the other night. We scored tickets to the Garth Brooks Experience (Their Advertising). Garth is playing 7 shows in Tulsa and we went to the fifth. It was great fun and he is totally hyper. He sings almost 30 songs and has a techno stage worthy of U2. Garth is one of the few entertainers that takes arena rock and combines it with country in a good way.
There are acts like Jason Aldean that are backed by spiked-hair guitar player and a rock drummer. Jason wears a work hat , plaid shirt, and torn jeans to sing about getting drunk at bonfires. Garth's band has seasoned players with fiddle, steel guitar, electric, keyboards, etc. and they can do rock, cowboy, country or slow ballads.
Now for the best country performance of just good country music, that would be George Strait. Garth is in the entertainment business: George on Steroids and LSD!
BUT: The best singer of the evening was Trisha Yearwood. She truly has one of the top female voices in music. She only sung about four songs. I needed four more from her.
