Movies to see: The Intouchables and Waste Land; skip Interstellar

6/23/15 Interstellar, Best Visual Effects, 2015

Normally I don't write the review as I am watching a movie, however, I am in such pain and agony from watching this movie, Interstellar, that I just want to be done with it. all I hear from the dialog is "blah, blah, blah", and I could care less about the characters, this is all so pretentious. It won for Best Visual Effects and so far, one hour and fifty minutes in, with another 50 minutes to go, I'm thinking Guardians of the Galaxy got robbed, absolutely robbed. Basically the Earth is a dying planet, and Matthew McConaughey is Cooper, a pilot but he is forced to farm. Oh, I'm sorry, I don't care enough to recap the plot. I wanted to turn off the movie forty minutes ago, I'm missing tonight's episode of "Rizzoli and Isles". If you want a recap synopsis of the plot and all of the science, you should check out the Wikipedia article. The set up to the more climactic scenes (I think I'm watching one now) was way too long; when are directors going to learn (in my opinion) that making a movie longer does not make it better, it just makes it longer. I'm not a huge fan of science fiction anyway, so maybe I should stop. I did enjoy Gravity however. So, this may be the lamest review in quite a while - I do not like this movie, I would not recommend and I hope it ends soon.

Good night.

6/24/15 The Intouchables, 2012

As much as I complained about not caring about the characters in Interstellar, I hope to convey how invested I felt in Philippe (Francois Cluzet) and Driss (Omar Sy) in the French film, The Intouchables. The movie is based on a true story. Philippe is a wealthy quadriplegic who is looking for a new caregiver; Driss is a African immigrant currently looking to get a signature proving he applied for a job, even though he had not planned on taking it. Against any of the logic that his other assistants and friends provide, Philippe hires Driss. They are quite the odd couple, that's for sure; Philippe is an aristocrat who has private planes at his disposal and Driss's family struggles to eke out a living. Despite the economic chasm between them, Driss and Philippe make a connection; Philippe loves that Driss forgets about his disability and treats him and talks to him like a regular, fully functioning person. Driss loves music, especially the American band, Earth, Wind & Fire and breaks out some dance moves at Philippe's historically boring birthday party. A movie like this could go sappy very quickly and easily, but it doesn't. Cluzet has to act with just his face and voice, his character is unable to stomp off in anger, jump for joy, embrace his daughter or friends, and he is wonderful. Sy is joyful as Driss helps Philippe enjoy life again. They bring out the best in one another. I'm often asked what's the best movie I've seen recently, what would I recommend. Sometimes I draw a total blank because I see so many movies, they become a blur. But since I have your attention, you should see The Intouchables and Waste Land.


6/27/15 Waste Land, nominated Best Documentary, 2010

Waste Land works on so many levels: it's a film about an art project, an environmental film and an anthropological film.  Vik Muniz is a Brazilian artist now living in America who decides to go back home for a big project: photographing the workers (catadores) of the world's largest garbage dump and making portraits incorporating a variety of recyclable materials. I hadn't researched this movie or really knew what it was about, but I had seen the other 2010 nominees (including Gasland, Restrepo and the winner Inside Job) and they were all strong contenders, but I wasn't sure about this movie. It took about 15 minutes for me to get into the movie and the teeny tiny subtitles didn't help, but once I got into it, I couldn't tear myself away. Muniz goes to Jardim Gramacho to see how the work is done, meet some of the workers and get some ideas; we meet just a handful of the catadores and hear their stories. We learn how they think that this is hard, but honest work, and more than one of them comments that they would rather be here than doing drugs or working in prostitution. Some workers have been picking recyclables since they were children, helping their parents or working because their parents died; a few of the women worked beside their husbands or had nowhere else to turn after their husbands left them or other tragedies befell them. In spite of that, they still have hopes and dreams, either for themselves or their children. Tiao is the President of the Association of Recycling Pickers, and he's young and thoughtful and has great plans to help his community; Zumbi collects books that he finds in the dump and he has read Machiavelli's The Prince; Valter is a philosophical about the work they do and the role it plays in the environment, and he tries to educate his neighbors who do not work at the dump but add their garbage to the ever-growing pile; Irma is the cook and she is resourceful and the mother-figure to them. I was very moved by the different men and women and their stories, but also how they defied any stereotype or preconceived notion I may have had. The grace and humanity that they had, but also the very real understanding of the importance of their work. The pickers manually extracted tons of recyclable materials that were then made into new products.

Even as we learn about how the pickers go about their arduous job, Vik is going about his project, involving the catadores in gathering material and posing for the photographs. These are not just regular portraits either; Vik projects the images (including one of Taio as Marat in "The Death of Marat" by David) onto a the floor of this large warehouse he is working in and he has Tiao, Zumbi and the others add recyclables to the photos and then he takes another photograph. I wasn't sure how it would turn out, but the pictures were incredible. As the catadores spend more time working on this project, Vik, his wife and his assistant (?) talk about the effect that this change could have on them and would they go back to the dump, what would happen to them, etc. It's an interesting discussion and in this case, not purely theoretical. Vik and Taio go to London to auction off a large print of the "Marat" portrait, and Taio feels like a rock star, and the portrait goes for over $40,000. Muniz's goal was to put that money back into the catadore community and the pickers' association. This is a fabulous movie that should not be missed.

6/27/15 Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders, Park Square Theater, St. Paul, MN

 In the 1990s, Twin Cities native and author, Larry Millett started writing a series of Sherlock Holmes mysteries set in Minnesota, several focusing on the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Twenty years later, Jeffrey Hatcher adapted Millett's second novel into a play. I enjoyed the books, learning about Minneapolis and St. Paul in the early days of Swede Hollow, Pig's Eye Landing, the railways and other ventures of JJ Hill, so I was thrilled to see that new life was being given to Millett's story. For reasons of practicality, I'm sure, the story was condensed as was the list of characters. It has been years since I read the books, but from what I recall, the play was still pretty faithful to the plot. Holmes and Watson are in America for a tour and they are in Chicago when they learn of a mysterious disappearance in St. Paul; instead of heading east to New York, they catch the next train to St. Paul, where they are greeted by the freezing cold of a Minnesota winter. It's 1896 and St. Paul is preparing for the Winter Carnival (we still have a version of the Winter Carnival) and the son of one of the city's civic leaders is missing, and Holmes, Watson and rival, Shadwell Rafferty embark on solving the mystery. The cast was wonderful, and a few of the actors played multiple roles. We had one twist, the lead actor playing Holmes, Steve Hendrickson, was unexpectedly hospitalized, so director, Peter Moore stepped in for him. He still needed the script, but it wasn't as distracting as it could have been, and the show must go on; I thought it was quite brave to do. I had never been to the Park Square Theater before, it was on the smaller side, around 350 capacity, but there's not a bad seat in the house. The theater is located on a pedestrian mall surrounded by restaurants like Great Waters Brewing Co., Kincaid's and several others; it's also walking distance to the light rail and Union Depot. It was a beautiful summer night in St. Paul and we enjoyed the walk back to car, as the Jazz Pub Crawl was wrapping up. It will be a great memory when it's February and freezing.

The Wrecking Crew, A Most Violent Year, Double Indemnity

6/13/15 A Most Violent Year, 2014

There was a lot of buzz when A Most Violent Year came out for Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac, but it came away with no Oscar nominations. The movie is set in the early 1980s in New York City and Oscar Isaac is Abel Morales, a business man with a focus on heating oil who is looking to expand his business; Jessica Chastain is his wife, Anna Morales. Oscar does his best to remain a legitimate and law-abiding businessman, even as his trucks and drivers are being assaulted and hijacked by unknown assailants. A Most Violent Year takes us to the seedy underbelly of the business world in the 1980s (and probably the 1960s and 1970s and perhaps today if The Sopranos is to be believed) with Abel taking out loans at ridiculous terms and rates and competing with the Mafia and fighting to keep the justice system (represented by David Oyelowo Assistant District Attorney Lawrence) off of his back. I found myself rooting for Abel to succeed against the money lenders, the Mafia and his other competitors. I liked this movie, it's got an intelligent plot, occasionally confusing, and Isaac and Chastain deliver the goods (they are both chameleons and disappear into their roles); Albert Brooks was totally unrecognizable to me as Abel's attorney. The first thing that actually struck me about the movie was the way it looked; it had this gritty/gauzy look, like a filter was used. There are a lot of pretentious films out there, trying to be too smart for their own good, and they annoy me; this is not one of those films. Check it out.


6/14/15 Last Days in Vietnam, nominated Best Documentary 2014

I think this is the first of the 2015 nominated feature documentaries I have seen, and it's very powerful and moving. The focus of the documentary, directed by Rory Kennedy, is the evacuation of Americans as well as their South Vietnamese allies and families. The men interviewed worked at the American Embassy in Saigon, or soldiers or sailors who helped transport the Vietnamese out of Vietnam; Vietnamese were also interviewed, some were children or teenagers at the time, others were soldiers or intelligence officers helping the Americans. The Vietnam war went on for over twenty-five years, beginning with French involvement in Indochina and then the Americans took over until 1975, and it can get very confusing if a film tries to cover it all, so it is very helpful that Kennedy focuses on one particular set of events, those leading up to and including the evacuations. Not only is the history of the war confusing, even forty years later it can stir strong feelings when talking about the 'rightness' or even 'righteousness' of fighting the Communists, a position that has often put US policy in bed with right-wing dictators. And did you see how fast I went down that rabbit hole? That's what happens when you talk about Vietnam. Kennedy looks at the war in a telescoped way that cuts out a lot of details regarding the South Vietnamese regime, the American politics and politicians, so this is just one piece of a very large puzzle - but it's worth watching. First, politics cannot deny that there were many heroic individuals who knowingly disobeyed orders to help get their comrades and families out of Vietnam; pilots who flew almost 24 hours back and forth between the embassy and aircraft carriers delivering their human cargo; sailors who embraced the now homeless and stateless refugees on their ships. Second, the brave Vietnamese who left everything behind to embark on a very uncertain future, possibly in America, but at that time, nobody could guarantee what was going to happen; and I use 'brave' intentionally because it takes a lot of guts to go to a foreign country where you may or may not speak the language, you probably won't be welcomed with open arms and you may never get back to your homeland. Last Days in Vietnam is not the whole story, but it is an important episode in a war that still often divides this country.


6/19/15 Damn Yankees, Ordway Theater, St. Paul., MN

A friend had an extra ticket to last Friday's performance of Damn Yankees at the Ordway in St. Paul, so I went along. I had no expectations and only a vague idea of the story, except that it had a baseball storyline and it was a musical.  This was a little more than a friend of mine who thought I meant the 1980s hair band. The show opens with loyal Washington Senators fan, Joe Boyd (Lawrence Clayton) watches his team lose again as his wife Meg (Ann Morrison) bemoans the loss of her husband for six months of the year to watch baseball. Mr. Applegate (Monte Riegel Wheeler) mysteriously appears to offer Joe the chance of a lifetime - to play for his beloved Senators, but it's a deal with the devil as he must leave his old life behind, including Meg. Joe takes the deal and becomes Joe Hardy (Thay Floyd) a hitting phenom. Joe misses his old life, and often wanders his neighborhood, hoping to see Meg, even though he can't tell her anything. Mr. Appleton fears he is losing his hold on Joe and brings in Lola (Tari Kelley), his devilish assistant to keep him on the dark side. There is a lot to like about this production: the band, which plays on stage in 'bleachers', was great and never overpowered the actors; the actors; , leads and supporting cast, sounded great and brought a lot of joy to the songs, including songs like "Heart" and "Whatever Lola wants, Lola gets" (the two songs I had heard before), and "Those were the good old days" sung by Mr. Applegate as he reminisces about disasters and plagues was a lot of fun and played with appropriate campiness; the set which used the space on the stage very creatively (the Ordway stage is not very large, or it did not seem that way to me from my seat on the side). It was a great night for baseball, or a musical about baseball (a bit of trivia - the Washington Senators eventually moved to Minnesota to become the Minnesota Twins).

6/20/15 Double Indemnity, 1944, #38 AFI, National Film Registry

I am not going to tell you too much about Double Indemnity the Oscar-nominated film directed by Billy Wilder and starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and Edward G. Robinson because part of the fun of the movie is watching it unfold. What I will say is that as it opened it reminded me of Sunset Boulevard and Laura with its use of a narrator who was part of the story and you kind of have to pay attention. Fred MacMurray is Walter Neff, an insurance salesman who meets Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck), the beautiful wife of current client. Robinson is Barton Keyes, an adjustor at the same insurance company, and a friend of Neff's. The movie is dark and moody, and is cited as the first film noir; as I said, it reminded me a little of Sunset Boulevard, with the narrator but also the femme fatale character, both directed by Wilder. I don't recall seeing Barbara Stanwyck in too much other than "Big Valley" and "The Thornbirds", so this was a new look for me; and the same kind of goes for Fred MacMurray, I have seen him in "My Three Sons", Flubber and a few other Disney films, but nothing so serious. They were both very good and very sleazy. Robinson added a bit of comedic relief even as he provided insight into the events that were transpiring. There is a lot of cinematic history tied to the making of the film: Raymond Chandler co-wrote the script with Wilder, but Chandler was so difficult due to his drinking that Wilder later wrote The Lost Weekend about an alcoholic writer; it took a long time to get the film made because it was found to violate the Hays Code, censoring agency of the day.

6/21/15 The Wrecking Crew, not yet nominated 2015

I have been waiting for this DVD to arrive ever since the Kickstarter completed last year. I am so happy that I was able to support Denny Tedesco in his goal to bring the story of The Wrecking Crew to film. The Wrecking Crew was the nickname of a group of West Coast studio musicians in the 1960s and 1970s who played on thousands of songs for a wide range of artists, including Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, Nancy Sinatra, The Beach Boys, The Monkees and more. Denny Tedesco is telling the story of his father and guitarist, Tommy Tedesco and his fellow musicians who often played without credits on the albums. The movie has interviews taken over the past years with some of the musicians, including Tommy Tedesco, drummers Hal Blaine and Earl Palmer, guitarists Al Casey, Bill Pitman and Glen Campbell, bassists Carol Kaye (the only woman from the main ensemble as far as a I could tell), Joe Osborn, just to name a few; studio footage, interviews with some of the artists they worked with; home movies. It is so cool to hear how they very often arranged their own parts or even came up with their parts after being given a basic idea by the producer (Carol Kaye gives some great insight to the bass line for "The Beat Goes On" by Sonny and Cher and other songs). What's crazy is to hear how busy these musicians were, sometimes playing from 9:00 in the morning until midnight, for different artists in different studios. The musicians from The Wrecking Crew encountered the same challenges that their counterparts at Motown (Standing in the Shadows), FAME Studios (Muscle Shoals) and some of the singers in Twenty Feet from Stardom faced, which was a certain amount of anonymity to the music audience (although not to other musicians and singers) as well as the changing landscape of music - bands playing their own instruments, new technologies, obscurity. The music that is included (that was part of the delay in releasing the full film, because Tedesco had to get the publishing clearance to include the music) is a landscape of America at the time, they are songs I grew up with thanks to my parents, and to have the backstory behind the creation gave me a greater appreciation for songs that I took for granted. The movie was in theaters in March of this year, but it's available as a download or DVD, the soundtrack is also available. 
 

Still Alice and Mr. Turner from 2015 and Finally - Dirty Dancing

Again I find myself apologizing to my faithful readers (and you know who you are) for my tardiness in posting my insightful and amusing reviews. I do hope you can forgive me. As you can see, I have been busy, and I think you'll agree, this is an eclectic collection of cinematic viewing, and for once every movie is a winner or nominee.

5/30/15 Pillow Talk, Best Original Screenplay, 1959 National Film Registry

Pillow Talk is a light comedy starring Rock Hudson, Doris Day and Tony Randall. Brad Allen (Rock Hudson) is a composer and Jan Morrow (Doris Day) is an interior decorator who share a party line. Party lines are unfamiliar to most of us in the 21st century and the age of mobile phones, but sixty years ago, not everyone had a private phone line. The party line is used in Pillow Talk as a device to introduce the main characters to one another and create a source of friction. Jan needs the phone line for business and frequently, when she tries to make calls, Brad is talking to his different girlfriends. Needless to say, this frustrates Jan and they have an argument (back in 'old days' you could not just get a private phone line).
Of course this spat intrigues Brad who sets out to meet Jan and he pretends to be Rex Stetson, a rancher from Texas. The rest of the movie is taken up with Brad/Rex fighting/wooing Jan, Jan falling for Rex and then falling for Brad. I have to say this didn't jump to my favorite movie list, but it was okay. It's considered worthy of being on the National Film Registry, so perhaps I am missing something. I think I preferred Doris Day in Calamity Jane.

5/30/15 Mr. Turner, nominated Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, 2015

I was really excited to see Mr. Turner a movie about the English painter J.M.W. Turner, not necessarily because I am a Turner expert or devotee but because I really like Timothy Spall who played Turner and I always find writer/director Mike Leigh's movies interesting glimpses into the human condition (yes, that's very dramatic). I don't want to say I was disappointed, but I kind of felt let down after watching it. I think there is an inherent problem/issue with doing films with historical characters that we don't recognize, for example the cast of characters in Mr. Turner included John Ruskin (art critic), John Constable, George Jones and other painters of the period. Physically it was hard for me to tell them apart and artistically I was not familiar enough with their work to understand the competition and conflicts among them; as for Turner himself, I knew a little about his landscapes, but it seemed that there was a lot about his life that was implied and if I didn't have my handy Wikipedia I would have been even more lost. So, for the story, it frustrated me more than anything. The best parts of the film were when there were shots of all his different paintings, then you could get an idea of his scope and talent. However, the movie was beautiful, most appropriately nominated for Best Cinematography. There were several scenes that were filmed in such a way I felt I was looking at a Turner painting, they were gorgeous. The Grand Budapest Hotel won for Best Production Design and Birdman won Best Cinematography; I agree with the Production Design award, that was an amazing set, but I would disagree with the Cinematography award emphatically. If you are interested in the art of filming, I recommend this movie, as well as if you are an art historian or fan of Turner, otherwise, I'm not sure you will be interested.

5/30/15 Million Dollar Baby Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor, 2004

Sometimes I wonder what goes through my head when I choose to see a movie or not to see a movie; before I started writing this blog, I was probably a little more susceptible to what other people thought, and now I'm primarily driven by the list or what might be on the list (the Oscar list, if you're wondering). Million Dollar Baby was a movie that I avoided because someone told me it would be too emotional. As dumb as that may sound to you, that's the reason I didn't watch it for so long. I finally got it from the library, and even though it is over two hours (some days that seems like an eternity), I was excited to watch it. I was not disappointed and was a little upset I had not watched it years ago. Clint Eastwood directed and starred as Frankie, a boxing trainer who reluctantly begins to train Maggie (Hilary Swank); Maggie is a determined, hard-working young woman from the Ozarks who wants to fight, with or without Frankie. Eddie "Scrap-Iron", played by Morgan Freeman, is a former fighter, once trained by Frankie and he is a little less reluctant to help Maggie. Maggie and Frankie build a successful partnership as she easily defeats her opponents and starts making some money. One of the interesting plot points was with Maggie's family (featuring Margo Martindale as her mother); her family is totally unappreciative of what Maggie has done (bought her mother a house) and prove themselves to be one of the most hateful families on film. Eventually Frankie gets Maggie fights overseas and a fight with a boxer who is known to fight dirty; it looks like Maggie has "The Blue Bear" on the ropes when Maggie is blindsided and breaks her neck, becoming a quadriplegic. The remainder of the movie shows Frankie's devotion to Maggie, reading her poetry, interacting with the hospital staff and trying to keep her leech-like family away (the whole family scene was really powerful and made me mad as hell). Unfortunately, Maggie's health declines and she asks Frankie to make a very difficult decision. I'm not going to lie, the last 30 minutes or so of the film are incredibly intense and emotional, but Eastwood tells the story so well and Swank does a great job of transforming from an individual whose existence is based on physicality to someone who has to communicate with her face and voice. The Best Picture nominees for 2004 were kind of an eclectic bunch, including Ray (great film),  The Aviator (good, but long), Sideways (a surprise small picture, 2004's Birdman), and Finding Neverland (good, but not Best Picture in my mind). Hilary Swank won Best Actress over Annette Bening (Being Julia, which I cannot remember if I saw), Kate Winslet (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I saw part of it and hated it) and Imelda Staunton as Vera Drake which was the only nominee I saw at the time of release, and I would say that was a powerful role and performance, and could have won. What can you say about Morgan Freeman? I haven't really mentioned him, but he is one of those actors you can put in almost any role, any time period and he just works; and he is great as Frankie and Maggie's friend, "Jiminy Cricket" and the narrator. If you haven't seen it, I totally recommend it.

5/31/15 Dirty Dancing, Best Original Song, 1987

I have gotten so much grief from friends because I have never seen Dirty Dancing, ever. Apparently, in some cultures, this is enough to have you exiled to Elba along with Napoleon. I'm sorry to have disappointed you, and now, I have to disappoint you even more (and it's not to tell you that there is no tooth fairy), but I really didn't care and I certainly didn't love it. I've been told it's because I didn't see it when it first came out twenty-five years ago; well, let me tell you, my twenty year old self didn't care enough to go see it either. BUT, I didn't hate it, like I hated Flashdance (my penance for something I did, I'm sure), it just didn't capture my imagination. Everyone probably knows the story by now, but here's a quick recap: set in the 1960s, Baby (Jennifer Grey) and her family (dad is played by Jerry Orbach of Law and Order) head to the Catskill Mountains, a well-known resort town; Baby meets Johnny (Patrick Swayze) who is a dance professional at the resort. Baby wants to dance, and not the formal, stiff, un-cool dances that the resort hosts, but the dirty dancing that Johnny and his friends do after hours. Cynthia Rhodes is Penny Johnson, Johnny's dance partner and childhood friend (Cynthia Rhodes was also in Flashdance), who starts out disliking Baby, but eventually is won over by her spunk and honest determination. I did like the music, but I love the music from that period anyway, and the movie won for Best Original Song "I've had the time of my life". So, the movie is off "The List", I didn't hate and we can all move on.

6/7/15 Funny Girl, Best Actress (co-winner with Katharine Hepburn for The Lion in Winter), 1968

Funny Girl is the film version of the stage musical of the same name, also starring Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice, a Jewish comedian of the early 20th century. Brice was Streisand's first film role. Omar Sharif plays Nicky Arnstein, Brice's eventual husband and William Wyler directed.  Brice was a comedian who performed with the Ziegfield Follies which were very popular before the widespread availability of films, television and the internet.  This is another movie that didn't really do anything for me, I was bored. I feel un-American considering it's been rated as one of the great movie musicals and it stars Barbra Streisand and it was directed by one of the great directors, etc. etc. I'm sorry. I actually fell asleep and missed about twenty minutes and I don't think I missed anything, I didn't even go back to what I missed. Maybe I don't have a soul?

6/10/15 Sister Rose's Passion, nominated Best Documentary Short, 2004

Okay, I'm pretty sure I have a soul, it's just not a musical one. Out of all of the movies reviewed in this entry, I want to tell you to get this from NetFlix and watch it, it will be the best 39 minutes you have spent in a long while, I promise. Sister Rose Thering was a nun, originally from Wisconsin, who actively worked to have official anti-Semitism removed from Church teaching and her work was included in the Second Vatican Council. Maybe this sounds tame or not that big of a deal, but considering that anti-Semitism had been institutionalized for almost 2000 years, and a woman was leading the charge, it's a big deal. And she is so matter of fact in the documentary, as if this should be obvious to everyone. At the time of the documentary, Sister Rose was 84 and on an oxygen tank and in a wheelchair, but her spirit is boundless. She continued to review text books for obvious and subtle references to anti-Semitism and request that they be removed and informed the publishers that this was not in accordance with Church teachings. Sister Rose's Passion should be required watching.

6/11/15 Still Alice, Best Actress, 2014

I remember when Still Alice came out in the theaters and I heard people who were very eager to see it and other people were nervous and leery of seeing it. Alzheimer's disease has become a reality for more and more families and a weight hanging over the heads of others. There is still so much that we don't know about the disease, no vaccine, no guaranteed preventative measures and it scares us, so to watch it be put out there on film can be very frightening. Still Alice brings us one version of the Alzheimer's story, how it affects one family. Julianne Moore is Alice Howland, a PhD in linguistics who starts to experience some weird lapses in memory and confusion; she feels something is not right and sees her doctor who believes she may have Alzheimer's and wants to conduct additional tests. Alice tells her husband, John (Alec Baldwin) who is a medical doctor, and eventually they tell their adult children who react in different ways. John tries to be supportive and patient with her, reminding her of things they have done in the past; in fact, I thought, under the circumstances, he was quite marvelous, he wasn't perfect, but he wasn't an ass, either. Alice's eldest daughter, Anna (Kate Bosworth) seemed to have a very difficult time with the diagnosis and the effect it had on her mother, sometimes getting frustrated with Alice and fighting with her younger sister, Lydia (Kristen Stewart), although to be honest, the sisters had a combative relationship before Alice was diagnosed. Lydia is an aspiring actress, living across the country in Los Angeles (something that ticks off Anna). Anna and her brother Tom (who is kind of a footnote) get tested because this type of Alzheimer's can be identified genetically; Lydia decides not to get tested. Of the family members, Lydia seems almost fearless in her desire to be with her mom, talk to her, understand what's happening. Alice tries to develop little tricks to help her remember things, she keeps track of things in a calendar, she has also created a video that is to be watched only at a certain point in her illness, she knows this from her notes. Moore as Alice transforms from a vibrant middle aged woman, teaching linguistics at Columbia University to a year later as someone who looks worn and tired and has trouble finding the right words. I think the only other nominee who might have had a realistic chance at the Oscar was Reese Witherspoon, because I feel like her performance was almost as transformative (my spellcheck is telling this isn't a word, but I don't care). Alec Baldwin was very good in his role as Alice's husband and I was slightly surprised by Kristen Stewart's performance which was very strong and moving, kind of reminiscent of her role in Welcome to the Rileys with James Gandolfini. Still Alice may be tough to watch on occasion, but it's worth watching for the performances as well as the content.

It seems from the reviews here, I only like movies or documentaries that are serious, some may say depressing. I'll have to ponder that for next time.