Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me is a charming film that showcases the later life of Elaine Stritch, Broadway actress. The show focuses on Elaine at age 86, including her times of ebbing health as age and life catch up with her. So although she discusses her past many acts on Broadway (five Tony nominations (one win)),…
If you’ve read many of my movie reviews and impressions over the past, you know that this is the time of year my visits to the theater increase as those Oscar-worthy movies start gracing the screens. I seek lists on the web for what movies might make the cut come nomination time. Birdman was on…
I rarely see a movie on opening day, so to see one three days *before* opening day was quite a treat. We had yummy Corner Taco before hand. We had a pitcher of local pale ale poured and cold. We had a large bowl of the best popcorn in Duval County. And we had two…
It had been some time since I read the book, Gone Girl. I talked briefly with a friend or two about it before seeing the movie, only then remembering the depths of the diabolic nature of the characters. Worried, as we often are when a great story from print is brought to cinema, I went…
I wanted to see The Drop as it was James Gandolfini’s last film. (I was utterly charmed by him in Enough Said, and I wanted to see this side of his acting, as I have yet to watch The Sopranos.) While Gandolfini was fine, I was wonderfully surprised by and captivated by Tom Hardy and…
My first Flynn book was the acclaimed Gone Girl. And although Sharp Objects was good, it lacked the depth of mystery and intrigue the later book has. So much about the characters of Sharp Objects seems to just be there, sitting, as if we too have plopped into the middle of this Missouri town much…
Having been captivated by NOS4RA2 (2013), I looked forward to another story by Joe Hill (who will for many years be referred to, of course, as Stephen King’s son), so I picked Horns. Horns is an earlier work by a few years (2010); if I hadn’t known that already, I think I would have been…
The best word I can find to describe the book is exactly that used to describe its characters: interesting. In a way, the book is unremarkable. But on reflection and conversation with a fellow reader, that is just what makes this book so rich. My initial comment to a friend regarding the book involved the…
Chef cooks up a delicious treat in this light, heartwarming summer flick. I laughed heartily. I snorted loudly (thank goodness I was with a friend neither offended nor embarrassed by my loud expression of funny). And I cried. Yes, the tears flowed unexpectedly at one point, but that just shows the warmth of this film.…
There was great build-up between my friend and me to the new film about the great lizard (100 meters tall, according to my movie companion, whom I teased for using the metric system). Said companion sat next to me for our last giant-monster movie, as I giggled and rolled my eyes at the silliness. So…
I am tempted to say the musical score was my favorite part of this film, but is hardly fair to the rest of it, which was a hilariously clever and raunchy romp through the dangers of the old west. A Million Ways to Die in the West (it really does focus on all the ways…
Having finished reading a well-written, dense, deep novel earlier followed by another thought-provoking novel, I sought something lighter, something shorter, something quicker. In The Husband’s Secret, I found those things. The story takes a bit of time to follow as each chapter early on brings in a new set of characters. I was sure the…
When this book was recommended to me, I was basically told, “I’m not going to tell you anything about it. Just read it, and then we’ll talk. Don’t read anything about the book—not even the book jacket or cover. Don’t even look at the cover—just read the book.” And so I did. And so I…
At the end of Grand Budapest Hotel, I wanted to clap my hands in delight. Indeed—delight best sums up how I felt about the film. It was a fun, quirky, witty romp along a tale of eccentric antics, fabulously entertaining in spite of the darker thread of the war coming to Europe. Having that pending…
The Fault in Our Stars is another young adult novel in which the highlighted young adults speak/think/act/live well beyond their years. On the one hand, that makes the story appeal to a wider audience and romanticizes the two for others; on the other hand, though, it gave me too much of a skeptic’s eye in…