| Renoir
(+ +) is a French film about the great French impressionist painter and his relationships with his three sons. The father was obsessed with capturing the natural beauty of his models on canvas, while his two older boys were getting shot at in the trenches during WW-I. Both were seriously injured. One of them, Jean, returned home to recuperate, fell in love with Dad’s latest model, reenlisted, and then married the young lady when the war ended. He went on to become a famous French director, whose Grand Illusion (1937) is one of the masterpieces of cinema. The title is similar to a 1909 book by economist Norman Angell titled The Great Illusion, which argued that war between industrial countries is futile. No one wins and everybody loses because war harms the economies of all the participants. Angell won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933. The creation of the euro zone was inspired by his thesis. That monetary union seems like a great illusion, but it certainly beats trench warfare.
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| 42
(+ + +) is about the inspiring life story of Jackie Robinson, a truly great American hero. The legendary baseball player broke the color barrier in baseball. Also getting credit for making this happen is Branch Rickey, the general manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers. In May 1947, on Cincinnati's Crosley Field, Robinson endured racist taunts, jeers, and death threats that would have broken the spirit of a lesser man. Pee Wee Reese, the captain of the Dodgers, walked over to his teammate and stood by his side, silencing the taunts of the crowd. That moment is captured in a statue in Brooklyn’s Keyspan Park. At the end of the movie, the audience clapped.
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| Django Unchained
(+) is a spaghetti western set in America’s Deep South in the 1850s. It’s Quentin Tarantino’s latest depiction of violence in America. The non-stop mayhem and racism in his movie reflect the brutality of slavery. Christopher Waltz is great playing a German bounty hunter. Jamie Foxx accounts for much of the body count in the movie and underplays his role. On the other hand, Leonardo DiCaprio overplays his part as an inglorious racist owner of a slave plantation.
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| Emperor
(+) is an interesting movie about General Douglas MacArthur’s decision not to indict Emperor Hirohito as a war criminal. It would have been more interesting if it focused more on Tommy Lee Jones’ fine portrayal of the brash brass rather than the star-crossed romantic relationship of his key subordinate on the case. In any event, the movie pins the blame for the war on paranoid old shoguns running Japan’s military and gives Hirohito credit for having the guts to surrender rather than to fight to the death as they wanted to do. Today, similarly unhinged characters seem to be in charge of North Korea’s military. The difference is that North Korea’s young leader is probably as nuts as the older guys.
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| The Great Gatsby
(+) is good fun, old sport, as long as you don’t mind Leonardo DiCaprio saying “old sport” at the end of each sentence for 2 hours and 23 minutes. Baz Luhrmann’s production is over-the-top, which is the way he likes to make movies. One of the main themes of the movie and the great novel is that money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy everything else. Carey Mulligan was especially good as Daisy, the emotional vacuum head who clearly preferred money without Jay Gatsby’s love. She did admire his fine shirts though.
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| Hyde Park on the Hudson
(+) is based on love letters between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his distant cousin Margaret "Daisy” Suckley. Apparently, they had an affair, as evidenced by countless letters between the two of them about how they planned to furnish their little hide-away cottage near Hyde Park. I’m truly amazed how our great leaders (like General David Petraeus) find the time to write so much to their girlfriends. Bill Murray comes across as Bill Murray doing an impression of FDR. The plot revolves around the visit during June 1939 to Hyde Park by the King and Queen of England, who were invited as part of FDR’s campaign to enter WWII as an ally of the UK. To show that they were all like most folks, Eleanor and Franklin treated their royal guests to a picnic featuring hot dogs. The next day, page one of The New York Times observed, "King Eats Hot Dog, Asks for More."
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| The Impossible
(+ +) is the true story of a family that was swept away by the tsunami that swcastated Thailand on December 26, 2004. The parents (played by Ian McGregor and Naomi Watts) survived the horrible ordeal along with their three young boys. The star of the film is really Tom Holland, who plays the oldest of the boys. You should see it. You can skip “Broken City.” I like Mark Wahlberg, but I really didn’t like his film with its very broken plot line.
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| Mud
(+) is an interesting film about two young teenage boys growing up in Arkansas and their learning-about-life-and-love adventure with a man on the run from the law, played by Matthew McConaughey. Think of it as Huck Finn meets Reese Witherspoon. If you don’t know who she is, neither did the cop who stopped her and her DWI husband recently.
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| The Place Beyond the Pines
(+ + ) is all about lots of dysfunctional characters, with solid performances by Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper. Most of the boys grew up without their dads, reminding me of the boyhoods of some of our recent presidents. The movie is a bit long, but that’s to be expected when the plot focuses on how one generation messes up the next one. That reminds me of what our dysfunctional leaders in Washington are doing now, accumulating huge debts to leave to our children.
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| Quartet
(+) is a movie that reminds us that “old age isn’t for sissies,” as Bette Davis proclaimed in interviews. It was directed by Dustin Hoffman (who is 75 now) and has a great cast including Maggie Smith, Tom Courtenay, and Billy Connolly. They play the residents of a home for retired musicians. Their music allows them to rise above their physical and mental infirmities. I wonder if economics will do the same for me when I retire.
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| Renoir
(+ +) is a French film about the great French impressionist painter and his relationships with his three sons. The father was obsessed with capturing the natural beauty of his models on canvas, while his two older boys were getting shot at in the trenches during WW-I. Both were seriously injured. One of them, Jean, returned home to recuperate, fell in love with Dad’s latest model, reenlisted, and then married the young lady when the war ended. He went on to become a famous French director, whose Grand Illusion (1937) is one of the masterpieces of cinema. The title is similar to a 1909 book by economist Norman Angell titled The Great Illusion, which argued that war between industrial countries is futile. No one wins and everybody loses because war harms the economies of all the participants. Angell won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1933. The creation of the euro zone was inspired by his thesis. That monetary union seems like a great illusion, but it certainly beats trench warfare.
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| Side Effects
(+ +) is an entertaining flick about insider trading, psychotherapeutic drugs, and domestic violence. Those are the three pillars of our modern culture. The plot is clever with some interesting twists. The movie, masterfully directed by Steven Sodenbergh, stars Rooney Mara (as the psycho), Jude Law (as the shrink in NYC), and Catherine Zeta-Jones (as the psycho shrink in Greenwich).
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| Zero Dark Thirty
(+ + +) was rightly nominated for best picture at the Academy Awards. What’s not right is that Kathryn Bigelow, the director of the movie, was not nominated. Apparently, the Hollywood community believes that her movie, about the CIA’s hunt for Osama bin Laden, endorsed waterboarding and loud rock music as the best means of collecting information. Bigelow denies that. However, the movie does make the case that without such intel (obtained by seriously stressing detainees), the chances of capturing bad guys are remote. That’s even if they aren’t hiding in remote areas, but rather less than a mile from the West Point of Pakistan.
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