There's Always Tomorrow

1956

USA

Directed by: Douglas Sirk
Written by: Bernard C. Schoenfeld (screenplay), Ursula Parrott (story)
Cast: Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Bennett, Pat Crowley, William Reynolds, Gigi Perreau, Jane Darwell

Synopsis (from the Rotten Tomatoes website):

Fred MacMurray is a toy company executive whose wife (Joan Bennett) and kids (Gigi Perreau, William Reynolds and Judy Nugent) take him for granted [boo-hoo]. Barbara Stanwyck is Fred's former girlfriend, whose own business activities result in a surprise reunion. MacMurray falls back in love with Stanwyck and prepares to leave his family. MacMurray's children go to Stanwyck and politely ask her to back off. She does so, and MacMurray's wife Bennett, who's been out of town during all this, is none the wiser. 

My Thoughts:

Another post-war film championing the cause of getting women out of the workplace and back into their aprons. Well, who wouldn't jump at the chance to trade a successful career in fashion design for the life of a household drudge?

Mainly interesting because of the pairing of MacMurray and Stanwyck once again.

My IMDb Rating: 5 stars out of a possible 10

Tim's Vermeer

2013

USA

Documentary directed by magician Teller, and produced by his stage partner Penn Jillette and Farley Ziegler, about Tim Jenison's efforts to prove his theory that Johannes Vermeer knew about and used optical devices to create his astonishing paintings.

Jenison, a successful inventor/engineer in the field of computer graphics spent nearly a decade meticulously reproducing the room pictured in Vermeer's The Music Lesson and then re-creating the painting, using just such an optical device -- a camera obscura. The film is the story of his quest, and it's absolutely fascinating.


Motion Picture Rating (MPAA): Rated PG-13 for some strong language

My IMDb rating: 7 stars out of a possible 10

Transcendence

2014

USA

Directed by: Wally Pfister
Written by: Jack Paglen
Cast: Johnny Depp, Rebecca Hall, Morgan Freeman, Paul Bettany
Motion Picture Rating (MPAA): Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, some bloody images, brief strong language and sensuality

What it's all about:

Johnny Depp plays Dr. Will Caster, the world's foremost authority on artificial intelligence. Dr. Caster is the leader of a team conducting highly controversial experiments, with the ultimate goal of creating a "sentient" machine -- a computer with a mind of its own. When extremists try to kill the doctor, they inadvertently give him just the chance he needed to turn his theories into reality. When Will is given just one month to live, his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) comes up with a plan to upload his consciousness into the advanced computer the team has developed. Will's best friend Max (Paul Bettany) questions the wisdom of this action and is eventually persuaded to join the terrorists responsible for Will's death.

Once Will achieves virtual life in the computer, Evelyn helps him to build a sort of technological eden in a remote desert town called Brightwood where he sets about remaking the world according to his own personal designs. Eventually Will's crazed thirst for knowledge and power cause all his loved ones to admit he must be stopped, but they also realize it may already be too late.

My thoughts:

Most of the critics trashed this film, so I wasn't expecting much. But I like Johnny Depp and I try to see every movie Morgan Freeman makes, so I gave it a try. Glad I did -- it's definitely watchable. Not great, but pretty good sci-fi with a thought-provoking theme, enough action to keep it from dragging, and no enormous alien slime worms blasting their way out of anyone's midsection. A lot of it doesn't really stand up to deep thought, but hey -- it's a movie.

My IMDb Rating: 6 stars out of a possible 10

Take Shelter

2011

USA

Written and Directed by Jeff Nichols
Cinematography by Adam Stone (director of photography)
Cast: Michael Shannon, Jessica Chastain, Kathy Baker, Tova Stewart, Shea Whigham
MPAA Rating: R for some language

Story:
When solid family man Curtis is plagued by a series of hallucinations, delusions and nightmares, all centered around a coming apocalyptic storm, he fears he might be heading down the path to schizophrenia, like his mother before him.  He also becomes obsessed with the idea of restoring an abandoned storm shelter on his property -- an obsession that eventually causes him to lose his job just as his young daughter Hannah (who is deaf) is scheduled for surgery that might allow her to hear normally.  As his strange behavior intensifies, he loses his standing in the community and frightens his wife and daughter.  But still he persists.  Will his determination to finish the shelter save his family or tear it apart?

My Thoughts:
This film has won or been nominated for a LOT of awards (see the list HERE), but I don't believe I'd ever heard of it until I saw it on Encore/Drama last night.   And while I'm not sure I'd agree with the "new American masterpiece" designation, I thought it was a very interesting and well-made little film.  The acting is restrained, the characters seem very real, the dialogue completely natural; the story kept me guessing about Curtis' sanity right up to the end.  And that ending is deliciously ambiguous, open to several different interpretations (won't say more -- see it for yourself).  Generally, that sort of ambiguity would annoy me, but here it works perfectly.  This is one I wouldn't mind seeing again.

My IMDb Rating: 6 stars out of a possible 10

To Rome with Love

2012

USA
(Watched the DVD from Netflix)

Written and Directed by Woody Allen
Cinematography by Darius Khondji
Cast: Woody Allen, Alec Baldwin, Judy Davis, Roberto Benigni, Penelope Cruz, Jesse Eisenberg, Ellen Page, Ornella Muti
MPAA Rating: R for some sexual references

Story (from Sony Classics):

To Rome with Love is a kaleidoscopic comedy movie set in one of the world's most enchanting cities. The film brings us into contact with a well-known American architect reliving his youth; an average middle-class Roman who suddenly finds himself Rome's biggest celebrity; a young provincial couple drawn into separate romantic encounters; and an American opera director endeavoring to put a singing mortician on stage.

My Thoughts:
For me, To Rome with Love had a couple of strikes against it right from the start.  First, even though I do love foreign films, I have to be really interested in a film if I'm going to spend more than a few minutes reading subtitles. I used to have more patience for that sort of thing, but the older I get, the more irritating I find them.  And since I lost interest in this movie after about the first ten minutes, the subtitles made it even less likely I'd enjoy it.  Also, I'm not a Fellini fan, and this is something of an homage to the Italian director.  I have to admit, Allen does a fantastic Fellini imitation here -- right down to the annoying Nino Rota-style background music permeating almost every scene.  But if I'm going to have to watch Fellini, I'd rather just see the real thing.

But the city was certainly beautiful, and there were one or two rewarding moments -- several bits of slapstick were very funny.  And Alec Baldwin and Penelope Cruz were very watchable, as always.  But in the end, the characters and stories were uninteresting and forgettable.  Not one of Woody's better efforts.

My IMDb rating: Two stars out of a possible Ten.

Triangle

2009

UK/Australia

Written and Directed by: Christopher Smith
Cinematography: Robert Humphreys
Cast: Melissa George, Joshua McIvor, Jack Taylor, Michael Dorman, Henry Nixon, Rachael Carpani,  Emma Lung, Liam Hemsworth, Bryan Probets
MPAA Rating: R for violence and language

Story:

During a weekend sailing trip, a freak wave capsizes Greg’s yacht, forcing him, single mother Jess (Melissa George) and a group of his friends to board a passing ocean liner. Onboard the mysteriously empty ship, all the clocks have stopped, the ‘Shining’-like corridors are spookily silent, and Jess has an uncanny feeling that she’s been here before. Then a hooded figure starts hunting them down and killing them one by one. Shotguns are fired, fire axes are wielded and bodies pile up on the decks. Fiendishly constructed, this plays like a dark, disturbing ‘Twilight Zone’ episode. Events repeat themselves but are subtly different each time, so we share, as well as observe, Jess’s spiralling sense of dislocation. [--Nigel Floyd, Timeout.com]

My Thoughts:
This was actually not the waste of time I thought it would be.  There's something oddly karmic in the continual replay of events, with each iteration showing us the story from a just slightly different angle.  I generally don't like movies that repeat the same action over and over (with the glorious exception of Groundhog Day) -- but in this one it works. 

My IMDb Rating: 5 stars out of a possible 10