Renzomalo

The Mrs. and I sat down last night to watch James Bond’s “Skyfall” and fell asleep after an admittedly hilarious opening of nonsensical improbabilities and physical impossibilities. James Bond a heavy equipment operator on a moving train? Funny stuff! Then I nodded off and woke up in time to hear the requisite “Bond, James Bond.” and then went back to sleep. Turns out (spoiler alert) that Mr. Bond is capable of defeating an entire platoon of highly trained, special-forces bad guys. Who knew? Of course, being immune to bullet wounds, oxygen deprivation, hypothermia and Newtonian Physics helps, but still… Looked good if you promise not to think or bring even a modicum of life experience to the viewing. Seriously, a must see for Bond fans plenty of early Bond references but for the rest of us, watch the trailer and call it a night. No stars from this old codger because I slept through most of it.

The Yin and Yang of contemporary filmmaking: Woody Allen’s “To Rome with Love” and “Midnight In Paris.” The latter is a work of genius; the former is its polar opposite. Midnight in Paris was fluid, inventive and populated with memorable, believable characters; “To Rome With Love” was disjointed, static, and festooned with stereotypical caricatures, the most irritating of which was Mr. Allen himself, who, in “Midnight In Paris,” had to good sense to stay behind the camera. Seriously, Owen Wilson does a much better “Woody Allen” than does Woody Allen. Even Alec Baldwin’s pompous mugging couldn’t save this one. Bottom line: don’t waste your time on this.

The Great Gatsby: Maybe it’s like caviar, an acquired taste that I have yet to acquire, but I didn’t care for “Gatsby.” I didn’t like the book in high school or college, I didn’t care for the re-read last month, and I didn’t much care for the movie. Daisy Buchannan was nicely cast (cute but perfectly shallow) but everyone else was a cardboard cutout, and the movie was overwrought: “Gatsby” didn’t need truckloads of CGI, and loading it up as they did made it seem like a comic book. It was pretty to look at but, seriously, when they stopped at Wilson’s Texaco station I was waiting for Batman to slowly settle in the background. There were some highlights though: Daisy and Nick dancing to the heavy downbeat of the Wurlitzer and the image collage of Gatsby and Daisy together, shot in sepia, like framed portraits from the 1920s. Other than that, fodder for the 3D generation. Two and a half stars from this old codger.

I saw The Hobbit after having reread the book and found the movie visually spectacular but otherwise somewhat disappointing. Tolkien

Another Year is simply a dreadful movie, a cinematic train wreck. You know you shouldn't keep looking but for whatever reason you simply can't look away. It was a wast of time, money and acting talent and I can't believe that some nimrod actually funded it. A gaggle of meaningless characters find each other - no surprise there in that no one else would have much to do with them - and bore each other silly with incomprehensible blather about their aforementioned meaningless lives. There was some good acting though: Lesley Manville (Mary) emotes and emotes and emotes to the point where you want to shoot her and end her misery (and yours), misery that culminates in the "Winter" phase with her friend and National Health Service "counselor", Gerri (Ruth Sheen) quipping, "You need professional help." No, really!!! Say it isn't so. And this only took a year to verbalize! The NHS at its best. Miss Manville's "Mary," although good, is equaled by David Bradley's "Ronnie," the recently widowed brother whose grunts and groans and staring interminably into space is not to be missed, unless, of course, you've already given up, fallen asleep or gone to the loo without bothering to press "pause." On the positive side, Another Year did inspire me to open an account on Metacritic to warn other, unsuspecting victims to spend their time and money elsewhere, like the bowling alley or something. Seriously, it was a consummate waste of time. No plot, no conflict and no resolution: what's not to dislike?