February 2018

I am so glad to say goodbye to February. The month was a spiritual low point for me, embodied by a series of nightmarish dental problems and a certain personal setback I’m going to have a hard time moving beyond. I’ve also been experiencing some dizziness, which is rather alarming, as well as the phantom smell of exhaust fumes pretty regularly. (Amazingly, I have discovered a bunch of other people complaining about this phenomenon on the Internet.) Finally, I took a three-day business trip to Washington, NC, that unfortunately turned out to be a colossal a waste of time. On the bright side, I did finally get my car window fixed. Hurray! Here’s hoping March brings brighter skies. MUSIC: I listened to and graded albums by Portugal the Man, Let Em Riot and the Wombats. BOOKS: I have been working my way through the short stories of W. Somerset Maugham. TV: Homeland is back!
Here’s what I saw at the movies:

THE GREATEST SHOWMAN (2017)—What a surprise! With a paltry 55% on the Tomatometer, I was prepared to encounter a train wreck at worst and a disappointment at best…but this musical re-creation of the P.T. Barnum story, replete with non-period songs and stylishness, is an utter delight. Hugh Jackman is a memorable Barnum, head of the traveling circus, and Zendaya is lovely as trapeze artist Anne Wheeler. (10)

THE COMMUTER (2018)—Stephen King gave this Liam Neeson locomotive thriller a big thumbs-up, but why I believed him after he endorsed the movie version of The Dark Tower is a mystery for the ages. Director Jaume Collet-Serra strives for a Hitchcockian Strangers on a Train-type story, except the plot is at least 10 times more preposterous, with implausibilities running amok. Sporadically entertaining, but it’s all so unbelievable. (6)

EARLY MAN (2018)—Nick Park of Wallace & Gromit and Chicken Run fame returns for more stop-motion animation fun, telling the story of a football match between cavemen (led by Eddie Redmayne) and the Bronze Age sportsmen, with evil Tom Hiddleston defending his team’s reputation. While no Park movie will ever surpass Chicken Run, the movie is generally a lot of fun, with plenty of puns and sight gags. (8)

SEA OF GRASS (1946)—The most profitable of all the films Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn made for MGM, this one is directed by Elia Kazan and based on Conrad Richter’s saga of the Old West. Land owner Tracy marries Hepburn, who can’t understand her husband’s odd resistance to allow anybody to actually settle on his vast tracts of land. Melodramatic developments threaten to separate them forever, even after their children become young adults. Never boring and very well acted. Weirdly, neither Spencer nor Kate seem to age a day after the passage of decades! (9)

BLACK PANTHER (2018)—I am a proud fan of the Marvel superhero movies—the Iron Man, Ant-Man, Thor and Dr. Strange series have all been very entertaining and full of humor. Black Panther is the studio’s first black superhero movie, and despite stellar reviews, I found the Shakespearean-type story very confusing, and the movie dooms itself with its nearly complete lack of humor. Lupita Nyong’o and Letitia Wright are the best reasons to see the movie—they are both gorgeous! (7)

GAME NIGHT (2018)—Here was another bright spot this month: a comedy that made me laugh pretty consistently. Rachel McAdams and Jason Bateman are a married couple who enjoy a periodic “game night” with their friends, but one of them gets a little…out of hand. We’re talking kidnapping, murder and shooting-level out of hand. The ubiquitous Jesse Plemons is on hand as the cop who lives next door. (8)

PHANTOM THREAD (2018)—A fairly boring examination of a Versace-type clothing designer in the 1950s who really, really enjoys sketching during breakfast—in silence, thank you very much. He gets involved with a much younger waitress, and the movie explores their troubled romance. The movie, which is 2 hours and 10 minutes, could easily have been a 30-minute short. I really enjoyed “House of Woodcock,” one of composer Jonny Greenwood’s musical pieces that is played a few times on the soundtrack. Otherwise, the movie was a bit too slow-moving for my tastes. (6)