January 2018

The main things I remember about January are that I worked a lot, and that my good friend Merf died. That was enormously sad—I’d been out to visit her in Wisconsin last year, and we had been planning a second visit this year. I keep thinking of questions I want to ask her that will go unanswered. Fortunately, I was sufficiently distracted by teaching Chinese people how to perfect their English pronunciation using Tandem, a language-sharing app on my iPhone. Meanwhile, Joan and I saw comedians Wendy Liebman and Brian Kiley perform at Vitello's Italian Restaurant in Studio City, along with some people on the lineup who weren’t nearly as hilarious. I was excited to chat with Brian and his lovely wife after the show. Finally, my dental problems are getting worse. Another crown broke off on a lower left molar, and I desperately need to get an implant on my lower right side. BOOKS: I read (and just finished) Kathryn Croft’s latest mystery, Silent Lies. MUSIC: I listened to I Like Fun, the new album by They Might Be Giants.

Here are the three movies I saw in January:

THE HOUSEMAID (1960)—This Korean noir is about a married music instructor who has problems with an assortment of moon-eyed female students, one of which into a Fatal Attraction-type situation; there’s enough blood, blackmail, murder and tension for two movies here. Only debit: a tacked-on “This could happen to you!” ending that negates everything we’ve been watching for 90 minutes. What a ripoff! Still, an interesting curio. Watch out for that rat poison! (8)

DOWNSIZING (2017)—Matt Damon is one of a large group of people chosen to get shrunk down to miniature size to join a society of folks who solve the overpopulation problem by being 7 inches tall. The movie starts as a kind of lighthearted comedy and gradually grows more serious. I was distracted by the myriad of physical anomalies that populate the film (i.e., sand and water wouldn’t look like that to a tiny human! A little boat wouldn’t float like that! and so on). The movie is single-handedly redeemed by Hong Chau, playing a female Vietnamese amputee whose romance with Damon is one of the movie’s few saving graces. My favorite director, Alexander Payne, stumbled this time around. (7)

ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD (2017)—After Kevin Spacey finished filming this movie, charges of sexual assault forced the filmmakers to re-cast his part and re-film all of Spacey’s scenes with actor Christopher Plummer, who is excellent as cheapskate billionaire John Paul Getty. The movie tells the true story about how his grandson (J. Paul Getty III) is kidnapped, and how grandpa doesn’t want to pay the ransom. A little slow-moving at times, but an interesting history lesson nonetheless. (7)