March 2019

This month flew by very quickly. No real highlights or lowlights. I bit down on a sandwich and apparently cracked a tooth, which will need to be extracted and (hopefully) replaced with an implant. Also, an old friend from New Zealand got in touch after many years of estrangement. BOOKS: Listened to the audiobooks of Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell, which I thoroughly enjoyed; then immediately listened to her earlier novel The Girls in the Garden, which was passable but not as engaging. (A third attempt, Watching You, was abandoned about a third of the way through.) I also continued to read Neil Simon plays, including Little Me, California Suite and (currently) Barefoot in the Park. TV: I watched the first season of Ricky Gervais’s dark comedy After Life, as well as the first episode of Brian Clemens’ old Thriller series.

Here are the movies I saw in March:

GLORIA BELL (2019)—Julianne Moore stars in this carbon-copy remake of the 2013 Sebastián Lelio-directed Gloria; he also directed the English-language version. Despite very strong critical acclaim, Joan and I were bored by this story of a lonely middle-aged woman looking for love in the bars and dance floors of L.A. She hooks up with divorcee John Turturro, who turns out to have some negative baggage. Moore is good, and looking quite attractive at 58, but the movie is a snooze. (4)

US (2019)—Another movie with strong critical acclaim, Us is Jordan Peele’s follow-up to his 2017 smash Get Out. This hyped-up horror movie is illogical and not remotely scary. It contains so many plot holes and ridiculous concepts that I spent the entire movie wishing it would end. I would have walked out, but star Lupita N’yongo is absolutely drop-dead gorgeous—the only reason for seeing this third-rate M. Night Shyamalan clone. (4)

HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON: THE HIDDEN WORLD (2019)—Third in the Dragon series is every bit as adventurous, funny and well-animated as its two predecessors. Toothless gets a girlfriend, while the humans and dragons encounter a malevolent enemy and set off to search for a new land. (9)

CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019)—Brie Larson as the new female superhero and the start of a new franchise from Marvel. Like most of the other Marvel comic-book adaptations, this one is non-stop action from start to finish. Very entertaining! (9)

ON THE BASIS OF SEX (2018)—Felicity Jones stars as up-and-coming attorney Ruth Bader Ginsburg in this biopic that traces the Supreme Court Justice’s early cases. Decent legal drama suffers from a draggy middle third, but it comes alive in the final court case that challenges an antiquated and sexist law. This is one of those “textbook” movies that seems more like homework than pure entertainment, but it is educational and fairly thought-provoking. Jones is good, but her Brooklyn accent tends to fade in and out. (7)