Movie Reviews
Titles starting with M
Married Life
Pierce Brosnan, Patricia Clarkson, Chris Cooper, and Rachel McAdams in a black comedy of matrimonial errors and betrayal that is really all rather routine. It is based on a 1953 novel that was also the source for a one-hour episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, and probably should have stayed there. I won’t say it’s a total waste of your time, I like all the ... Read more »
Martha Marcy May Marlene
A young woman escapes from a weird cult in the country and goes to live with her rather uptight sister in her huge house while she figures things out. I’ll give any decent movie half an hour to draw me in. At the thirty-first minute I realized I just wasn’t interested in seeing the rest. Don’t take this as a negative review. It’s like Winter’s Bone, I guess. I ... Read more »
The Martian
Imagine you are stranded on Mars, fifty million miles from the nearest Starbucks. You can recycle water and oxygen (if the equipment doesn’t fail) but you only have enough food for maybe 200 days, and the earliest possible rescue (if they even figure out you’re alive) would be in something like 500 days. As if things couldn’t get any worse, the only music you have to listen to is ‘80s ... Read more »
Martian Child
This is based on a novelette (later expanded into a novel) by my friend David Gerrold. David was the first professional SF writer I ever met, way back at Westercon in Oakland, 1975, where he was the guest of honor. The short version of this story won the Hugo and the Nebula award, which is a little odd because it is not really science fiction … but what the hell, a good story is a good ... Read more »
The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel
If it weren’t for The Good Place this would probably be the only good comedy in the last few years. But now we have an embarrassment of riches. Rachel Brosnahan is the perfect little Jewish American Princess, living with her dreamy hubby in a fabulous Upper East Side apartment with her two young children. She puts out more energy than ... Read more »
Mary
Here’s something remarkable. This is a shot-for-shot remake … well, that’s not the right word, as the two films were shot at the same time. A simul-make? Anyway, this is Hitchcock’s Murder!, but with a whole different cast, and in German! Apparently that wasn’t uncommon in those days. There were a lot of movies made in Hollywood using some of their stars, mouthing words in a language they ... Read more »
Mary & Max
Australian Adam Elliot won the Oscar for Best Animated Short in 2004 for “Harvie Krumpet.” This is his first feature film, and it’s a doozy. It’s all in traditional claymation, no CGI effects. This is such a demanding medium, and has produced so many very good films over the years. Here we have an 8-year-old Australian girl who becomes a pen pal with a lonely, obese man with Asperger’s ... Read more »
Mary Poppins
I am on record many times in these reviews as being okay with the “Disneyfication” of classic children’s books and fairy tales. I haven’t changed my mind here, though this one was probably the most hotly condemned of any, possibly because the author, P.L. Travers, was still alive, and hated, hated, hated the movie. And indeed it sounds like Walt pulled a fast one ... Read more »
Mary Poppins Returns
I challenged myself to get through this review without using the word supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, like every other reviewer has done … only I just screwed up, didn’t I? Oh, well. You know what surprised me, though? My spellchecker didn’t flag it. So I experimented, changing one letter at random … and it was flagged! Clicked on it, and was shown the correct spelling. So the word has ... Read more »