Hillbilly Elegy (2020)

I don't really know what to say about this film, it was better than what the critics have been seeing but far from the spectacular masterpiece it should have been.

Taking place over essentially a thirty-six hour time period, it traces JD Vance (Gabriel Basso as the adult, Owen Asztalos as a teenager) as he tries to navigate a fancy dinner at Yale with attorneys so he can score a killer summer internship so he can pay for law school when he gets a call from his sister, Lindsay (Haley Bennett) informing him that his mother, Bev (Amy Adams) overdosed again. Over the course of two sleepless nights, with plenty of flashbacks included, we learn of how JD is trying to overcome his past even though it keeps sucking him back in.

 We learn how difficult JD's childhood was and while it was interesting, Bev's downfall would have been much more interesting how she went from being second in her class to putting herself through nursing school as a single mother to becoming addicted to painkillers and going from man to man. Bev loves her kids but the moment they say anything that rubs her the wrong way, she resorts to violence, still, JD refuses to tattle on her to the police when given the opportunity. 

His main ally is his grandmother, Mamaw (Glenn Close) who loves him but also wants him to help his mama pass a drug test. After she lets him move in with her, she's both nasty but sacrifices for him and puts him first, something his mother rarely did. Because of her sacrifice, he gets a job and starts to work hard at school and excels, joining the army, going to college and then entering law school.

While the plot is sort of paint-by-the-numbers, Close is great though she isn't really given the opportunity to shine until the third act, Adams was both good and miscast at the same time, going a great job in a role that doesn't seem to suit her sunny desposition. Basso also manages to shine in a bland-ish role. Bennett is steady throughout. I just feel that overall, this film was a missed opportunity of epic proportion, despite the really, slightly gritty feel of the film with solid score. Grade: B

Side Notes:

-Freida Pinto is also good as JD's law school girlfriend, Usha, whom he eventually marries. She also manages to look the same as she did in Slumdog Millionaire, more than a decade ago.

-We only get a taste of Bev's childhood, but it was also quite terrible but Mamaw was stronger than her and fought back bitterly.

-We also never get an explanation of why Papaw (Bo Hopkins) lives separately from his wife, daughter and grandkids.

-Aunt Lori, Bev's sister, is mentioned but never shown. 

-The father of Lindsay and JD, whether the same or different, is never mentioned either and that information would have been helpful. 

Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey

This film is a delightful for some good family-friendly viewing.

Personally, I found the pace a bit annoying but the songs were great and the acting was good but it was a good, uplifting film.

Jeronicus Jangle (first Justin Cornwell, then Forest Whitaker) is a celebrated inventor and might have just stumbled onto his big break when his neglected assistant, Gustafson (first Miles Barrow, then Keegan-Michael Key) steals his most precious invention, a talking doll (voiced by Ricky Martin) who is actually probably the true villain, despite being a doll but this doll is vain and self-centered and doesn't wish to be replicated and thus the story truly begins.

Thirty years pass and Jeronicus is a bitter recluse, his wife has died, his daughter left and he's about to go bankrupt when his creative granddaughter arrives at his doorstep. Journey (Madalen Mills) is exactly what he needs, sweet and brings a fresh mind and life into the old shop not that he wants her to. 

Throughout the rest of the film the plot runs its predictable course, with Jeronicus working on invention that Journey finishes but it is stolen by Gustafson and then recovered by Journey and Edison (Kieron L. Dyer), the apprentice and then fixed by Jeronicus and his adult daughter, Jessica (Anika Noni Rose) and nearly stolen again by Gustafson, saved by Journey and then seen by Delacroix (Hugh Bonneville), the banker who won't evict Jeronicus after all. So the ending is a happy one.

While the plot may not be thrilling or inventive, the musical numbers are truly great with talent packed on every inch of your screen and the inventions that are created, including the different math system are great. And Mills is a great talent. Her career should be long and varied as there seems to be nothing she can't accomplish. Grade: B+

Side Notes:

-The widowed postmistress, Ms. Johnston (Lisa Davina Phillip) flirts shamelessly and obliviously with Jeronicus and eventually, he does realizes it and takes her up on her offer.

-Anika Noni Rose outsings everyone else.  

The China Syndrome (1979)

 This is a great film that accurately shows the portrayal of a news reporter and life inside a nuclear power plant. 

Accidentally on purpose, during a tour of Ventana Power Plant, cameraman Richard Adams (Michael Douglas) films an incident while TV journalist Kimberly Wells (Jane Fonda) watches in horror as the men inside develop looks of sheer terror as they click buttons around to abate the situation. However, the film Richard has captured is illegal so instead he steals it to get to the bottom of things. And learns that there was almost a nuclear meltdown which could have killed countless lives including their own. It isn't until Kimberly point-blank asks shift supervisor Jack Godell (Jack Lemmon) if anyone was in danger when he realizes that the vibrations felt earlier where indeed super bad, one of the towers needs to be shut down and probably rebuilt but naturally, this can't happen. A new plant is about to open so they rush through the investigation and don't heed their employees' concerns; they sabotage the doctored x-rays, nearly killing a man in the process which forces Jack to take extreme measures but the plant owners do to, cutting the power, breaking through the locked doors and shooting Jack from behind, we just have to hope that the truth gets out.

While the high stacks at the end are a bit unrealistic unlike the slow burn of Silkwood, this film nevertheless is smartly written and brilliantly acted with Fonda and Lemmon both fully deserving of their Oscar nominations, with each expression clearly etched in their face as the film progresses along. Grade: B+

Side Notes:

-A good side plot is Kimberly's career, where she's relegated to the fluff pieces because she's nothing more than eye candy to the viewers and she is incredibly popular and a good boost to ratings. Hopefully after this tragic incident, she will finally be taken seriously with her career.

-Kimberly also owns a turtle, who bizarrely just roams freely around her house which is a little odd.  

Love with the Proper Stranger (1963)

 As a Natalie Wood fan, I'm glad that I've finally been able to see this film but now that I have, I'm not really sure if it was worth the wait. Sure, it's super dated but some lines are truly brilliant while the whole plot seems problematic and at times, just plain unrealistic. 

Angie Rossini (Wood) is the only daughter of a large, loud and beyond overprotective Italian family in New York. She's a clerk at Macy's and is pregnant. She manages to track down the father, Rocky (Steve McQueen) and asks him for a doctor. 

Now, Rocky isn't exactly a catch, a struggling New York musician whose relationship with Barb (Edie Adams) is never fully explained, but it appears by modern standards that they are an unmarried couple living together but are not yet married, mainly because Rocky has a typical male opinion of marriage, he thinks its a trap. 

Still, he helps her find a doctor which begins their journey together, and it is a journey. First, they need more money so he finds his parents and visits them for the first time in months and they have to run away because Angie's brother has found them which leads them to an abandoned apartment that somehow has pictures of Rocky when he was younger. And he starts Angie from having the illegal and certainly unsafe abortion, but goes about it the wrong way. She's hysterical and he slaps her before wrapping his arms around her. He fesses up to her brothers and offers to marry her but she refuses his proposal, not wanting to trap him. Instead, Angie gets over being scared and gets her own little apartment and decides to marry the cook, Anthony (Tom Boseley) whose crazy about her. Sure, she doesn't love him but at least he wants to. Naturally, this doesn't sit well with Rocky and eventually he comes around, in a grand romantic gesture sort of way, so they get their happy ending, though I hardly call it happy, as I find Rocky to be deeply flawed and certainly dated romantic hero and his character would not hold up by today standards. 

That all being said, Angie deserved more screen time, being the far more interesting character who also goes through tons of development, deciding to give up on the fairy tale dream of true love and be more realistic. However, the steps her brothers go to keep on tabs on her is just insane, paying a kid to call them from a pay phone with her location. Still, the acting is solid, with great performances from Wood and even McQueen, which was a surprise, both are trying not to fall in love with each other or do them any favors but they drawn together anyway. That being said, the film doesn't hold up well, and romance is supposed to be timeless, which is just a shame. Grade: B