Star Wars in Order
My Movies
A list of Tom's viewings from DVD, Video, TV or in the theater.
TGstars go from 0 to 5. Negative numbers indicate the degree of badness below zero.
*Elvis, NYT Sept 2022
* The Mule by Clint Eastwood
Elvis
Sep 2022
An interesting biography of Elvis which focused on his manager, Col Tom Parker played by Tom Hanks. I liked it although critics did not. It was well played by the actor playing Elvis, the music was outstanding mixing new recordings with historic Elvis recordings.
TG Stars 4 Compelling story, great music and very good acting by the Elvis character and by Tom Hanks. It was very believable. We all knew Elvis so this was hard to pull off. I never saw Col Tom Parker so they could have made Tom Hanks look like anybody but he delivered a nice performance.
Good Kids
Feb 2017
A coming of age movie about 4 nerds who don't fit into their school. They decide to throw caution to the wind and before they leave for college in the Fall, they decided to spend their summer letting go. They party, do drugs, alcohol and have lots of sex. One of the boyx gives private tennis lessons and all the cougars at the clubhouse are signing up and paying him then having sex with him. It's a stupid movie but I watched it to the end.
TG Stars 3 Not much to like here except the attractive cougars having sex with one of the kids. They even briefly are topless in a few of the scenes. I liked the girl nerd, she was cute, but her part was unbelievable as was all the boys. Situations were not realistic, premise of the story was poor.
Edge of 17
Jan 2017
Loved this movie. A girl doesn't fit into her class and has no friends. Her only friend is now going out with her brother.
She doesn't get along with her Mother and is generally unhappy. Woody Harrelson plays a teacher she confides in. His lines are very
funny and delivered expertly with satire and comedy. Loved it. The writing in this movie is smart. This sounds like facetious kids talking. Loved the girl who played the lead, she' a real gem. We'll probably see her around more. She is a likable character. in the end you feel sorry for all the characters in this film. They are suffering from something or other in their own little world.
TGstars: 8 Love the character development. I got emotionally involved, caring for each person in the film. There is no nudity which is too bad but it would have taken away.
Star Wars VII - The Force Awakens
Jan 2016
We saw this in a theater in downtown Sarasota. It really needs the big screen and surround sound to appreciate it. The movie is excellent, the story is faithful to the original that we saw 39 years ago. It had our attention the entire time. There actually is a story and they don't dwell on a lot of the implausibility, it's pure entertainment. The bad guy is the son of Hans Solo and Princess Leia. The hero is an Australian girl, Riley, who battles the bad guy with a light saber. Another hero is a hotshot young pilot, Penn, who leads a force into bombing the death star. It was nice to see Harrison Ford and a lot of the old cast.
TGstars: 10 Cood effects, wonderful sounds and action, love the characters and there actually is a story to engage us. Superb.
Martian
Jan 2016
Wonderful story of an astronaut left behind on Mars when the crew had to evacuate in a storm. It has many qualities of the old TV show McGiver as well as a lot of humorous moments.
TGstars: 10 Loved it. The science behind it seems plausible, one of the things that I hate about most Science Fiction but loved here.
Grand Budapest Hotel
Feb 2015
This was very weird and quirky tracing the history of the ownership of the Grand Budapest Hotel through war and the ages in a very hilarious movie. A lot of it is tongue and cheek with elements from James Bond, Peter Sellars and others. It was pretty funny and what a story it weaves.
TGstars: 8 This is like a good book with many twists and turns in a bizarre and tongue and cheek tale. This is definitely very weird.
Boyhood
Jan 2015
Movie depicts the growing into manhod of a 12 year old boy and all his trials and tribulations. The Father who abandoned him is still connected, played by Ethan Hawkes. His new Father is abusive and his Mother leaves the guy to raise the two of them as a single parent. Life is hard, she does a fantastic job the best she can.
TGstars: 6 Amazing and very emotional. Extremely well done. No real story here.
Railway Man
July 2014
Powerful Australian story about a veteran who was captured by the japanese in WWI and forced into slave labor building the Thai railway. He is tortured by a Japanese leader. After the war he meets Nicole Kidman, gets married and starts having flashbacks. When he finds the Japanese sopldier is still alive, and to make matters worse, is now a tour guide of the work camp he was held at, he sets out with a knife to confront the guy. At first he threatens and imprisons the guy but then leaves him be. At a future date he returns with Nicole by his side and forgives the guy. The war was over long ago, he needs to let it go.
TGstars: 8 Powerful and emotional drama. I didn't think I would like a war story but this one is based on true life and is quite good.
Her
March 2014
A lonely man acquires an operating system that has artificial intelligence and is able to express emotions including love, feelings and even sex. The computer voice is a very sexy Scarlett Johansson but she never appears in the picture. The guy eventually falls in love with the machine. It turns out his friend played by Amy Adams who recentlyy broke up with her boyfriend has also been in love with an operating system. In the end the OS's leave.
TGstars: 2 Creative writing but I hated this movie since it was so stupid
Gravity
March 2014
Not much there in content but it was riveting nonetheless. How could you make a 2 hour movie out of being lost in space but it was done as we follow the trials and tribulations of Sandra Bullock trying her hardest to survive after a catastrophic accident kills the Space shuttle crew.
TGstars: 9 Lots of drama, very good acting but very little content. The effects and sound were amazing.
Nebraska
Feb 2014
Really good. Bruce Dern plays an old man who is gooing to walk to Nebraska to claim a lottery prize he thinks he won. He becomes te=he laughing stock when people find he's going to claim the prize. We end up feeling sorry for him.
TGstars: 9 Wonderful performance, nice writing and character development. Good story.
Last Vegas
Feb 2014
Loved it, I really laughed hard at the overplayed old geezers by some top names in the business. It's not an academy award winner but a lovable movie in the genre of Airplane.
TGstars: 7 Funny, over the top dramatization of old people. I loved it.
Before Midnight
Feb 2014
In my opinion. this Movie so far is the weakest of the series. It runs long and of course like the others it is mostly a movie about conversations. It's 10 years later and Jesse and Celine are living in Paris with twins. For the summer they accept the invitation to go to Greece to Jesse's author friend's villa. Jesse now questions his life decisions which now jeopardizes his relationship with Celine.
TGstars: 5 Long, not great. It's fun to see this couple together again but I wish it was happier.
Blue Jasmine
Jan 2014
Wow, amazing performance by Kate Blanchett who is broke and moves in with her sister in San Francisco and tries to act like she's put out when in reality she is imposing and very broke.
TGstars: 9 Over the top performances in this quirky movie.
Saving Mr banks
Dec 2013
Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney quite well. Seeing the insight into Walt's life and his trials and tribulations was quite good.
TGstars: 7 Fun to watch, educational to see how Walt was put together.
—-
American Hustle
Dec 2013
Amazing movie that captures the period in an I'm not so sure if it's tongue in cheek style. Well done by the cast anyway. I don't care for gangsters and sleezeballs so not my cup of tea.
TGstars: 7 Good movie but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it.
Lincoln
Dec 2012
Well done movie by Steven Speilburg that held your attention but was a little hokey and not historically accurate in order to add drama. I enjoyed the Killing Lincoln book more.
TGstars: 6 Fun but not a great movie. Lots of fake drama.
Being Flynn
July 2012
This movie was a little different with Robert DeNiro playing a homeless guy who encounters his Son who is a struggling writer. The son is working in a homeless shelter. There is a nice relationship with one of the co workers but isn't fruitful for him. The Son loses his Mother, played by Julianne Moore, but he never told her how much he loved her before she committed suicide.
TGstars: 6 Decent movie, nicely written and well acted but it's not Academy Award material.
Take This Waltz
June2012
nice Movie with a very pretty and uninhibited Michelle Williams in the lead. She's trying to find herself in a relationship where her partner is working on a novel 24/7 and has little time for love. All he can do is cook dishes for his cookbook. she falls in love with the single neighbor and runs off with him but in the end we find out is she really happy or is this all a repeat of the first relationship. Love the amount of nudity she is willing to perform for this movie including a very nice sequence to a Leonard Cohen song. Good stuff.
TGstars: 8 Sensitively written, good scrip and of course great performance by Michelle Williams. She' not afraind to display her body “au naturale” which is very nice.
Wanderlust
June2012
Awful movie with Jennifer Ansiton as the lead. A couple decides to get away from it all after they lose their jobs in New York City. They end up on a commune where free love reigns and a bunch of weird characters inhabit their life. they end op not liking this lifestyle of free love and do anything you want and head back for the city. One of the worst movies I've seen in a long time.
TGstars: 1 Awful writing, awful story, no plot and boring but pretty people. Why was this movie made?
Midnight in Paris
February 2012
Woody Allen screenplay which was excellent. A guy is engaged to a bossy lady. He's a writer so while in Paris with her parents he takes midnight walks for inspiration. At midnight an old limo picks him up and takes him to a speakeasy in 1920's Paris. Therehe meets Picasso, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Degas, Gauguin and many other writers and painters of the time. This continues many nights in a row eventually leading to his decision to stay in Paris and dump his domineering fiance and her obnoxious parents. I cheered for him here.
TGstars: 9 Absolutely loved the story and 1920's Paris. The night scenes are incredible. Love Paris, love the cafes and night scenes and the movie in general.
The Artist
February 2012
Fantastic silent movie that makes you pay attention to the story because it's done with faces and acting as opposed to sound. There is a musical score throughout which helps. This was artistically and creatively done. Who would have thought a silent movie would be so popular. It ended up winning Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Director and a few others.
TGstars: 10 Incredibly creative and artistically done change of pace. I enjoyed it very much.
Lion King 3D
October 2011
It was the Lion King, what can I say? Good movie, 3D was not up to par. There were a few special effects but in general it was flat for 3D
TGstars: 8 This is for the Lion King story, only a 3 for the 3D.
The Help
August 2011
Best movie I have seen in years. Loved it. Well writtem even better acting in a poignant story of the Jim Crow South.
TGstars: 10 This was one of the best movies in the past few years.
The Proposal
August 2011
This is a Sandra Bullock movie so I had my doubts. A bitchy boss at a publishing company is going to be deported to Canada by the INS due to a late application and a visa violation. She blackmails her assistant into proposing marriage as a way to stay here. The marriage would be fake she assures him. They visit his family in Alaska for his grandmothers (Betty White) 90th birthday. The family is thrilled when they hear of the wedding and force the couple to kiss and also put them up in a bedroom instead of separate rooms. There is some Sandra Bullock nudity in one scene which is nice is slow mo although she doesn't show anything. After taking a shower she has to cross the bedroom to get a towel and runs into the boyfriend/fiance who was also in the room. Very nice! The family decides the couple should get married that weekend. At the last minute after walking down the aisle Sandra decides she can't do it and confesses to the attendees. She leaves but the guy decides he really loves her. He catches up with her in New York and before the office crowd he pasionately kisses her and declares his love.
TGstars: 7 I enjoyed it even though it was a Sandra Bullock movie. It was a cute movie, entertaining with no violence or no bad things happening. Her nude scene sealed the deal for me, otherwise ?i would have rated it a 6 instead of 7. I'm not sure why she chooses such dumb movies to act in. She's pretty and can perform.
Hangover 1
June 2011
A pretty funny film about 4 guys who take a buddy to Las Vegas for a bachelor party and lose him. The straightest of the guys plays a dentist who is hounded by a bitch of a girlfriend. He ends up getting married to a hooker played by Heather Graham. Apparently the guys were drugged by the Belushi looking character accidentally when he bought what he thought was Ecstasy from a drug dealer. It was Ruffy's, the date rape drug which caused the guys to not remember a thing including losing their friend, playing craps and walking away with 100k in chips, etc etc etc They sepnt the movie looking for their friend, find him in the end and get him to his wedding. Lots of straight jokes in the style of Airplane. Well played.
TGstars: 9 I laughed and laughed. This was well done comedy of an insane plot by three talented comedians playing three different roles. Good writing, good acting, lame plot make this one a winner.
Endure
May 2011
A not bad Indy filmed in Lakeland and shown at the Sarasota Film festival. A woman
is kidnapped and tied to a tree in the woods. Her captor however is killed and nobody knows about her. A pair of detectives find a photo of her tied up in the captors car when he crashed. They theorize she may be alive so the great detective race begins looking for clues from the dead man's house and his financial and employment records, etc.
TGstars: 3 I liked it, simple story, simply put together but it held my interest.
Last Night
Mar 2011
A husband works with an attractive woman. When his wife finds out at a party she starts getting suspicious. The husband goes out of town on a business trip with the woman. He's faithful but then gives in to temptation when he is seduced by the woman. Meanwhile, the wife (Keira Knightly) meets an old flame from when she lived in Paris. They go out to dinner with friends, spend the night doing some passionate kissing but she doesn't give in to desire because she's married. I really liked Keira dressed as a slender woman in braless tee top and panties in a few scenes but no nudity. The ending just stops mid sentence!!!!
TGstars: 4 Attractive people, a story I got sucked into although I don't approve of the subject matter.
Easy A
Feb 2011
Emma Stone is a cute High school kid who lies about losing her virginity but is viewed by the school as a slut. Soon gawky guys are paying her to say she slept with them to make them look cool too. the movie is well acted tongue in cheek by her parents. I thought it was quite funny. Well written with pretty original and funny lines by the whole cast. It was good for entertainment value.
but I can't give it a lot of stars even though I enjoyed it and it was funny. Emma is cute and has an infectious personality. Nice.
TGstars: 3 Cute girl, original and funny lines. Great entertainment value but not very high art. Now I wonder what the rating is supposed to reflect: intelligence and art or dumb entertainment?
The Collectress
Feb 2011
This is an art house movie from Lithuania. A woman has no emotion unless she sees it filmed and played back to her. she hires a video editor to help her with her fetish culminating in the secret taping of her seducing her best friends fiance. In the end she plays the tape for her best friend who is with her fiance. this is her ultimate thrill and ends the movie. Scary deep stuff.
TGstars: 4 Good but i wouldn't want to see it again. Once is enough.
The Runaways
Jan 2011
Story of Joan jett and one of the first girl bands. A record producer likes her sound and puts together a group of girls with a marketable mix. they tour and get mixed up with sex, drugs and rock and roll of course. Nice music, so so story but done kind of all right.
TGstars: 2 It was OK but not super great as a movie. It held my interest but just barely.
Black Swan
Dec 2010
Saw this in the theater in Apex. A woman wants the role of the Black Swan in Swan Lake. She's driven by her Mother, a former ballerina who apparently is living vicariously thorugh her daughter. The daughter's quest becomes real as she assumes the Black Swan in her real life in the quest to become the stage version. Very good psychological thriller.
TGstars: 5 Great movie, want to see it again. Fantastic dancing and all that goes into a ballerina. Thriller horror ending. Stunned.
Jan 2011
Men who Hate Women
This is a thriller whodunit. A woman hacker who is a genius hangs out with a journalist who is sent to prison for exposing corruption but loses the libel case against him. The girl is weird, bisexual with multiple piercings and tattoos. Loved her body in the nude scenes making love with another woman and then with the guy. Truth wins out in the end as she gives the guy a present, a bundle of wrapped documents she apparently obtained through her hacking so the guy could prosecute the evil the day he is released from prison and this time wins since the documents are air tight.
TGstars 5 It left me spellbound and glued to the screen trying to figure out what was going to happen next. This movie is full of twists and turns and has highly unconventional characters, the mark of a true Indy.
the Quiet
June 2010
Dot loses her only parent, her Father, who she was close to. The Father was deaf so Dot learned to sign. Dot also can't speak or hear. She is adopted by her godparents who have a cold heartless cheerleader daughter in Dot's classes. The Mother is a doper. We later learn that the cheerleader, Evan, is being sexually abused by her Father. He gets into her bed and demands sex. Dot finds out but is silent. Later she has some compassion for poor Evan. We later hear Evan many times talking about killing her Father. One night when her Father is beating her and attempting to rape her, Dot arrives with a piano string and strangles him. The girls go to the prom and when they return they find the doper Mother, who knew about the abuse, takes the fall and is led away in a squad car. Dot can speak and hear as she has let go of her childhood demons. This movie makes you think. It's horrible on the surface but beautiful in other ways. I felt sorry for both girls by the end and was glad to see the Father get his justice. I'm not sure about the doper mother. At least by taking the guilty hit she makes up for past in differences to her daughter for letting this go on for so long.
TGstars: 4 Good story, different, well done, disturbing.
It's Complicated
June 2010
It is complicated! Meryl Streep is a divorced but now successful chef with her own restaurant. Alex Baldwin is her former husband now married to a young hot woman. They get together for an affair during the kids graduation. Meryl was also seeing Steve Martin, her architect, who was divorced. The movie goes on forever - it's over 2 hours long. I first enjoyed the story but then it seemed to have no ending.
TGstars: 3 Good acting, fun characters, not much there in plot or story.
The Last Woman Gerard Depardeau shows an erection several times during this film. He's a single father with a little baby and has his girlfriend move in with him. She tires of his constant lovemaking, He keeps wanting to get it on with his girlfriend and other women but doesn't for various reasons. In the end he cuts his penis off, tired of woman in general.
June 2010
TGstars: 1 Pretty poor sex movie.
27 dresses
May 2010
Not too bad of a story but the ending goes on too long. A woman can't say no to her friends asking her to be in weddings so she goes to great lengths attending them all, sometimes more than one in the same day. A wedding journalist catches on to her game and decides to write her up as a feature in the wedding section. Probably is, he falls in love with her and when he tries to stop the story from running it's too late. All are humiliated by his expose. She finally quits her job because of her bosses demands. She loves him but he proposes to her flaky sister. She's had it catering to him and so quits. In the meantime the journalist guy still pursues her and is successful, they get married and live happily after after. This is the part I don't like. It drags on too long belittling what story has been developed so far. The ending ruins it.
TGstars: 3 Not bad, not great. Love the story, love the characters, hate the ending.
Capitalism: A Love Story
Feb 2010
Roger Moore has created a career doing movies like this. Some of it is funny, very little of it is true and all of it is extremely biased. It almost sounds like he is suggesting a Soviet style politburo to give the power back to the people. He portrays people who have lost their homes due to foreclosure. Never once does he outline how they got into this trouble or what they did with the money the bank lent them with the house as collateral. What a bunch of baloney.
TGstars: 0 Typical Roger Moore biased crap.
Precious
Feb 2010
Unbelievably good movie from the ghetto. Poor Precious is 16, overweight, pregnant with her second child by her
Father's rape and can only read at the 2nd grade level. Her mother calls her stupid, good for nothing and tells her education will do her no good. She should get her ass to the welfare office. In addition, Precious is physically abused by her Mother. The Mother does absolutely nothing except con the welfare dept. and watch TV all day while smoking cigarettes.
When Precious and her baby are kicked out in the cold by her Mother, she temporarily moves in with an alternate school teacher who has compassion for her. One of my favorite lines is poor precious observing the teacher and her partner in conversation: “They talk like TV channels I don't watch. I'm glad Abdul here to listen in on them though cause I know they smart. I don't understand a word they saying.”
TGstars: 5+++ One of the best movies I've ever seen.
Romance (1999)
Feb 2010
Pretty poor movie with the premise of the story being a girl living with her boyfriend is horny because he won't have sex with her. She seeks alternative sexcapades with strangers. I was struck by the beauty of the star, French actress Caroline Ducey. There's not much of a story here and it gets pretty boring at times but Caroline is nice to look at. French language wih English subtitles.
TGstars: 1 Not great. Beautiful actress in a soft porn flick. Lots of explicit nudity and sex.
Sunshine Cleaning
Sept 2009
Amy Adams and her sister start a company to cleanup crime scenes. As they get more professional they are still learning. When her sister attempts a job alone she accidentally burns down a house. They don't have insurance which costs them 40,000 for the house. In the end her Father sells his house to pay the company debts and goes into business with his daighter. The end. Not a satisfying ending.
TGstars: 3 Not bad. Good acting with a weak story from the guy who did the Little Miss Sunshine movie.
Doubt
Sept 2009
Meryl Streep and amy Adams together again. Meryl plays a convincing nun while Amy is a wide eyed novitiate. These two make the movie. The nuns are captured and portrayed accurately, still the plot was just so so, therefore I subtracted a star.
TGstars: 4 Once again Meryl Streep shines but the plot was not that great. It left much to your own devises to figure out.
Julie and Julia
Sept 2009
Saw this in the theater in Apex. Absolutely loved it. Only Meryl Streep could make you believe she was Julia. We also liked Amy Adams as the young wide eyed blogger, Julie. What a very nice movie. I ended up joining the masses and ordering the French Chef cookbook from amazon.
TGstars: 5 Estremely done acting and directing. Great movie with a nicely crafted story.
Revolutionary Road
July 2009
Kate Winslet and Leo DiCapprio are husband and wife in the lifeless suburbs of Connecticut. They hate their life, he commutes to a job he hates and they're convinced the suburbs are superficial and plastic. They yearn to live again so they decide they have enough saved up so he could quit his job and they could move to Paris where she will work as a secretary and support the family until he finds something he likes to do. She gets pregnant and he gets promoted which changes things.
TGstars: 4 Well done story, not your ordinary stage production.
The Visitor
June 2009
TGstars: 4 Nice story about what immigrants have to put up with post 911. Sad love story without a happy ending.
Gran Torino
June 2009
Walter Kowolski's (Clint Eastwood) wife dies. We start at the funeral and Walt's family. The adult men not sure what to do with Dad, the grandchildren wearing inappropriate clothes in church and a young priest who keeps showing up thoughout the story. The Asian kid next door tries stealing Clints Gran Torino which he built himself on the Ford assembly line when he was an auto worker. The boys vietnamese family is dishonored and makes the boy work for Walt for a week. He eventually warms up to the kid, rescues him and the college age asian girl next door a few times from gang hooligans. Things go bad when the gang retailiates and rapes and beats up the girl then sprays the family home with bullets. Clint goes into dirty harry mode and plans his revenge. Loved this movie and the great acting as well as the tender story.
TGstars: 5 Fantastic movie. The language is a little rough but Clint does a spectacular job as a tough guy with a soft heart. Loved it - great acting, nice story, well done script.
Then She Found Me
May 2009
April has a bad day. HEr new husband leaves, her biological clock is ticking, one of her students single Dads comes on to her and she to him, her Mother dies and her long lost biological Mother, Bette Midler, shows up. She goes on with the love affair with the students father, finally accepts her bizarre not a role model of a mother and in the end seems to have adopted a Chinese baby, something throughout the film she said she wouldn't do.
TGstars: 2 Good overall concept but very rough and disjointed in the story telling. Needs some editing so it will flow better.
Western
May 2009
This is a French film in which Paco and Pino meet up after Pino steals Paco's car. Paco gets fired but then falls in love with Marisella but she wants to test if it is real so agrees to not see Paco for 30 days. He goes across France with Pino drifting from town to town finding wine, woman and song. Pino finally falls in love with a free spirited woman with 5 kids each from a different drifter. Cute story, not much of a plot but beautiful Frnch countryside and villages. Pretty woman.
TGstars: 2 Liked it but it wasn't much in the way of a movie.
The Guitar
April 2009
A woman is diagnosed with terminal cancer, is dumped by her boyfriend and layed off from her job all in the same day. She changes her remaining life completely. Some examples of her changes: She rents a penthouse overlooking the river in Manhattan, orders all kinds of furnishings maxing out her credit cards, is a vegetarian but orders ribs and also pizzas, has sex with abandon with delivery people both male and female. I love the fact she rips off her business suit and throws out the window running around nude for several scenes. This was directed by Robert Redford's daughter and was an Indy film at Sundance. The thing she always wanted all her life was a red guitar. She gets one and becomes quite proficient practicing her guitar and learning it in from DVD lessons. In the end her total change of lifestyle is creditied with making the cancer go away. The last scenes shows her in a rock band having fun and playing guitar.
TGstars: 4 Loved it. The change in lifestyle, quirky living, nice looking girl who is nude quite a bit and most importantly a beautiful story but not a love story. It's more of a love of objects, especially the red guitar.
Chasing Amy
April 2009
I didn't think I would like this 1997 movie but it was great. My reservations were about the girl who is a lesbian and Ben Afleck whose movies I usually avoid. He's a cartoon artist who falls in love with a Lesbian. When he tells her he loves her and never met another girl so perfect for him like her they share embraces and then a few nights of sex. When he finds she was the high school slut sleeping with both girls and guys he breaks it off. The title comes from a friend who recalls a girl named Amy he left many years ago because he found she had a sexually adventurous past. He left her and then spent the rest of his life regretting it and “Chasing Amy”.
TGstars: 5 Tender story, very likable female character. Have to look beyond Ben Afleck who I don't like.
Nights in Rodanthe
April 2009
A doctor from Raleigh books a bed and breafast in Rodanthe to meet with a husband who is sueing him for wrongful death of his wife. She was allergic to the anesthesia. diane Lane is running the B&B for her friend who had to go to Miami. There is a storm, the Dr olayed by Richard Gere helps her batten the hatches and weather the storm. They make love and later fall in love. He leaves to go to Ecuador to reunite with hi Dr son. He's a changed man, she's a changed woman. He's returning to start a new life with her but tragedy strikes and he doesn't survive a mud slide. Based on the Nicholas Sparks book I read many years ago.
TGstars: 4 Tender story, beautiful people. Would be 5 stars but it was pretty long and needed to be edited down.
National Lampoon Cattle Call
April 2009
Three guys open a casting agency as a scam to meet hot girls. Lots of pretty women, a few of them topless, but lack of a story make this a bore. Not worth watching, not funny.
TGstars: -2 Awful comedy, one of the worst from National Lampoon.
Guiniviere
March 2009
A 21 year old impressionable girl meets an older photographer at a wedding and moves in with him. He starts educating her in poetry, literature, photography and the world. He eventually shoots her nude but looking through the photos she finds breasts that are not hers. She finds later that there were many girls like her, they received the same treatment for a few years before they moved on. In the end all the girls get together for his funeral and reminisce. About the title: All the girls were nicknamed Guiniviere when they were with him. This was an IFC movie.
TGstars: 3 Nicely written, not much of a story.
Last Man
Jan 2009
Smallpox is stolen from a Russian biological lab and is unleashed killing every person on earth in 3 weeks except for one guy who eventually finds a girl who is also immune. This story has so many inconsistincies it's poor. The street lights are still on, the lawns are still manicured, etc. Dumb, dumb, dumb. Even the special effects are fake looking and homemade looking.
TGstars: 0 Stupid movie, poorly done, poorly acted, poorly written.
Wall-E
Jan 2009
Rented this from Krogers $1 machine. IT's a cute animation in which a garbage cleanup robot works on earth doing trash collecting and processing while earths inhabitants are in a super luxury cruise line somewhere in space waiting to return when earth is havitable again.
TGstars: 3 Fun, original, different but certainly not best picture material.
Grapes of Wrath
Jan 2009
Waited for Lib to finish the book before we watched this together. Not a bad recreation of the book. I have t admit, the book was better with richer descriptive text and richer character development but that's Steinbeck. The lead of Tom Joad is played by Henry Fonda. The best for the time. It was disappointing that they didn't exactly follow the book and also ended this earlier than the book did. Some day perhaps someone may tackle this again and do it justice.
TGstars: 3 Not totally true to the book, it ends early but what it did cover was not bad.
Zak and Miri Make a Porno
Nov 2008
Two roomates are about to be evicted because they have no money. they decide to make a porno. There is no sexual relationship between them, just a guy and girl living together. Making the porno they discover love for each other. He won't allow others to have sex with her in the movie, only him as they both fall in love.
TGstars: 4 Enjoyable, attractive people, offbeat but not believable story but who cares. It's entertainment.
Raising Helen
Oct 31 2008
Very poignant comedy with Kate hudson as a happy go lucky single girl with a good job in the fashion industry and a life of clubbing and partying. This all changes when her sister dies and she gets th 3 kids in the will. She has to move into a tenement in Queens for more space and struggles with raising the kids, one of them a teenage girl. Lots of tears, sadness and happy times as she tries to step up to the job in spite of her older sisters criticism. Older sister is the perfect stepford wife in the NJ suburbs.
TGstars: 4 Enjoyable story, nice ending, happy and attractive people. No violence, no bad language and very entertaining. A winner!!!
Father of The Bride
Oct 04 2008
Very good comedy with Steve Martin and Diane keaton planning their daughters wedding and all that entails. Very funny and well written. Steve Martin is great here.
TGstars: 5 Very funny story, with a nice ending. We need more movies like this. No violence, no bad language and very entertaining.
Two Weeks
Oct 02 2008
This is a tear jerker starring Sally Fields as a Mother dying of cancer. Her 4 kids come to her side in NC and we see different sibling rivalries play out as she lives her last two weeks. A lot of this was very similar to my Moms last 2 weeks that Libbie was there for but what made the movie good was the emotional play among the 4 kids and their obvious love in different ways for their Mom. In the end we do have a conclusive ending as they sneak into a cemetery to scatter her ashes over their grandfathers grave.
TGstars: 5 Very good story, parts of it comedy, with a satisfying ending.
Adrift in Manhattan
Oct 01 2008
The movie goes nowhere which is too bad since we want it to go forward where they all live happily ever after.
The story is about the lives of three people in manhattan. Rose the eye doctor lost her baby and is in a fog. She has separated from her husband who wants to come back. A young teenager is fascinated with photography and Rose and ends up stalking her. He lives with his alcoholic mother and works in a photo shop. A painter, Tomaso, who works in a mailroom is losing his sight through macular degeneration. He meets a younger co worker and goes out with her but won't tell her his problems. I love Heather Graham, especially nude. The stalker comes to her apartment, she lets him in. He is bashful but she is not and practically throws her nude body at him. How realistic is this??? Love the character Tomaso the painter which is well played. There is no story here, just the intertwining of these lives and the different emotional journey each character is on.
TGstars: 4 I liked this movie for it's poignant moments. There is no story and there is no edning.
The Babysitters
Sept 28 2008
I liked this movie because I really liked the main character - a tall, thin pretty girl with long hair who only has one topless scene, but it was worth it. While babysitting one night, the husband drives her home. On the way he shows her his fascinatin with old trains in an old train yard. While inside one of the cars they get close and he kisses her. She returns the kiss a minute later and they off having an affair. Other students in her class want to make the money as well so she ends up setting up a babysitting call girl service.
TGstars: 4I liked the main girl character. Character development was not bad, the story was a little weak and hardly believable. No nudity except for one topless scene of main character.
XX/XY
July 28 2008
Quirky little indie movie that's incredibly well acted. Coles has a relationship with a girl, Sam, but occasionally it involves her roommate Thea as well. Sam gets concerned over this but Coles tells her its only sex. Fast forward 10 years and they meet again only he has a relationship with Claire that has been going strong for 5 years, the former roommate, Thea, is married to a successful restaurateur. Sam and Coles still have feelings for each other and when his girlfriend Claire is out working they have sex. Claire comes in upon it unknown to them. At a weekend at a lake cabin Claire confronts Coles about this and says she's tired of being “settled for” as the second in the relationship because he's too much of a pussy to make a decision or commitment to her. The movie ends with Sam arriving and announcing she married some guy named Jonathan in Las Vegas. On another level,in the end these people are forced to confront the true meaning of commitment and love
TGstars: 3I liked the acting, relationships and situations. There wasn't much of a story and this could never be pulled off without the great acting by this gang. They were superb.
Dream Girls
June 13 2008 Good music, great acting and a superlative cast made this an enjoyable movie, even for white people. The emphasis was primarily for blacks but getting beyond that, I enjoyed the nice story. Jennifer Hudson, the American Idol girl was notably featured last on the credits but she won the Oscar and also clearly outdid her fellow cast members. Jamie Foxx is a record producer who is looking for a new sound to replace the R&B genre represented by Eddie Murphy and his dream girls. When he finally creates the Motown sound he turns his back on the R&B world in pursuit of even more business and the pop charts. The aftermath is the overdose of Eddie Murphy and the reduction of the idol girl, Effie, to poverty but still seemingly happy raising a daughter from her relationship with Foxx. He doesn't know about the child. She sings some powerful numbers in this movie, undoubtedly this got her the well deserved Oscar.
Complete synopsis: Dreamgirls synopsis
TGstars: 4 for great music, OK story, wonderful cast and acting. I wasn't interested enough in the story to give it 5 stars.
Juno
June 7 2008
Great story about a sassy 16 year old who gets pregnant in a matter of fact manner then chooses to give the baby away to a yuppie couple. Very nice story about the trials and tribulations of a pregnant teen. There is no moralizing - just blunt facts. When she told her parents, there was a line. “Oh God, I wish it was drugs, not this”.
Complete synopsis: Juno synopsis
TGstars: 5 for very nice writing, good story. Ellen Page who plays the 16 year old is great.
The Edukators
May 2008
Three young idealists are protesting against the system and the wealthy while poor people live in squalor. Their strategy is to break into homes of the rich and re-arrange the furniture but not steal anything. While two of them are in a wealthy businessman's home he returns. They decide to kidnap him and run off to the country. This is a German film with English subtitles - the German countryside in the mountains is stunning. The three end up on a farm in the mountains with their prisoner. A love triangle is formed when the girl of the triangle falls for the other guy of the triangle, Jan. Her boyfriend was originally the other guy. We find that she is working as a waitress to pay off a 100,000 Euro debt to the wealthy guy they kidnapped because she ran into his Mercedes and totaled it. It's a grave injustice that she works so hard for this wealthy guy who has lots of expensive cars. Character development of the three plus the businessman is excellent. I really got to like all of them. There should be some nudity but alas, there isn't. The girl is a good looking blond but in the few times we see her making love it's under the sheets. Oh Well. They end up returning the guy to his home - he writes a piece of paper forgiving the debt. The ending is not very realistic, although we do see a swat team raiding empty apartments in the last frames.
Complete synopsis: Edukators synopsis
TGstars: 3 for great compelling character development, not such a great story line.
Bucket List
May 2008 Billionaire Jack Nicholson is in the same hospital room as auto mechanic Morgan Freeman. They are both diagnosed with cancer with less than a year to live. Morgan had been compiling a “bucket list”, a fantasy list of things to do in his life before he kicks the bucket. Jack finds the list crumpled up on the floor and decides they can make the list happen with his money. After some disagreement by his wife and family, he sets out on a world wind tour to do the impossible: sky dive, dine in southern France, walk the Great Wall in China, visit the Taj Majhal, climb Mount Everest. They can't get to it because it's fogged in for the rest of the winter. When Jack arranges for a prostitute for Morgan, he gets mad and wants to get home to his wife and family. On the way home, Morgan tries to arrange for Jack to see his estranged daughter but he gets totally pissed off. At home, Morgan has dinner with his family, then while his wife is getting sexy in the bathroom, he passes out on the floor. The next scene we see him going in for brain surgery abd a worried Jack and family waiting. He doesn't make it - his ashes are placed on Everest. Jack gets together again with his daughter and finds he has a grand child whom he kisses and crosses off “Kiss the Most beautiful girlin the world” off his bucket list. The ending shows man servant Tommy climbing a snow covered mountain and placing Jacks ashes next to Morgans in a hillside tomb covered with snow.
Beautiful moving movie. It's been a long time since we've seen something this good.
TGstars: 5 for funny, heart warming and entertaining movie.
Killers Moon
Apr 2008 This is a pretty poor movie. A group of schoolgirls breaks down in their bus and has to stay in an old castle. Four escapees from a rehab center find them and attack. Every turn is a blouse ripper and rape. The girls are pretty old but I guess dressing them in school uniforms and giving one of them a teddy bear is supposed to make them look young and innocent. This is a terrible movie beyond words.
TGstars: -1 for terrible movie.
Rivers Edge
Jan 2008 A guy kills his girlfriend at the rivers edge. A group of teenagers in this downtrodden town know about it but nobody tells authorities.
TGstars: 1 for not very interesting.
House of D
Jan 2008 Great acting job by Robin Williams who is retarded and makes friend with a woman at a womans prison. The unlikely story is that he meets her through the jailhouse window, she gives him advice about woman. His friend is growing up and winning the charms of Melissa. He's afraid he'll lose his friend and steals a bicycle to save his friend. He's fired as school janitor, lots of repercussions. His friend moves to Paris but in the end we see him return to the old neighborhood to come to terms with his life. A beautiful movie, not explained well by me here.
TGstars: 3 for heart warming, interesting.
Amadeus
Feb 2008 The life of Mozart. Saw this a number of years ago, really enjoyed it the second time around. A fantastic movie with great acting and of course the music of Mozart.
TGstars: 5 for great acting, great story and great music.
Bambi 1 & 2
Feb 2008 We watched these back to back - very old disney animations. We noticed the drawing detail in Bambi 1 was better but both stories are heartwarming and nice.
TGstars: 3 for nice story and animation but would be higher for kids.
Ken Park
Oct 2007 A teen coming of age movie where the teens have very explicit sex. My favorite scene is the teenage boy having sex with his girlfriends mother. She's pretty good looking and the scene is hot. Not a great movie, very little plot.
TGstars: 1 for great sex scenes
Its a Boy Girl Thing
Sept 21, 2007 An incredibly delightful movie that I really ate up. It's a classic boy-girl body switch between two protagonists but it works. They're an attractive couple, especially her. The acting is first rate - she actually does the boy thing well and he acts like a girl crying, etc. The movie has a lot of funny moments aas well as some sweet ones as they try to help each other out despite not liking each other. They fall in love in the end and seem to live happily ever after. What a great feel good movie.
TGstars: 5 for sweet story, great but not overdone acting, cute couple, happy ending. More!
Nine Songs
Sept 14, 2007 This wasn't a very good movie. A very attractive couple has very graphic sex through most of the movie. It has been billed as a porno with a story. I doubt it. The sex is graphically explicit showing it all that is seen in pornos but artistically shot with a nice looking girl.
TGstars: 1 for great sex
Spanking the Monkey
Sept 13, 2007 This is a pretty disturbing film since it features incest. A promising young medical student has to forgo an internship in Washington DC to stay home to care for his Mother who has a fractured leg. I didn't like the traveling salesman Dad. He's very demanding, barking out orders, checking the mileage on his Cadillac SUV to insure his son doesn't drive it, etc. In the meantime we see him shacked up with nude babes in various hotel rooms as he calls back to check up on his wife and son. In the process of caring for his Mom and basically sacrificing having any kind of a life, he ends up in bed with her after washing her in the shower, carrying her around, massaging her leg, etc. All this is too much for his young hormones and he sleeps with her but is disturbed the next morning. He ends up trying to commit suicide, trying to strangle his Mom, all unsuccessfully. Finally when he is at a quarry with some friends he jumps off a cliff. In the end we find he didn't die as he makes his way up from a ravine and hitches a ride with an 18 wheeler. The story kept me interested to find out where this was going as he seemed to have no way out. A crappy over domineering Father, a pitiful helpless demanding Mother, the precocious high school girl next door who's too young for him but lures him with her sexuality.
I originally learned about this movie from the IFC “Sex” series so when it was on IFC I watched it. It's a pretty good but not great indy film. The disturbing subject matter and the verbally abusive father caused me to not rate it 5 stars. The mother is quite good looking - much nicer than the teen next door.
TGstars: 3 Didn't like the fathers verbal abuse or the incest with his mother.
Jimmy and Judy
Sept 11, 2007 An updated Bonnie and Clyde. Two teens, Jimmy and Judy, fall in love. Jimmy records everything with his video cam so we see lots of nudity of the very pretty Judy as they make love. One night Judy is driving and drinking and she hits somebody. As they load him into the trunk a cop car pulls up. Jimmy scuffles and shoots the cop. They both then run off on an adventure. They stop at a drug dealer friends house but they end up killing the guy when he tries to rape a young girl. They escape there with the guys car and money and while eating in a fast food place across from their motel they see the police closing in on their room. They escape there and go straight to the commune. Jimmy and Judy get beat up when the death of the drug dealer is found. They escape the commune but are soon chased by the police where they crash into a roadblock and die. It held my interest. Although I don't like violence, the unfolding love story of these troubled youths is compelling enough to watch. Judy's nudity is great plus she's pretty cute. Not much of a plot, the violence and killing is troubling, but it's an interstingly told story told entireley through the lens of the videocam.
TGstars: 4 (mainly for the cute Judy (and her body) and the unfolding story from the perspective of the videocam)
Distuburbia
July, 2007 A teenager is under house arrest with an electronic brarcelet for getting into some trouble with the law. To occupy his time he does electronics surveillance of the neighborhood including the pretty girl who moves in next door. In the process he uncovers strange goings on across the street - he thinks he saw the neighbor caryring something heavy in a sack and also the front fender of his neighbors car is damaged and it matches a radio report of a nearby kidnapping. Eventually he gets into the house and discovers the dungeon downstairs after his mother disappears across the street. This was a thriller - lots of dead bodies which I don't care for, but the premise was good. I especially liked the electronics surveillance and all the toys such as a remote control robot with camera.
TGstars: 5 (mainly for the electronics)
Captivity
July, 2007 A female model is stalked then captured and held in a dugeon. She discovers in the adjoining dungeon a male is being held captive. Things aren't as they seem because we learn later on in the story that the male is part of the plot. It's his friend upstairs that arranged the kidnapping and he is the beneficiary with the model voluntarily having sex with him. All is recorded on surveillance cams. Things unravel when the girl escapes, makes it upstairs and finds out the plot.
TGstars: 3 (interesting turn of events, mildly interesting movie)
Touristas
July, 2007 Lots of blood and gore. A mad doctor is capturing gringos in the Brazilian jungle and harvesting their body parts that are hard to get such as Kidneys. Some American tourist 20 somethings have a bus breakdown and end up partying on the beach with lots of T&A and nudity with some very fit bodies. Of course they're robbed and kidnapped and two of them go under the knife to have body parts extracted while they are half conscious. Pretty exciting chase scenes but too much shooting and blood for my tastes.
TGstars: 2
Pieces of April
May, 2007 Katie Holmes plays April, a rebel who lives in a slum with a black guy. One day she invites her estranged family to come to Thanksgiving dinner at her place. We go through the trials and tribulations she endures as her oven breaks and she tries to get help from her unhelpful and cold neighbors. Finally a very nice family who only speaks Chinese helps her out. When her family arrives and sees the surroundings they leave and go to a restaurant. April is heartbroken because she tried hard at this. Her spaced Mom however meets up with a biker and hitches a ride back to the slum and joins April for inner. The rest of the family follows suit in a very heartwarming story. I loved this movie
TGstars: 4
Click
May, 2007 The premise of the story was better than the real thing. A man acquires a remote control that will allow him to TIVO his life. Adam Sandler is the guy, his beautiful wife is Kate Beckinsale. She's gorgeous and is the only reason to watch this movie. The rest of it was not so great and hardly watchable but I suffered through.
TGstars: 1
40 year Old Virgin
May, 2007 I really liked this movie - it had the right touch of humor and character development but most of all you got to like the characters and their escapades to get their friend a woman who will give him sex. He ends up with a really nice girl who has been around a little - she has 3 kids and a grandchild and isn't too interested in sex. Our hero is fine with this because he's pretty nervous about the whole sex thing anyway. The womans teenage daughter seems to know more about life and sex than this guy. The guy collects action hero's and has a great video game system - his life is playing with the figures, riding his bike to work and cooking but no woman are in his world. (I thought of the Urban boys). This was one of my top ten movies of 2007.
TGstars 4.
Little Children
May, 2007
An interesting movie about the intersection of peoples lives at the playground and pool taking care of their kids. One guy is a stay at home Dad who meets Kate Winslet in the park. They spontaneously do a hug and kiss in front of the other mothers to shock them. They are! But things change as he thinks about the kiss over the course of the next few days. She obssesses over it as well. Afteer some time at the pool over a few days, they get caught in a rainstorm on the way home. Next we see them having sex on the washing machine in her laundry room. The affair starts in earnest as they cavort with each other. Their spouses eventually find out and lives are ruined. Strangeley there is a pervert in the middle of this - almost another story weaves it's way in here which probably was not necessary. In addition there is a sideline about Kate Winslet's husband being addicted to online pornography - this too seemed extraneous. I liked the movie but it wasn't the worlds greatest.
TGstars 3
Employee of the Month
May, 2007 A great movie. Matt Dillon is a banker who is engaged but gets fired from the bank after his 2 year appraisal. His fiance dumps him when she finds he has been sleeping with Wendy her maid of honor. We meet various characters along the way before Matt charges into the bank with a pistol and pees on the oil painiting of his boss's father and founder of the bank. A robbery happens and Matt shoots one of the robbers then is taken along in the van when they escape. We find it has all been planned - his demise is reported and we think he has committed the perfect crime but later when he kills his partner and Wendy kills him the tables are turned as Wendy and his fiance ride off with the money as lesbian lovers. This was a great movie - the ending was a complete surprise when lots of twists and turns making the viewer think he has it figured out until it turns again. Well done if not unbelievable at times.
TGstars 4
7 and a Match
May, 2007 A group of young former college friends get together 3 years after graduating at their friends home in Maine. Her parents have died, she's destitute and proposes burning the place down to collect the insurance money. The movie is a study of relationships and interactions and how some have matured and others are still the same old. I liked the feelings in this movie as well as the fresh, unknown nice looking women. This was on IFC.
TGstars 4
Sherrybaby
April, 2007 I took this out because of Maggie Gylenhall.
Jet Lag
April, 2007 I watched this on IFC - it's French subtitled in English about a famous chef and a beauticialn who are strandsed in Paris because of strikes. He has a room at the Hilton and offers to share it with her. They originally met in the airport when she lost her cell phone in the toilet and had to borrow his. This is a nice feel good romance type movie. The beautician is played by Joan Binochet?
TGstars 3
Boogie Nights
April, 2007 I watched this because it featured Julianne Moore and Heather Graham in some lovely nude scenes. I didn't care too much for the movie about an aging porno director who is forced to move with the times from film to video and using inexperienced actors in the new wave of porno movies. Too much drug use and sad excuses for people in this movie although the cast is certainly lovely.
TGstars 0
Inconvenient Truth
March 31, 2007
This is an Al Gore Powerpoint presentation about the environment. I rented it to see the technique used. The movie was hard to watch and we never finished it. Boring, boring, boring.
TGstars 0
Borat
March 31, 2007
This was supposed to be a funny movie but a lot of the jokes were off color and juvenile. I didn't need nude Sumo wrestlers in one of the skits. This was tiring to watch after a while. Kudos to the actor who played Borat but the writing could have been better.
TGstars -1
Little Miss Sunshine
March 30, 2007
Surprisingly large amount of bad language and drug usage in a movie featuring a little girl in the lead role. Her family is dysfunctional and bankrupt but they decide to drive to California because she was accepted in the Little Miss Sunshine Competition. Her grandfather who is a druggie coached her because no one else in the family had time for her. Her talent is a racy strip tease which shocked everyone including her family but they stand behind her regardless because all the other contestants are professional beauty contestants while their little girl was not. Cute movie but not the greatest.
TGstars 1
Lake House
March 12, 2007
This is a very sweet story with Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeve. She's a Doctor too busy for a personal life who starts communicating with a bachelor architect living in her former glass house on a lake. The only problem is he is in 2004 and she is in 2006. They discover this from the dates on the letters and later from events she described to him about the future.
TGstars 3
JackAss Two
March 11, 2007
I hated this awful movie. It's pretty gross - a team of guys do foolish stunts for a laugh. Some of the stuff is pretty dangerous and not very funny. Some of it is just plain gross and vile. Why would anyone watch a movie like this? Why would anyone make a movie like this? I hated it. I rented it because it was on the list of top ten comedies. I started watching it and actually started laghing at the stunt where a minibike tries to do a cartroll in a wave barrel and a guy is seated in a shopping cart with attached rocket to propel him across a lake. After a while the stuff started getting more and more dangerous and tasteless so I stopped watching.
TGstars -2
Thank You For Smoking
March 10, 2007
I loved this comedy about a guy, Ned Taylor, who is a spokesperson for the tobacco companies. He's very good at what he does despite the fact that everyone hates big tobacco. The whole thing is a very funny well done farce about politics and smoking. When a Senate committee wanted to put a skull and crossbones on cigarette packages, Ned suggested to the Senator from Vermont that Vermont Cheddar also get a skull and crossbones since it kills people by giving them high cholesterol and heart attacks which kill more people than tobacco.
TGstars 4
The Devil Wears Prada
March 9, 2007
An Ok movie, not great, about a young smart college graduate who gets the job as Meryl Streep's Assistant. Meryl is the editor of a fashion magazine, Runway. Meryl is very demanding and is essentially a bitch to work for but she's highly regarded and successful. The young girl eventually compromises her principals and soon gets drawn into the fashion world, losing her boyfriend in the process. She soon comes around to see who she has become and gives it all up to return to her former self.
TGstars 4
Babel
March 8, 2007
This was an intense movie. A lot of seemingly unrelated subplots begin their respective stories. In each, a crisis develops among languages that aren't understood. All the subplots eventually weave together into one big plot. This was a fascinating movie. Japanese schoolgirls who are deaf and speak using signing. One of them is well off and has a father who is a hunter who gives away his hunting rifle to his guide in Morocco. The guide sells the rifle to a goat farmer who lets his two sons use it to shoot jackals while herding goats. They shoot a tourist bus and wound one of the passengers. The bus goes to a local village but there is no doctor. Brad Pitt, the husband, spends much time arranging for the US embassy to help get an ambilance but political language gets in the way. In the meantime his housekeeper in LA has charge of the two kids but wants to go to her sons wedding in Mexico. She has trouble getting back and loses the kids in the desert after a border patrol chase. Lots of complicated plots going on here - I loved this movie. I'm not sure if there were political undertones with the shooting believed to be the work of terrorists and the poor housekeeper deported because she's an illegal.
TGstars 4
Praire Home Companion Jan 2007
Garrison Keillor does it very well in this movie version of the radio show. I really liked this movie.
TGstars 5
Art School Confidential Jan 2007
TGstars: 3
Hollow Man 2 July 2006
Undiscovered July 2006
Walk the Line July 2006 Pretty good movie about the life of Johnny Cash. I don't like the fact he doesn't look like Johnny Cash. I was used to the job Jamie Foxx did with Ray. Nonetheless, the script and acting were good. The music was great.
TGstars: 3
Hostel
July 2006
This was a mistake because of the violence which I don't like. 2 guys are backpacking across Europe staying in hostels when they meet up with a guy who tells them about Slovenia where the men all went to war and the women remain at home in need of men. They decide this is ideal with all the beautiful women but soon the horror kicks in as each is kidnapped and tortured. Not very nice.
TGstars 0
American Pie - Band Camp July 2006 The football hero has to go to band camp as punishment. He photographs nude girls in the showers and is a bad boy but falls in love with the school bandleader who is a good girl. The cheerleaders show up and to prove he's cool he shows them the bandies gone wild video he's been making which alienates the band and the band leader. All is well in the end when he arranges a performance at a prestigious conservatory for the band leader girl by getting the whole band there to play a piece she composed. I liked it but it was a bad movie.
TGstars 3
ShopGirl July 2006 Claire Daines has one face down nude scene in this movie which is great. This is a Steve Martin written and acted movie - we previously heard the audio book. Miriam is a lonely geeky girl in the glove department of a department store. A rich old guy, Steve martin, courts her and they have a continuing sexual relationship. She also dated and had sex with someone her age who was as awkward as she was. He matures in the end and gets back together with her after she leaves Steve Martin because he cheated on her. It was a so so movie but I liked it. It was true to the book.
TGstars 4
Good Night and Good Luck July 2006 Not very good black and white story of the McCarthy era and news reporter Edward R Morrow.
TGstars 0
Weatherman July 2006 Nicholas Cage is the local TV weather man who has a life that is unraveling. He's divorced, his two kids are getting into lots of trouble - he tries to do things with them but is distant. He lands the anchor job in NY but is not happy. His Father is Michael Cain, diagnosed with cancer, and wiser than his son. The son is also trying to write a novel but his dad is a pulitzer prize winning author and Cage is not as good - in fact his wife said it's terrible.
TGstars 3
Last Dance July 2006 Ptrick Swazie comes back to a dance company for one last benefit gala with his ex partner. We find the ex has a little girl who is Swazie's from years ago. Nice dancing but a lame story that could be better.
TGstars 0
Broken Flowers Jan 2006 Bill Murray drama where he receives a letter from a former girlfriend saying she had a son 20 years ago and the boy is on his way to meet him. He takes a trip plotted by his amateur detective neighbor to visit his former lovers. The
TGstars 3
Christmas with the Cranks Dec 2005 Skipping christmas, the crank's decide to book a cruise instead. They then find their daughter is returning from the Peace Corps to come home to Christmas with her boyfriend.
TGstars 0
March of the Penguins Dec 2005 Great documentary detailing the plight of the emperor penguins each iwnter marching across the ice to have their young and then making it back 70 miles to the sea so swim and feed.
TGstars 5
title unknown July 2005 This is based on the Mary Jo Laturneau story. A young couple is having marital difficulties when the wife has an affair with the 15 year old neighbor. The husband hardly reacts and offers to take the threesome to Disneyworld. The woman is incensed.
TGtars: 1
Million Dollar Baby July 2005 A trailer trash girl wants to be a boxer and meets up with Clint Eastwood who owns a boxing gym. After some reluctance he takes her on and she starts winning all her fights. This becomes heart warming after she is illegally knocked out and a quadrapeligc and doesn't want to live. She asks Clint to take her life.
TGstars: 4
Kinsey July 2005 A not so great documentary of the life of Kinsey and his bizarre research into human sexuality. No nudity but odd sexual situations in which he encourages his wife to take a lover, then has an affair with his male assistant who beds his wife. Very odd - it brings out the controversial aspect
of Kinseys research.
TGstars 0
Sideways May 2005 Supposed to be good but we hated it. A story of lies, unfaithfulness and infidelity while roaming the countryside of Santa Barbara centered around wineries.
TGstars 0
Shall We Dance March 2005 A lawyer is happily married and commutes to the same job every day in Chicago. HE keeps passing a ballroom dancing class sign and a girl in a window. One day he gets off the subway and signs up for dance lessons. His wife becomes suspicious and hires a detective to find if he's having an affair. When she learns the truth she keeps quiet. He ends up in a dance contest which is a big deal in formal ware and things go awry when his wife and daughter show up. It ends with Richard Gere returning to his wife in her dept store with a single rose and he asks her to dance with him in the store.
TGstars 4
Supersize Me Mar 2005 Documentary about a guy who goes on a 30 day fast food diet, eating nothing but fast food. When asked to supersize his meal, the answer will always be yes according to his rules. We see him get sick, lethargic, gain weight and eventually have unhealthy blood workups. His girlfriend says he's slower at sex and when it's all over his vegetarian girlfriend puts him on a vegeteranian organic diet to cleanse him. Great movie about the evils of fast foods.
TGstars 4
The Notebook March 2005 Adaptation of Nicholas Sparks movie about a boys love for a girl in the South. It opens in a nursing home where James Garner reads to a distant lady who we learn is suffering from Alzheimer's. He is poor and uneducated. She is wealthy of snobbish parents. Halfway through we realize that they are husband and wife and the older version of Allie and Noah from the early days. He keeps reading to her the story of their romance and occasionally she remembers but then drifts back away into never never land.
TGstars 3
This Girls Life Feb 2005 Life of a beautiful internet porn star. Lots of nudity but not very interesting story of this young woman.
TGstars 0
Ray Feb 2005 Excellent biopic of Ray Charles and how he made it from the segregated south to being a very shrewd businessman and negotiator even though blind. The movie also covers his many affairs all the while being in love with his wife. Jaimie Fox does a very believable job singing and act like the real Ray Charles. A good movie.
TGstars 4
Before Sunrise Feb 2005 I had to rent the prequel to “Before Sunrise” because I loved the other movie so much. This did not disappoint - a couple meets on a Eurail train. When the guy has to get off at Vienna he convinces the girl to join him for a few hours before his plane back to the states. She agrees and we fall in love with this delightful couple as they wander Vienna. They meet a palm reader, a poet - bum by the river, a bartender who gives them wine on a handshake, two guys in a play about a cow and many other memorable scenes. In the end she gets on the train but they agree to meet again in 6 months.
TGstars 5
Before Sunset Feb 2005 My favorite movie of all time. A couple are reunited in Paris after a wonderful night 10 years ago. They wander the streets for two hours talking because he has to return to the states to catch a plane. The conversations between them is poignant and delightfully refreshing. We instantly like them.
TGstars 5
Like Water For Chocolate Feb 2005 A funny spanish language film with English voiceover. A couple fall in love but the girls mother forbids her youngest to get married so the guy marries her sister to be close to her. The sex scene is funny - the sister wears a blanket with a slit cut in it at her pelvis for sex without love. Many other funny satirical scenes pepper this comedy.
TGstars 3
Garden State Feb 2005 A sweet story about a guy who returns to his home in NJ for his mothers funeral and falls in love with a cute girl (Natalie Portman). They hang out together and run into some bizarre and zany people.
TGstars 4
Saw it again in July 2008 and I now give it 5 TGstars . It gets better with age - very sweet, delightful. The Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack also adds to the quarry scene. Great indy film.
Garden State Synopsis from Amazon
In The Cut Feb 2005 This is an off the wall art movie in which Meg Ryan plays a very different character in the world of crime, strippers and drugs. There is a serial killer out loose - her sister becomes one of the victims. There is a romance developing between the detective on the case and Meg including some explicit love making. The tables are turned on the viewer when we find the detectives partner is the perpetrator when he kidnaps Meg in the lighthouse under the George Washington bridge. Very dark movie and very low viewer ratings but nonetheless interesting material.
TGstars 2
Artstakes Feb 2005 Virginia Madsen is the police chiefs daughter who sells security alarms to wealthy clients. She teams up with a gallery owner and his assistant and break into the homes substituting fake paintings for the masterpieces they steal. Well done photography, lighting, scenes but lacking good character development or a better story.
TGstars 2
Head in the Clouds Feb 2005 Charlize Theron is a blonde bimbo who only cares about herself as the rumblings of WW II approach France and Paris. When the Germans invade she continues her wantonly ways taking up with a German officer, pissing off her neighbors who despise the Germans. In the end she secretly helps the resistance unknown ot her neighbors who decide to torture her in the end as revenge. The movie ends here.
TGstars 0
Door in the Floor Jan 2005 Kim Basinger and Jeff Bridges are a couple whose marriage is falling apart after the death of their sons. Jeff is an eccentric writer who hires a male intern mainly as a driver for his trysts with the ladies. The young student is made love to by Kim Basinger who introduces him to sex. The husband finds out but doesn't do much about it.
TGstars 2
TV Movie: Five People You Meet in Heaven Nov 2004 A pretty good representation of the book starring John Voigt and Ellen Burstyn. We met all 5 people from the blue moon on through his wife and the little girl he killed in Vietnam. Heartwarming and nice.
TGstars 3
Stepford Wives Nov 2004 Incredibly poor movie that's a campy remake of the original. Fell asleep several times through the movie but didn't bother to find out what happened during the sleep interval. Returned it mostly unwatched.
TGstars -1
Girl Next Door Sep 2004 This is a ripoff of “Risky Business” which was much better. a porn star moves next door - the kid is trying to get into Georgetown, when $30,000 disappears the kids decide to do a porn movie of the prom to make the money back. There's not even much nudity in this movie - a little bit in the background of the topless bar.
TGstars 0
Real Woman Have Curves Sep 2004 Ana graduates from high school and is bright enough to get a scholarship to Columbia in NY. Her mother in East LA wants her to stay home, work in the factory, lose weight and get married. This was a nice movie about real people and family struggles. This won a few awards at Sundance 2002.
TGstars 3
The Pianist Aug 2004 Very good movie starring Adrian Brody as a musician in Poland before WWII. It shows the persecution and hardship of the jews at the hands of the Germans and his struggle to survive. Really, really liked this movie and I thought I didn't like war movies.
TGstars 5
The Crimes of Padre Carmen Jul 2004 Padre Carmen is a young priest assigned to a small Mexican church where he encounters crime, bribes and corruption among the church hierarchy and drug lords. He has an affair with a young parishioner who becomes pregnant and dies having an abortion. He sees life differently than his church and takes up with the rebel priests in the hills who are helping the sick and poor.
TGstars 3
Eurotrip Jul 2004 Great movie with lots of nudity. The premise is a guy thinks his Scandinavian penpal is a guy then later finds out she is a babe so he goes to Europe with his friends to party and meet babes. Very well done teen movie with just the right amount of camp.
TGstars 4
Love Actually Jul 2004 A story about couples and love over the holidays. Not much point but heartwarming stuff.
TGstars 2
The Real Cancun Jul 2004 A T&A movie about college students going to Cancun for sex, alcohol and to party. Lots of nice nude bodies make this a treat although as expected the story is non existant.
TGstory 0 (would have been negative except for the nudity)
The Terminal Jul 21 2004 Lib and I saw this at Crossroads 20 - a nice stadium theater. Tom Hanks comes to NY to see the city but a revolution back home causes his passport and visa to become invalid so he's trapped in the terminal as a man wihtout a country. We laugh at his ingenuity earning money by returning carts, putting mustard on saltine crackers, applying for a job at the airport mall. A love interest develops with a stewardess but in the end the revolution is over and he gets to go home but not before first fulfilling the mission of his late father to collect the autographs of all the jazz greats. He needs one more in a jazz club in Harlem which he gets and goes home.
TGstars 3
Winged Migration July 2004 Incredible footage of migrating birds flying thousands of miles to migrate North to South and back. The French director had a gaggle of geese and ducks they trained and flew with, imprinting them with humans, so they flew over places like Monument Valley, the Grand Canyon and spectacular scenery all over the world. A nice documentary.
TGstars 4
Cold Mountain June 2004 I enjoyed this excellent movie about a civil war love story and the soldiers quest walking across several states to make it home to his love he left behind on Cold Mountain.
TGstars 4
Mystic River June 8, 2004 Sean Penn is the father of a missing teenager. When he was younger he and 2 friends were accosted by a pedophile who took one of them away. The boy escaped but became a recluse and eventually is suspected by the two thugs penn has hired to find out what happened to his daughter. The ending is ambiguous
TGstars 3
Kalifornia June 2004 A couple of yuppies take a cross country road trip to document serial killer sites for a book. They pick up a couple to help share expenses but the couple turn out to be serial killers themselves.
Maze June 2004 An eccentric sculptor with a nervous tick uses his friends girlfriend as a nude model and then falls in love with her. The boyfriend jilts the girl so all is well with the love story aspect of this.
My Life So Far June 2004 Cute movie set in Scotland. A boy lives with his eccentric family mining and processing sphagnum moss. Dad is a wacky inventor. Things change when his uncle returns with a French woman 24 years old, Aunt Heloise. The boy is infatuated with the sexy woman and observes life from his young point of view.
Lady Beware April 2004 This VHS tape came from Amazon. Diane Lane is stalked by an obsessed person. He watches her apartment and once breaks in and is present when she returns with her boyfriend and watches them make love. She is a window dresser who provokes the stalker with erotic and edgy designs relating to the stalker's habits.
Calendar Girls May 2004 Group of stuff British ladies belong to the WI and need to raise money for a sofa for a hospital waiting room where one of their husbands died of Leukemia. They choose to pose nude for a calendar even though they all are over 50 years old. The story focuses on conflict between the head of the WI who is prudish and also the timidity of the ladies in front of a male photographer.
Walk on the Moon Diane Lane Outstanding movie set in 1969. Diane Lane is an unfulfilled housewife looking for adventure while left alone on vacation with the kids. He blue collar husband has to fix TV's because of the upcoming moonwalk. She has an affair with the blouse man and seems to love both her husband and the blouse guy.
Pollock May 2004 I had not seen this older movie. IT's well done by Ed Harris who plays the painter. He's a genius but alcohol and street life take it's toll. Marcia Gay Hardin is his wife who supports him through it all and treats him as the genius he is. He tragically dies in a drunken car crash with his lover.
House of Sand and Fog May 2004 Excellent movie about a girl who's house is sold at auction by the city for nonpayment of taxes and a poor immigrant family who buys it to make money fixing it up. Tragically the immigrant family's son gets shot in a police mistake then the man and woman commit suicide.
American Splendor April 2004 Story of a boring life. supposed to be highly rated but I fell asleep during it and didn't bother watching the rest.
Magdalene Sisters April 8, 2004 Story of nuns who imprisoned young girls for slave labor in a laundry. The girls are abused and mistreated behind the convent walls. I was drawn into it - it was a true story based on a documentary but condemned by the Vatican.
Unfaithful April 3, 2004 Diane Lane is great as a wife and Mom who has an affair with a French book dealer in NY City.
MatchStick Men March 31, 2004 Enjoyable scam with Nick Cage as a con man who discovers he has a 14 year old daughter but he's the one who eventually gets conned. I enjoyed this heart warming tale - the viewer ends up the one being scammed.
Somethings Got to Give MarchMArch 31, 2004 Great comedy with Jack Nicholson as a playboy dating Diane KEatons daughter. He has a heart attack and Diane takes care of him when they fall in love and have an affair.
Lost in Translation Feb 2004 American businessman finds unattainable love in Tokyo. He doesn't speak the language and is lonely and lost. Love this one for the atmosphere - the sights and sounds of Tokyo are nicely captured. They play into the movie very well.
TGstars 4
Gone With the Wind March 2004 Remake of the classic in a DVD version. I wish they had added more special features.
TGstars 2
Pirates of the Caribbean Feb 2004 Pretty good movie starring Johnny Depp and his misadventures on a sailing ship as a pirate. Nicely costumed and with good sound and mood effects, this movie closely parallels the “Pirates of the Caribbean” theme park ride.
TGstars 3
Under the Tuscan Sun Feb 2004 Diane Lane is a writer who suddenly decides to buy a home in Tuscany. One of the reasons to watch this is the delicious Diane Lane. I also liked the Tuscan countryside.
TGstars 5
SeaBiscuit
TGstars 3
Whale Rider
TGstars 5
Adaptation June 2003 - NC Art Museum
Russian Ark Sept 2003
Chicago Sept 2003
Bowling for Columbine Nov 2003 I returned this movie after watching about 10 minutes. It seemed like a good idea at the time from all the publicity and we really liked “Roger and Me”. This movie however is incredibly biased and I hate guns. This went over the top and I couldn't stand anymore.
TGstars -2
Walk to Remember Nov 2003
Walking Across Egypt