The Circle
by Dave Eggers

read as an iBook 04/29/17
 (also a 2017  movie which I have not seen)


I just finished the book that this movie is based on. In fairness to Emma Watson's acting, her character (Mae) in the novel is superficial, self-obsessed, naive and puerile. Perhaps the director wanted her to duplicate that character. However, while reading about a protagonist who is unbelievably stupid can be difficult, watching that type in a movie is almost impossible. This film is not going bring in the money needed for a profit.

Fortitude

2 seasons with 22 episodes (as of 04/2017) TV series

watched on Amazon Prime 04/22/2017

I am not going to admit to liking this series  I will say it kept me riveted in a binge-watch of one weekend. Fortitude is a fictional town situated in the Norwegian portion of the Arctic. There are only 4 police officers for approximately 700 townspeople.

The violence and visuals of this series go beyond graphic. Nudity, blood, violence, serial killings; this series has it all. The sex is rather mild and infrequent. Many of the characters act calmly and logically in one scene to randomly and bizarrely in the next scene.

I would love to see how the show-runner for this series handles the next plot development should this series be renewed for a season 3.

This series "jumps the shark" so many times that it becomes a metaphorical teacup ride at Disney World.  I was looking for a quirky mystery series.  I found a series that can best be described as Fargo  on Ayahuascha.

I recommend this series to viewers who like the series, American Horror Story, Lost, Game of Thrones, the movie American Psycho and any movie by Ingmar Bergman.

The Fate of the Furious

(#8 in the Fast and The Furious series)

Seen in theater on 04/13/2017

This was a live action cartoon. It was funny and held my attention.

The Fate of The Furious is a great mash-up of the video games Rocket League, Mario Kart with sprinkles of (the "previous" generation) BBC's Top Gear. I mean who needs all those pesky laws of physics and an involved plot when you want to just consume your popcorn and forget all those real-life issues on your smart phone's news feed.

In general the actors who made this film watchable (excluding all the stunts of course) were Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, Jason Statham, Charlize Theron and another actor (in a short format) who did most of his scenes with Jason Statham and will not be named to avoid spoilers in this review. In a few, too few, short scenes Kurt Russell and Helen Miirren added expert, smart dialogue.

The editing was very fast paced, however I wanted more stunts.  Some of explosions seemed a bit CGI’d, but did not take me out of the movie. I complement the director and writer for not bogging down a fun time with Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham with huge amounts of exposition and backstory.

I have only seen a few of the previous 7 movies in this series.  While I am sure that I missed a few Easter eggs, I still had a good time (and plenty of popcorn).

Leonie

(2010)

Watched on Amazon Prime 04/12/2017

Beautiful, riveting and inspiring.

This is film is adapted from a biography of the famous artist and sculptor Isamu Noguchi with the focus on Noguchi's mother, (American) Leonie Gilmour.

Leonie was educated at Bryn Mawr, but she understood that her strong interest in poetry had to come from experience not books. This is how she met a Japanese writer Yone Noguchi, the father of her son Isamu. Leonie had struggles, as a single mother of Isamu and later of her daughter Ailes Gimour. This film presents the portrait of a woman, mother, writer with a love of life and art that she passed down to both children.

The cinematography is beautiful whether focused on America or Japan. The direction never is off, the film flows. The soundtrack made a beautiful frame to hold this movie.  While Emily Mortimer as Leonie was the standout performance, all the actors, whether speaking English or Japanese, were uniformly strong and fully realized personalities.  Looking at the credits, I can see why this movie is such a successful balance between West and East.

Stay for the credits to see some of the accomplishments of Isamu Noguchi. Accomplishments which never would have existed without Leonie's life and choices. I wish this movie was hours longer, but it is a beautiful testament to a unique woman and art.