A bunch of people having a miserable Christmas Eve find their lives intertwined – and possibly redirected – thanks to either serendipity or divine intervention. You decide. How you decide will probably determine whether you enjoy “Noel” (2004) or not. If you’re religious, or if you see a roomful of horse manure and feel certain someone gave you a pony, your faith will probably lead you to a thumbs-up. If you’re the type who’ll scratch their head as Susan Sarandon copes with workplace sexual harassment, party crashing, a dying mom and the prospect of pulling a George Bailey, pass on this one.
Archives for posts with tag: Alan Arkin
“Coupe de Ville” was a mediocre snowflake in the avalanche of period, coming-of-age movies released around 1990. Like the others, it looks back wistfully at the late 1950s-early 1960s and tries to impart some kind of simplistic, baby-boomer value lesson. The lesson here seems to be that warts and all, it’s still important to stay connected to one’s family. My biggest takeaway from this road movie was the family that screams together stays together. Geez! The yelling!! Enough already!!! I thought uptight Daniel Stern (playing the oldest of three stereotypical, bickering brothers) was going to drop dead at any minute.
I’m old enough to have seen the original “Going in Style” in the early 1980s, back when Hollywood movies would show up on network TV a year later. The original old-men-rob-a-bank flick, with George Burns, Art Carney and Lee Strasberg, was more poignant. The 2017 remake, with Alan Arkin, Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, is more polished for a modern audience. They’re both good. As usual, Arkin inhabits his grumpy-old-man character like none other. I wanted someone to explain to me why Caine, with his English accent, worked in a Queens (New York, not THE queen) steel mill for 30 years.
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