Youth in Oregon

Terminally ill old grump played by Frank Langella wants assisted suicide, but his dysfunctional family guilts him into a drawn-out, painful death. Forgive the spoiler alert, but you really have no reason to watch “Youth in Oregon” (2017). Not unless your one of those chronic empathy junkies who draws energy from experiencing the misery of others. None of the main characters are worth cheering for, the comedy isn’t comic enough and there’s too much damn yelling. Meanwhile, I’m getting the sense Christina Applegate (Langella’s control-freak daughter) is getting all the roles Jennifer Aniston has the good sense to turn down.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

One of the themes of “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” (2010) is that time is more precious than money. It makes me wonder, then, why filmmaker Oliver Stone fritters away 133 minutes while creating no suspense whatsoever. Even a motorcycle race between lead characters goes nowhere. Why? Granted, this film is about the 2008 world financial meltdown, so we kinda know how the story goes. Still, Stone could have added subplots with more intensity than a boring love story and a boringer lesson in Macroeconomics 101. Instead, he’s too busy trying to humanize Gordon Gekko, an all-time great villain. Why?

Draft Day

It was hard to review “Draft Day” (2014). I don’t even know what it was supposed to be. A two-hour infomercial for the official car, truck, pizza, cellphone and television network(s) of the NFL? An NFL propaganda piece to overdramatize the annual college player draft so that it becomes completely untethered to reality? A star vehicle to prove that Kevin Costner can still bang actresses half his age? This movie is so preposterous, so implausible, so convoluted, so overwrought, so overacted, it became slightly entertaining. Like a car wreck. But with clown cars. Full of football players. And Jennifer Garner.