Capone

Watching someone slowly die of dementia is not pretty. Spending almost two hours watching Tom Hardy act like he was dying of dementia wasn’t pretty, either. Maybe the makers of “Capone” (2020) had some high-minded artistic vision of taking this larger-than-life gangster and cutting him down to size by showing his final, decrepit days. As he deteriorates, feds and fellow gangsters circle him like vultures. Is it true that he hid some loot? Syphilis-infected and stroke-addled, Capone can’t – or won’t – say. I won’t say Hardy wasn’t challenged in his role, but I can’t say I cared to see the result.

The Outsiders

There are people for whom “The Outsiders” (1983) is in their top 10 all-time films. Some rank it No. 1. Like some others are with “The Breakfast Club,” this film about teenage outcasts spoke to them. I saw it when I was 52, not 15, so the impact wasn’t the same. But I can see director Francis Ford Coppola was trying to translate the deep thoughts S.E. Hinton was working through in her novel. Messages about class, about teenage angst – the kinds of things that might resonate deeply with someone. So even thought I didn’t get it, I get it.

Going in Style

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.