Pixar films are generally very good. “Finding Nemo” (2003) is a very, very good Pixar movie about persistence and helicopter parenting. But reviews of Pixar films don’t matter. We watch them because we are kids of a certain age or parents of kids of a certain age and all the other kids (and parents) are watching the movie and we’ll be social outcasts if we don’t watch the movie (and buy the action figures). So let’s instead talk about the underlying morbidity of this Disney flick. About a thousand fish embryos and an expectant mother die before the opening sequence.
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“A Most Wanted Man” (2014) is a pretty good spy movie that all of a sudden becomes a really good spy movie – which is exactly how really good spy movies are supposed to happen. It takes place in Germany, and the main characters are Germans, but they’re played by American actors speaking English with German accents (don’t worry – it all works somehow). Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a spy who’s seen it all. Rachel McAdams plays a lawyer who’s in over her head. The city of Hamburg plays a supporting role and reminds us American moviewatchers just how different Europe looks.
I watched “The Fault in Our Stars” (2014) at 11 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, alone. Which means I’m pretty much a loser. Or gay. Or both. Or maybe none of those things. Maybe I just didn’t want to watch something depressing in the dark (the movie’s about cancer, you know). Except it’s not that depressing, because it’s also a love story (which I already knew). Maybe I didn’t trust the filmmakers. Maybe I thought it would be manipulative (they were, ALL these kinds of movies are, and I need to get over that). But it was also much, much more.
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