Hell or High Water

Jean, This is the best movie I have seen this year. It reminds me of "No Country for Old Men" without the psychotic killer. It has fine West Texas vistas of the dry, dusty landscape, two young men who need money with a time deadline, and a sheriff about to retire and wants one last big challenge. It also has some very sharp and entertaining writing. The leads are played by Chris Pine and Ben Foster. The sheriff is Jeff Bridges. It has some memorable scenes including a confrontation between an older waitress and the sheriff and his deputy in a greasy spoon steakhouse, that is classic.  Dad

P.S. The previews are:

The Accountant
American Pastoral
The Founder
Sully

Florence Foster Jenkins

Jean, This is a strange movie. The first half is humorous, sometimes hilarious and the second half is poignant and sad. It is the story of a true life society lady in New York City in the 1940's who thinks erroneously she had a concert soprano voice. Merle Streep plays the title character and is excellent in the role. Her husband is played by Hugh Grant as something of a cad and  hits the right note in every scene. The actor who nearly steals the movie is her piano accompanist, played by Simon Helberg of The Big Bang Theory . His controlled reaction when he hears for the first the singer for whom he just signed on to accompany, is side-splitting. Such a double take has to be seen. I came away from the movie disappointed,  with  all that talent and yet such  a confusing result.  Dad

P.S. The previews were:

Rules Don't Apply
The Founder
Southside With You

Captain Fantastic

Jean, This is the story of a survivalist father raising his six children in the wilderness of Washington State. A tragedy occurs which requires the father to take his family into the real world. The contrast between the home schooled children and the everyday real world children is the bulk of the film. I got the feeling that the film begins to pull it's punches when the two cultures collide.The high point for me was the father performance  by Viggo Mortensen. He could not have been more true to the character. Otherwise it is an interesting film but hardly had me questioning my views. (Note there are scenes of killing and dressing wild animals as part of the children's wilderness training.)  Dad


The previews were:

The Birth of a Nation
Denial
Anthropoid