Rififi (movie, 1955)

Rififi

Watched May, 2025.

This is a great 1950s (French) heist flick, with fantastic details on how the safe is cracked and the heist is accomplished, and then the aftermath when the thieves fence the jewels and attempt to hang on to the cash. The thieves had to circumvent the security and police tech, which were primitive (but not negligible) in 1955, but when you throw in a couple molls everything becomes beaucoup complicated.

It bugs me when a new movie is made in the 21st century but takes place in the past before modern tech. Cell phones kill every plot of the 20th century; an encrypted email cannot be hacked (no matter what you see on NCIS) and all catastrophes are solved by an easy phone call. Stick with Rififi: the characters are inherently just tough guys with no tech knowledge and it all just makes sense.

Nonnas (movie, 2025)

Nonnas

Watched May 10, 2025.

This is based on a true story, so I can't fault the movie for putting 80 year old women to work in a NYC restaurant kitchen, but the movie does not explain how many hours they worked or who else worked with them. The romantic subplot must be fictional, because no first-year law student skips studying to spend hours each night at a restaurant (but who doesn't love Linda Cardellini?). The subplot that explains the initial number of customers is nothing short of nasty and pointless. And "gravy", what's with that? If gravy is poured over spaghetti, what do Staten Island paisans pour over mashed potatoes? Ultimately this is a feel-good thing, but the world never needs a movie this mediocre. Only the big-name actors could rescue this.

You Won't Be Alone (movie, 2022)

You Won't Be Alone

Watched May, 2025.

This movie tries hard to tell a culturally important story but is hard to love. If the story were based on actual Macedonian folklore, this would be an 8, but it's apparently a folklore-ish horror fantasy portraying a pre-industrial Macedonian farm community. The translations of the English subtitles are horrifying ("the man, the eyewater he wants"). The repeated use of human entrails is not simply horror graphics, it is significant to the story, but it makes no logical sense (a basic vampire story just involves drinking blood without the self-mutilation). The soundtrack is subdued and interesting, too bad the "Welcome Happy Morning" hymn is left off the soundtrack album. If you want to skip the horror, The Peasants provides good historical fiction from this time period (in Poland).

Devs (TV series, 2020)

Devs

Watched May, 2025.

The acting was mediocre, the scenery was cheap, and the sci-fi tech required an infinite amount of memory for data that can't be acquired in the first place. In the end, the bad people are brought down by exactly what every viewer knows can't work, but then they live happily ever after doing what was just proven to fail. What I really don't understand is the 7.6 rating on IMDB.

88 Minutes (movie, 2007)

88 Minutes

Watched March 16, 2011.

This was so violently twisted that the characters had to be unbelievable, and even a guy like Pacino has to overact in a movie like this. An unrealistically large amount of stuff happens in what is supposedly 88 minutes.

Fifty Shades of Grey (movie, 2015)

Fifty Shades of Grey

Watched January 6, 2016.

Generally bad script and acting. Who would like the main characters? No one has any personality, aside from being fetishist whack jobs.

Babygirl (movie, 2024)

Babygirl

Watched April, 2025.

This would have been a 5, but I had to deduct a point for the inexplicable final 15 minutes. Sorry Nicole, you and Antonio weren't hot enough or sexy enough, and the fantasy wasn't erotic enough, to get a better rating. Stick with Fifty Shades of Grey, essentially the same plot, I gave that a 3 but at least the chick is hot.

Heaven is for Real (movie, 2014)

Heaven is for Real

Watched April 10, 2025.

This is agonizingly slow; this movie should be a half-hour long. The college researcher puts the preacher in his place but then the preacher walks quietly away. The church members don't want to believe the kid, but they are not questioned about whether they believe what the Bible says about Jesus. The Lithuanian subplot could have been better used. Presumably the preacher's financial problems were resolved by the book and movie deals, but the movie does not call his motivations into question. Was the kid's experience profound or just monetizable?