The Good Nurse, (loosely) based on a true story, is about a nurse, Charlie, who was a serial killer for a number of years, able to quietly kill patients at various hospitals where he worked. The hospitals, always afraid of a lawsuit, never dug too deep into the suspicious deaths, but would just fire him, allowing him to move on to another place. The film follows Amy, a respected nurse working the night shift ICU at Parkfield Memorial Hospital, who gets to know Charlie, the new hire. She likes him pretty quickly, as he covers for her when she needs help, and even gets to know her kids, with whom he plays well. However, a sudden death in the ICU, a patient who seemed to be recovering, leads to questions. The deceased family contacts the police to look into it, but 7 weeks have since passed, and the body was cremated, so the police have no body and no evidence. That doesn’t stop them from digging, even though the hospital management hampers their search at every turn. Finally, the hospital has done enough investigating on their own, and fire Charlie over a technicality. They consider the matter closed, but the cops don’t, and they reach out to Amy to try to dig up more clues against Charlie, and even enlist her help in trying to get a confession. The movie by itself is very average, with cringe-worthy dialogue and some outlandish plot elements (Amy sitting in on police procedures, them enlisting her to do cop stuff, and plenty more), but the film stands on the performances of its two leads: Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne, who shows that, while he hasn’t been active in the dramatic circuit since his acclaimed roles 5+ years ago, he hasn’t lost an ounce of ability. Both are gripping in this picture, and it’s too bad the writing lets them down. ★★½
My Name is Sara, (mostly accurately) based on a true story, takes us back to World War II. In 1941, Ukrainian Jewish siblings Sara and her brother are on the run from Germans. Their parents basically kicked them out of the house, knowing death awaited them if they did nothing, and told them to survive. Sara’s brother knows he is instantly recognizable as Jewish, so Sara would have a better chance on her own, so they split up. Sara ends up on a farm, where she pretends to be a Christian girl with no surviving family, and the farmer (very reluctantly) takes her in as a nanny to his kids. The farmer, Pavlo, and his wife, Nadya, are very suspicious of Sara, who has given them a fake name, and grill her continuously to make sure she is not Jewish. Thankfully, Sara had a Christian friend as a child, and she knows the prayers and how to do the sign of the cross; she is able to bluff her way through it until the family warms up to her. Unfortunately, they aren’t the only problems. The farm is raided by Germans during the day, and Partisans at night, and neither group cares for the well being of the family. When they go to market on the weekends to sell goods, Sara is in constant fear of discovery by the German soldiers, or random encounters where she may be recognized. To add to the suspense, Sara becomes aware that Nadya is having an affair, which she must keep secret from her husband, and Pavlo slowly begins to show affection for Sara (apparently what got the last nanny fired). Sara is caught in the middle of all of it, living the next couple years on the edge of a knife. But the years do go on, and as a viewer, when we see 1943, and then 1944, we know the end of the nightmare is coming, if Sara can just survive to see it. This movie is much the opposite of the above film. It doesn’t have stellar acting (the newcomer actress playing Sara is very wooden, maybe purposefully so due to her fear and whatnot, but it didn’t always feel genuine), but the story and pace of the film is fantastic. Not always easy to build such intensity from a slow dramatic film, but they pull it off in this one. And for those averse to subtitles, only spoken German and Yiddish get the subtitle treatment; for most of the film, the Ukraine tongue is substituted with English. ★★★½
The Tale of King Crab starts in present day Italy and shows a group of friends getting together for a good time, and start swapping stories. One that they settle on supposedly took place in their own little corner of the world, and the rest of the film takes place in late 18th century Italy, and follows a man named Luciano. Once popular in his little town, he’s become the town drunk. Luciano has crossed paths with 2 people in the area: the town’s prince, who Luciano blames for keeping an old gate locked through which the town has traversed for decades, and Severino, a merchant who doesn’t like the romance blossoming between his daughter Emma and Luciano. The prince also has eyes for Emma, and when Luciano goes on a drunken fit one night, he angers everyone, and gets himself banished from Italy and sent to (at the time) the farthest corner of the world where the prince could send him: Patagonia in lower Argentina. There, Luciano takes the guise of a priest, and the story picks up where he’s already made companions of treasure seekers who are hunting for hidden riches that legends state are in the area. The gold hunters want to be rich, but Luciano only wants a way to return home. On the surface it sounds like the kind of throwback foreign drama that I’d be all about, but man this film is tough to get through. Besides the pace (which is extremely slow), it just seems to wander along without ever getting anywhere, and tries too hard to be artsy and deep, when it really isn’t. The only redeeming grace is the cinematography, which is stunning from the opening moment to the final one. Every scene is gorgeous to see, every minute detail intricately perfect. The film’s story? Maybe 1 star. But I’m bumping it up just for the beauty of the picture alone. ★★
I was kind of excited to catch Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, which has garnered solid reviews, plus I was a somewhat fan back in my younger days. It really let me down though. You can tell from the beginning that the movie takes a lot of licenses with the facts. That doesn’t really bother me, but it just crosses over into the downright silly before long. Lines like young Al’s mother telling him that “your dad and I had a long talk, and we agreed it would be best for all of us if stop being who you are doing the things you love,” is downright funny, but later when Al goes to Colombia to rescue his girlfriend Madonna from the clutches of his biggest fan, Pablo Escobar…. Yeah, I was done. I did watch through to the end of the movie, because there were some good laughs here and there, but for my tastes (which always gear more towards drama than comedy), it’s too much. It felt like an overly long SNL skit, maybe a season opener where they have lots of cameos (because it certainly does have that). His music is off the wall, so diehard Weird Al fans will probably eat it up, but for those who laughed as a teen but whose tastes changed with age, you can skip this one. ★½
The Good Boss, a Spanish film staring Javier Bardem, is about a week in the life of Julio Blanco, owner of a small business which makes commercial scales. Blanco Scales was founded by Julio’s father, and while he likes to extol that this is still a family business and all the workers are “his family,” he definitely runs it as he sees fit. This is a busy week for Julio: his company is up for a local award; he has a new batch of (women) interns starting (and he has a bit of a habit with them, if you catch my drift); he has a former employee setting up camp across the street to protest his firing; and his floor manager, and childhood friend, has been messing up orders due to strife in his home life. Everything explodes on Julio in the final days of the week, just when the awards committee is supposed to visit the company for their review. The film is marketed as a comedy-drama, and while the comedy is strong, it’s more of the biting satire kind than anything that will get you belly laughing. The movie as a whole is more of a vehicle for Bardem, who is on his game as the charming jefe, the person who likes to be the guy everyone likes, but who has no problem getting his hands dirty to get what he wants. ★★★
- TV series currently watching: Star Trek Prodigy (season 1.0)
- Book currently reading: War of the Twins by Weis & Hickman
Jons Movie Takes 