HELL BURNS OFFICIAL

This star-studded Coen Brothers Oscar-nominated film, "The Ballad of Buster Scruggs," is a typical Coen Brothers quirky, stylistic offering. Buster, a cowboy in white on his trusty horse, Dan, clops through the opening scene, strumming and singing a lonesome ditty about water--as the majestic canyons echo back. Suddenly, Buster turns to the camera and begins to narrate. At length. In fact, he's the only one who says pretty much anything for the first 15 minutes or so. Yeah, the monologue is pretty funny, but the Coen Brothers' unique style of shocking, callous, in-your-face, "campy," bloody, mounting violence comes all too quickly. I had to shut it off. Maiming and brutal murder isn't funny. Watching a man's fingers be blown off one by one is not my idea of entertainment. Sometimes I think this is all the CBs have. None of their stories are terribly coherent or feel like a real story. They just have eye candy and mayhem. Thus endeth my review.

It was recently brought to my attention (by a young woman in discernment) that there exists on YouTube (for free) the 6 episodes of an award-winning Australian TV mini-series called "Brides of Christ." It's set in the turbulent 1960's before/after Vatican II (featuring a young Naomi Watts and Russell Crowe!) Now. I am bringing this series to your attention NOT in order to recommend it, but rather to briefly review it, warn you and head you off at the overpass. I have been a vocation directress for a long time, and I keep abreast of the latest "discerning" trends. Young women today do tons (or tonnes) of online "research" regarding religious life, and they watch all kinds of documentaries and movies (like the heinous and completely unrealistic "Novitiate," see my review:  https://hellburnsofficial.blogspot.com/2017/09/movies-novitiate.html#.XGMifjNKiM8 ) about nuns. Some guidance is in order. The storyline: Some young friends attend an all...

In case you're thinking--as I was--that you pretty much know what the film "The Wife" is all about? You kind of do and kind of don't. If you think it's about a woman who has devoted her whole life to her husband while she stays in the background and then has regrets, you're half right. Glenn Close is absolute perfection in the role of an older woman whose husband has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Jonathan Pryce is sterling in all his irresponsible despicableness. The opening scene is the white-haired couple canoodling in bed, so you know their relationship is strong and sweet. So why the strange look on the wife's face when she listens in on the phone call announcing the prestigious award? The second wrinkle in the blissful afterglow of the jubilant news is the adult son, himself an aspiring writer, being patronized and rebuffed by the father he idolizes. In fact, it doesn't take long for us to realize that this Nobel awardee is a b...

Oscar-nominated for Best Picture, "Green Book" is a feel-good, road-trip, buddy movie. Or is it? Someone recently commented: "'Green Book' isn't saying as much as it thinks it is"--or maybe what it's saying is even worse than vapid. But first, my first impressions watching the film. The premise is delicious, of course. An uncouth, Italian-American New York bouncer becomes a chauffeur for a highly-cultured, fastidious African-American genius pianist in the 1960's. But that's not all. They're going on tour in the Deep South. It's the mismatched Odd Couple among wolves--a spin on the "fish out of water" story. Oh, and the title "Green Book" is apt. There was actually a book for "Negro motorists" telling them what they could and couldn't do, where they could and couldn't eat and sleep in the South. I think this title, this chilling and pathetic "little" piece of history is a bigger part of t...