Thelma a film by Josh Margolis. With June Squibb, Fred Hechinger, Parker Posey, Clark Gregg, Richard Roundtree. Streaming (for a fee) on Apple+. **** Thelma is an oldster movie, a genre I haven’t written about for some time but which has not gone away. It is a crime movie in which the person going after … Continue reading Roll Out the Oldsters
The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed out the Window and Disappeared. A film by Felix Hengren The audience at the oldster movies is starting to get out of hand. There wasn’t much of a crowd in the Asheville multiplex where I saw this movie, but I might have been the only one under 70. … Continue reading Xtreme Oldster
The Lady in the Van. A film by Nicholas Hytner. With Maggie Smith, Jim Broadbent, Alex Jennings. I’m as much a fan of oldster movies as anyone—they’re about me, after all—and, like everyone else in the world, I love Maggie Smith. I especially like her as the outraged Dowager Countess on Downton Abbey, though the … Continue reading She Wasn’t Just a Dotty Old Lady II
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. A film by John Madden. We seem to have entered the age of Oldster Movies, and if Maggie Smith can just hang on this could go on for quite some time. We’ve had the First Exotic Marigold Hotel, the Second, and according to the trailers there’s an upcoming Maggie … Continue reading The Second Best Exotic Marigold Assisted Living Facility
Sully, a film by Clint Eastwood. With Tom Hanks, Aaron Eckhart, Laura Linney. I’ve always thought of Clint Eastwood as the King of the Grade B movie. One sure sign of Grade B is prolonged footage of a car driving somewhere, and there was ample such footage in Play Misty for Me, the first movie … Continue reading Glug Glug
45 Years A Film by Andrew Haigh In the same weekend, a friend e-mailed to tell me that 45 Years was a great film—he had just seen it with his wife to celebrate his 63rd birthday—and I heard another friend say, to someone who asked, “Don’t bother. The whole damn thing is too depressing.” I … Continue reading The Bitter Face of a Marriage
I’ll See You in My Dreams. A movie by Brett Haley. Starring Blythe Danner and Sam Elliott. I’ll See You in My Dreams is yet another oldster movie (they’re taking over the art houses; stock in some Chardonnay), and concerns an older woman who has been widowed for twenty years, has never been interested in … Continue reading I Thought I Heard Somebody Snoring