Adnerb the Movie Nerd

Movie reviews from a middle school teacher's perspective

House of Gucci

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Wow!  Ridley Scott’s “House of Gucci” is quite a movie!  This basically true story has it all.  Lady Gaga plays Patrizia, an ambitious party girl who marries into the ultra conservative and super rich House of Gucci.  Adam Driver is Maurizio Gucci, who marries her against his father’s – Rodolfo Gucci played by Jeremy Irons – wishes, and is disinherited.  Rounding out the major players are Al Pacino as Aldo Gucci and Jared Leto (almost unrecognizable) as Paolo Gucci.  They are Maurizio’s uncle and cousin. The plot centers around Patrizia who cajoles, plots, connives and charms Maurizio into taking charge of the Gucci empire – by any means necessary.  Of course, it only ends up destroying the family.  The people in this story are  despicable as they participate in betrayal, tax evasion, back-stabbing, forgery, and even murder.  I am reminded of “The Godfather” in the sense that, at first, you kind of like the characters.  At first! Salma Hayek plays Pina Auriemma who is a television psychic. She advises Patrizia, and as Patrizia and Maurizio’s stars rise, so does hers.  But the greed, jealousy and envy so often at the core of the exercise of wealth based power soon take the auspicious beginnings down the path to turmoil, desperation and an inevitable, futile and sordid end. This is one cautionary movie that will make you glad you were not born into lavish wealth.  Obviously, this is a very adult movie – you would want to leave your children at home. Nonetheless, the acting is superb, the settings extremely well done and the story is engrossing.  I highly recommend this movie for a chance to see the seamy underbelly of the fashion world.

The Little Things

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Yay – our local theatre at Arundel Mills is back in business! We were there for the re-opening, so to speak, since it was the first Saturday the county allowed it to be open in several months. Everything is looking good, and the management is doing a great job. As you can imagine, there were some technical difficulties with starting everything back up. The movie was delayed about 20 minutes so the manager gave everyone a free pass to a future movie for our inconvenience. (We really weren’t inconvenienced, but we’ll take it!). Now to the movie. “The Little Things” stars Denzel Washington as a small town deputy sheriff, Joe “Deke” Deacon, who used to be a big deal detective in Los Angles. Something bad happened during his last case in Los Angeles and he ended up losing his wife, having a heart attack, and having to leave under a dark cloud. Whatever it was will keep you guessing until the end. He’s back in LA on a routine assignment to pick up a piece of evidence, and is delayed and sort of tags along with the current hot shot detective Sgt. Jim Baxter, played by Rami Malek. Baxter is facing a possible serial killer and it seems his case may be related in some ways to a cold case of Deke’s. Jared Leto is his usual weird and creepy villain who may or may not be the sadistic serial killer. Denzel is at his quiet best, and he and Rami finesse their impromptu alliance well. Jared excels in his portrayal of the odd and subtly maleficent suspect. My friend, Dava, says this movie reminds her of “Seven,” starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman, with Kevin Spacey. I tend to agree. If you enjoyed “Seven”, are fans of Denzel or Rami, or like to predict what will happen next, this is the movie for you.

Suicide Squad

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If you are looking for a movie with a deep plot and Oscar caliber performances, go see Captain Fantastic.  However, if you want to see a truck load of bizarre characters kicking butt with lots of explosions and a dash of humor, this the movie you have been waiting for.  It was nice to see Will Smith back in a watchable movie playing  a  “heartless” assassin, a role that  suits him well.  Margot Robbie and Jared Leto are dementedly twisted as devoted lovers who just can’t keep away from each other.  The biggest surprise for me was Viola Davis as a tough government official who has an intriguing and pretty far out plan to protect the planet.  The plot is very simplistic and you will probably see the ending coming from a mile away, but who cares?  This was my last day of freedom before I go back to teaching and this movie was the perfect way to end the summer with a mindless BANG!  By the way, if you go, stay until about half way through the credits for a little preview of the next Batman movie with Ben Affleck.