Photo © Paramount Pictures
80 For Brady
Rita Moreno, Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Sally Field in '80 For Brady'
80 For Brady
(In Theaters February 3)
Britain famously treasures its aging actresses, but in the States, American actresses over 60 rarely score meaty roles. Here’s to the exception, a film teaming Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno and Sally Field as a group of Tom Brady-crazy octogenarians. It’s as good an excuse as any for a feel-good movie ... except that it’s also based on a true story.
The leading ladies play a quartet of longtime friends who can’t get enough of watching Tom Brady on the gridiron. So, in 2017, when they learn the New England Patriots are playing Super Bowl LI, and Brady is quarter-backing, the ladies vow to attend. They arrive at the Super Bowl ticketless, but not powerless. Harry Hamlin appears as a debonair former NFL champion, who develops a crush on one of these babes, yet the film somehow retains its PG-13 rating.
Tom Brady is all-in, he’s game to appear as a plastic bobblehead, and as himself, along with producing the film. Director Kyle Marvin somehow herds the fabulous felines: Moreno, 91, demonstrates her dance chops, Fonda, 86, exhibits her marvelously shapely bod, and Tomlin and Field elevate the comedy with their peculiar takes on who, what, where, when and how! Wow. (Lisa Miller)
The Good Boss
(Cohen Media Group Blu-ray)
Javier Bardem is well cast as the titular character in this Spanish film by Fernando Leon de Aranda. He plays a benevolent patrón, the patriarchal CEO of a family-owned industry and believes in his mantra that the employees are his family. Of course, some children need to be disciplined. When a fired employee holds noisy daily protests with his young children outside the factory gates, the hoped for “Best Workplace” award from the provincial government might be jeopardized. The Good Boss is a droll comedy about benign intentions running aground against the complexity of human nature and contemporary society. The patrón’s interventions in the lives of his underlings produce mixed results at best and his wandering eye falls upon a beautiful young intern … (David Luhrssen)
Knock at the Cabin
(In Theaters February 3)
M. Night Shyamalan adapted this screenplay from the award-winning novel The Cabin at the End of the World by Paul G. Tremblay. Along with their young daughter Wen (Kristen Cui), married couple Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) are vacationing at a remote cabin when four strangers break in. All are armed with archaic weapons. They restrain Eric and Andrew, tying the men in chairs, then subject them to a tearful claim made by the group’s leader, Leonard (Dave Bautista). Unless the family of three agree to willingly sacrifice one of their own, the apocalypse will descend upon us.
This claim is reinforced by his three companions (played by Rupert Grint, Abby Quinn and Nikki Amuka-Bird). Eric and Andrew don’t believe, so the television is turned on to reports of tsunamis occurring the world over and killing hundreds of thousands. The invaders insist these disasters will worsen with each refusal by the family to comply with this demand, continuing until the entire Earth and all of its occupants are destroyed. Unable or unwilling to believe the invaders’ claims, Eric and Andrew appear steadfast in their refusal to cooperate. Readers of Trembley’s novel may think they know the ending, but Shyamalan loves a surprise twist. This is his second R-Rated film, a tense 100-minute horror that features challenging-to-witness violence. (Lisa Miller)
Line of Fire
(Video on Demand, February 7)
It’s almost ripped from American headlines: an active shooter at a high school, a cop who freezes outside the building as the killing spree continues. But this is an Australian movie, from director Scott Major, set in one of that nation’s rural small towns. The police officer, Samantha Romans (Nadine Garner of “The Doctor Blake Mysteries”), feels a double weight of guilt. Among the victims was her son, whom she forced to go to school when he said he was sick. A journalist looking to revive her sagging career, Jamie Connard (Samantha Tolj), latches onto the story like a predator. She is emotionally manipulative, cynical, pushy, every stereotype of a bad reporter. She doesn’t realize that Romans, driven bat crazy b media coverage and digital mobs, will have her revenge. (David Luhrssen)
