The movie “The Beguiled” is a remake of the version made in 1971 starring Clint Eastwood and Geraldine Page. My first question about this movie is that I did not consider the first version of this movie made 46 years ago groundbreaking enough to produce a remake so many years later. When I saw the original movie on TV many years ago I thought it was at best a good movie but definitely not a great one or one that was significant enough to shoot a remake many years later.

The story of Beguiled happens during the Civil War in Virginia when a wounded Union corporal is found by a young girl who lives in a plantation with 6 other women who range in age from 45 to about 11. Due to the extreme circumstances of the Civil War, it seems that none of the women who live in this house have been around or seen many men in their lives or at least for many years and this understandably creates some tension and jealousy among the women. After the soldier is treated for his leg injury, this movie seems to very slowly move forward and for my tastes too slowly before it gets to the point that things start to get very insane, both because of the circumstances and because several of the people involved are a little crazy, perhaps due to the horrific insanity of the Civil War. I had the same thoughts about this movie that I did when I saw the 1971 version on TV only once, even though that version is more insane and about 12 minutes longer. This is only a good movie, not a great one.

The Beguiled is directed by Sophia Coppola and starts Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst, Elle Fanning and Colin Farrell as the Union soldier. All of the acting is solid throughout and somewhat haunting but for me the movie took too long to get going and what actually happened in the story was not compelling enough to give this film any higher than a marginal recommendation.

What is funny? Both Will Ferrel and Amy Poehler were two of the best to performers on Saturday Night Live for many years and they are both funny. Both Ferrel and Poehler are great in comedy sketches and Will Ferrel has the very rare talent of just making a face or doing something with his eyes and getting a huge laugh just for showing up. What is not funny is the movie both of these talented people are in, titled “The House”.

The premise of the House is a very good one. Two parents facing the nightmare of trying to pay for the huge cost of sending just one child to a good college. Right at the start, trying to make paying for college funny is a daunting task because there is nothing funny about putting your financial future in jeopardy by taking a second mortgage out on a house or risking your health by working more than one job. The couple in this story try to pay for college by opening up an illegal gambling house and while this story may have started out a little funny, the whole idea took a very bad, unfunny and stupid turn and in the end turned out to be a pretty bad movie. This is too bad because both Ferrel and Poehler are very talented but the problem has always been finding both a screenplay and a great idea that actually results in a funny movie and in my experience this has been very rare.

I thought there was one scene in this entire movie that was funny, when Ferrel thinks that he has 401,000 dollars in his bank account and his accountant tells him that he is has a 401K account. That was a very good line, but unfortunately the only funny line in this entire movie. I thought it was unusual that the actor Jeremy Renner appears at the end of this movie, but the scene where he is set on fire was not funny and the scene where one of his thugs lost a finger and bleeds all over Will Ferrell was also not funny.

This movie should have gone right to DVD and should be missed.

It is extremely rare that movie reviews are strong as they are for the new movie Baby Driver, 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and 86% on IMDB. In my opinion, this movie fully deserves all of the positive reviews it has received.

When you think about the screenwriting task of trying to figure out a new and different idea within the hundreds of bank robbery, getaway, crime movies that have been produced over the years, you can probably understand what was facing Edgar Wright, who wrote the screenplay and directed this very good movie. The new ideas in this film are many and they start right at the beginning of this entertaining film with the use of a bright red 2006 Suburu Impreza WRX in a driving sequence that has to be considered one of the most intense and impressive in movie history. The use of a very average car like this one for the opening chase scene, on the one hand, to blend in with traffic but at the same time is bright red I thought was a very funny and original idea. The star of this movie is played by very well by Ansel Elgort whose name is of all things, Baby – again very original. Baby has to constantly listen to music to drown out his tinnitus that was caused by a car accident with his parents when he was a child and this provides a big excuse to have frequent music throughout this film, mostly through Baby’s original style IPOD.

Other actors in this movie include John Hamm, Kevin Spacey and Jamie Fox and all were outstanding in this film. The unexpected twists and turns in this impressive story were some of the best I have ever seen as was the dialogue which was equally as unexpected and impressive. Other very unsusual and humorous moments include Baby’s habit of recording conversations he has with people using an old style casset tape recorder and later turning those conversations into music.

Central to Baby Driver is the love story between baby and a young waitress Deborah, he meets at a diner played very well by Lily James and as the story progresses Baby’s girlfriend is understandably put in greater danger as the bank robbers he is forced to drive for threaten her life. There are scenes of extreme voilence of gunplay that are all expected in a movie like this, but this movie just does all of that better than most ever have.

I highly recommend the movie Baby Driver.