Category Archives: Relationships

Movie Review: Eleanor the Great

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The movie “Eleanor the Great” is a simple and small movie marking the directorial debut of Scarlett Johansson. Eleanor is played by 95-year-old June Squibb (she turns 96 in November 2025), who once again has a very funny and likable presence in this film.

The story is about Eleanor living in Florida with a long-term friend Bessie (Rita Zohar), who for years tells Eleanor about the experiences of her brother and family during the Holocaust. When Bessie dies, Eleanor decides to move to New York City to be with her daughter Lisa (Jessica Hecht) and grandson Max (Will Price). During a Holocaust group therapy session, Eleanor tells some of these Holocaust stories she heard from her friend, unfortunately, not making it clear that these were not her experiences.

Eleanor then becomes friends with a young college student, Nina (Erin Kellyman), who wants to write about her Holocaust experiences. Nina later involves her father, Roger (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who has a TV show, in this project. This story which started very simply, soon becomes complicated with Eleanor getting into trouble with Nina and her father for lying, even though the whole fiasco was a simple misunderstanding.

This story was very well told, along with excellent acting throughout. This movie received a low 66% rating due to its simple story, but in my opinion, the simplicity is the best part of this screenplay, with my rating 80% and a recommendation.

Movie Review: A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

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The new movie “A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” is another example of an innovative idea, never been done before, trying to be groundbreaking over a good story, good screenplay, excellent dialogue, or great new film.

This idea about a rental car company that only has defunct Saturn cars (the company went out of business in 2009), with a GPS device that leads people to portals where they can revisit different parts of their lives, is one of the craziest I have ever seen. This movie stars Colin Farrell as David and Margot Robbie as Sarah who meet at a wedding, then part ways, and then, due to the GPS in their rented Saturn cars, meet again, and make stops as they drive, visiting doors that are standing in the middle of nowhere that are portals to significant times in their lives. This is a somewhat interesting new idea, that just does not work as a movie, much like last year’s Tom Hanks movie “Here,” which has a similar concept that also did not work. Aside from the new concept not working, this movie is just way too boring in too many areas.

The good parts of this mostly failed movie are at the end when both characters talk about their previous painful relationship breakups and heartache, reminding all of us that, hand in hand with love and relationships, comes the potential for huge risk both financially and emotionally.

The Rotten Tomatoes rating of 37% is very accurate this time around and I agree with this rating. One has to acknowledge the risk of a new idea like this, but in the end, the entire concept just did not work. This one is a solid pass.

Movie Review: The Long Walk

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The description for the new movie “The Long Walk” is one of the strangest in the history of movies.

After a worldwide financial disaster where everybody lives in extreme poverty, a group of about 50 young men agree to compete in a contest where they have to walk nonstop until there is only one person standing. The winner of this contest will be given a substantial amount of money, although the exact dollar amount is never specified in this story. The rules are that if anyone walks at a pace slower than three miles per hour, they are given three warnings and then they are shot in the head. So in this contest, there is a 98% chance of death and only a 2% chance of winning. Right from the beginning, this story makes no sense because nobody would enter a contest that has a 98% chance of death, regardless of how extreme the global poverty is.

The main character, Raymond Garrity (Cooper Hoffman) enters this contest to both help his mother out of extreme poverty and to avenge his father, as we find out much later in this story. The best part of this film is the developing friendship between Garrity and Peter McVries (David Johnson), which grows during this entire story.

Mark Hamill plays The Major, a cruel military leader of this walking contest. There are many scenes of extreme violent death as we repeatedly see young men shot in the head or body, which I thought was over the top, unnecessary at this level of extreme gore. Worse was a scene of a man defecating while trying to maintain the three-mile-per-hour walking pace. Why the director and producers decided to show something this grotesque is anyone’s guess. What is the future of the actor who decided to take a part like this in this movie?

The acting is good overall, despite the insane story, with a way too high 91% Rotten Tomatoes rating. My rating is a 70% pass, due to the extremely unnecessary scenes of death, people being shot in the head, and disgusting scenes. It is hard to understand the point of a film like this, other than making a movie that has never been done before. Considering the over 350 miles of walking in 5 days, there is no way any human could walk this far, nonstop for that many days at a three mile and hour pace.