Tag Archives: Andrew Garfield

Movie Review: We Live in Time

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The new movie “We Live in Time” can be seen as a tearjerker from a mile away. Like almost all movie tearjerkers, the story once again involves Cancer – in this case, stage 3 Ovarian Cancer. The difference with this film is how the story is told, through a series of “revolving flashbacks” in one of the most unusual ways I have ever seen a story unfold.

We Live in Time stars Andrew Garfield as Tobias and Florence Pugh as Almut, a married couple dealing with trying to have a child and Almut’s diagnosis of Cancer. They meet after Almut accidentally hits Tobias with her car while he is retrieving a pen so he can sign his divorce papers, definitely a new idea where two people meet for the first time. This story also includes Almut and Tobias’ attempts to conceive a child, which include trying IVF and their arguments that include Tobias wanting a child and Almut’s doubts that she ever wants to be a parent. The decision about Almut’s treatment is made by the couple early on to choose to live with quality rather than quantity to prolong Almut’s life despite her terminal Cancer diagnosis and months of chemotherapy treatment.

The secondary story involves Almut, who is a professional Chef, entering a Chef competition with her work partner which seemed to have more to do with making this film lasting a full two hours than any other reason.

The world is sick of hearing about Cancer, the scourge of humanity for many decades, and the only solutions being chemo therapy and removing body parts. Considering the money generated from Cancer treatment in the world, the odds are high that the medical profession does not want to cure cancer, for fear of losing trillions of dollars of revenue. This movie is another tear-jerker, but it was produced well enough to recommend.

I mostly agree with the 79% ratings for this film on Rotten Tomatoes and do recommend this movie due to the well told story and solid acting performances from Garfield and Pugh.

Movie Review: Tick Tick Boom

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A better question to ask anyone who is looking to spend their lives in some form of show business would be, “are you willing to endure years of misery, rejection, horrendous jobs, failed relationships, malnutrition and frustration” just so you might have some small ray of hope, some miracle break in the future? Are you willing to have other people’s critical and fickle opinions not stop you from continuing to write, to act to never give up?

The new movie “Tick Tick Boom” is also the title of one of the Broadway musicals written by the late Jonathan Larson, played extremely well by Andrew Garfield, who tragically died of an aortic aneurism days before the debut of his hit musical “Rent” that ran on Broadway for 10 years. The fact that Larson slaved writing plays and musical for years all to miss the debut of his big hit, is also part of the mission of trying to make it when the odds are so long. Then add the vicious and so often dead wrong critics who go out of their way to try and destroy someone who has worked so hard for success.

The best line in this movie was from Judith Light who plays Larson’s agent, when he asked her, “what do I do now”, after his latest musical got great reviews but did not sell. She says, “you just write another one, and then another one. That is the reality of this business.” Unfortunately nothing in show business comes without great suffering, no matter what your talent might be. We all see the ones who make it, never the ones who try for years, and even for decades and just never get that one lucky break.

From Andrew Garfield’s past movies, especially “Hacksaw Ridge”, released in 2016, we all know that he is an outstanding actor. From this new film, we also know that he is an outstanding singer. Tick Tick Boom is a musical and for those who hate musicals, this film is tolerable enough, mainly because of the singing talent of Garfield, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexandra Shipp and Gizel Jimenez which is all outstanding throughout.

This movie marks the directorial debut of Lin-Manuel Miranda who is the creator of the huge Broadway hit “Hamilton”. As for Andrew Garfield, his performance in this movie is so strong, he will probably be nominated for a Best Actor Oscar.

The ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB are a very high 87 and 85% and I agree with these numbers and highly recommend this movie that will debut on Netflix on November 19th.

Movie Review: The Eyes of Tammy Faye

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The movie “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” is about Tammy Faye Baker who along with Jim Baker went from preaching the bible to millions of people on TV, to slowly turning that noble cause into cheating people with a huge Nationwide con. Most of us have wondered that if two people believed in God as much as they did, why were they not afraid that using God to help them cheat hundreds of thousands of people out of their money would be the ultimate sin? Given the obvious stupidity and National exposure of what they were doing, why were they not afraid of being caught by the FBI and just about every other law enforcement agency? Eventually they were caught and Jim Baker was ultimately sentenced to 100 years in prison. Why he was released early was never fully explained, and now he is once again on TV preaching about the Bible. Tammy Faye passed away in 2007 of both colon and lung cancer. We learn about her constant drinking of diet coke during this film and could speculate that this could be part of her reason for getting two cancers. Tammy Faye was a woman who believed that the more made up you are the better looking you are, even to the point of tattooing permanent eyebrows and lip liner. Why she thought this was a good look is anybody’s guess.

Jessica Chastain and Andrew Garfield play Tammy Faye and Jim Baker expertly in this film, unfortunately the majority of the story is about their lives during their years of being a big hit on TV, and not enough real story. Too much of this period in their careers is also repetitive and boring. I would have preferred learning much more about the details of their scams and how they rationalized stealing so much money from so many good people. There were some examples of their charitable causes in this story, but that was never enough to justify what they did for so long on while preaching the Bible on Television.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for The Eyes of Tammy Faye (a poor title for this movie in my opinion) are a low 64%. I agree with this rating and do not recommend this movie.