Tag Archives: Jessica Chastain

Movie Review: Memory

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It is important for any moviegoer going into the new movie “Memory” to know that this is a film with no real screenplay, connected scenes, signs of acting, or any real story. Memory is just a series of disconnected vignettes about a woman Sylvia, played by Jessica Chastain, who is a recovering alcoholic, and a man Saul played by Peter Sarsgaard who is suffering from early onstage dementia. Saul and Sylvia are not married, they are acquaintances, who meet in one of the strangest scenes I have ever seen where Saul follows Sylvia around the city of New York and winds up on her doorstep the next morning. Over time, they become involved and as things progress, the extent of Saul’s dementia becomes more pronounced.

There are numerous side stories, including Sylvia’s memories of a bad childhood, where she was sexually abused by her father and her mother refuses to believe any of her stories. Sylvia has a daughter from a previous relationship and her purpose seems to make this movie have a runtime closer to 2 hours. Saul has a controlling brother who tries to prevent him from trying to live a normal life, due to this dementia. This entire movie seems more like a documentary that follows the lives of about 7 different people – to their houses, picnics, dinner at restaurants, arguments, and several nude scenes where in one instance, Saul is found lying nude and unconscious on the bathroom floor and is discovered by Sylvia.

There is no story resolution here, no message, and in the end, a very abrupt ending with Sylvia vacuuming the floor and then hugging Saul. What is the point of all this? To once again be different just for the sake of being different? I am more than tired of movies like this, that cut corners in an attempt to try and discover a new type of movie, that is not a movie at all. Then add the high number of minutes where this entire film is extremely slow and boring.

The Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this movie is a high 86% but with a low 71% fan rating on IMDB. My rating is 60% and a solid pass on this one, hoping that movies like this one are all a passing fad.

Past Movie Review: Zero Dark Thirty

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What did it take to pull off probably the most important operation in the entire history of the CIA – the killing of Osama Bin Laden? In 2012 the movie “Zero Dark Thirty” was released and this entire story was all about locating and then killing the worst mass terrorist in World History. I had never seen a movie like this before, showing first hand the real working lives of the people who work for the CIA, that showed the extreme danger they live with. How hard they have to work, the risks they take to keep the world safe from terrorism. The working hours these people put in every day are endless and the importance of what they do is beyond measurement. If they make a mistake or miss something important, thousands could die in a terrorist attack or something even worse. This reality creates stress and tension within a working environment far beyond any normal job and it is this accurate depiction that is the best part of this film.

Jessica Chastain stars in this film as a CIA agent only known as Maya and this is considered Chastain’s breakout role as an “A” level movie actor. Very often there is one scene in a movie that lauches an actor into a super-star status (see below) and the argument Maya has with her boss Joseph Bradley, played by Kyle Chandler is one such scene. The acting in this scene, especially with Chastain is so good and real that it would take only one scene like this to win an Academy Award. Chastain was nominated for a best actress Oscar in 2012 for this film, but inexplicably did not win, probably only because it was her first nomination. Chastain was also great in the movie “Mollys Game”, released in 2017 but was not even nominated for an Oscar. Go figure the insanity of Hollywood.

Along with Kyle Chandler is the late James Gandolfini as one of the heads of a CIA team that eventuallly locates and kills Bin Laden in 2011. Zero Dark Thirty is one of the best films of its kind ever produced and an important review of history. I highly recommend this movie, released in 2012.

Movie Review: The Forgiven

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The new movie “The Forgiven” once again answers the questions as to why it is so hard to write a screenplay. One reason is that the story has to make sense, hold the viewers attention and the actions of the main characters have to, for the most part, be consistent with what a person would really do within a crucial situation.

In this story a couple, Jo and David Henninger are vacationing in Morocco near the Sahara Desert. David is an alcoholic and their marriage is not going well. They get into a accident and hit a young boy at night. What follows are a series of mostly boring scenes that seem to do nothing more than fill in the two hours. The main part of the story involves local Arabic ritual with the boy’s father that no American or any foreigner would ever do. This is a big reason why this story fails in a big way because in order for a story to work, we all have to relate to and ultimately believe what the characters are doing.

This movie stars Ralph Fiennes as David and Jessica Chastain as Jo and I wondered why these two major actors agreed to make this below average movie considering the script is bad and they would have to be shooting on location for months, in the middle of nowhere – not to mention the extreme heat and bad conditions.

The ratings for this film are a low 60% range on both IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes and I agree with these ratings and do not recommend this movie.