Hello folks,
As you know by now, I am not a professional reviewer, I'm just a frequent movie-goer. Dude and I love the drive-in movies. We go almost weekly, and this past week we only had two new movies to choose from, and they were billed as a double feature.The first one was Gangster Squad starring Sean Penn, Ryan Gosling, Josh Brolin, and Emma Stone. It is supposedly based on an actual event in the Chicago mob history of Mickey Cohen (Sean Penn).
I was prepared to hate this movie. I'm not a fan of mobster films at all. In fact, I'd gone so far as to tell a couple of friends that I would NOT be going to see this one because of all the real violence our world had seen the last few weeks. But you know what Charles Dickens said, "Never say never!"
And since I like all the named actors, and since Dude and I were needing our drive-in movie fix (and a chihuahua and a char burger), I was willing to give it a try. Besides, if you have read very many of my reviews, you know I always take my pillow and blankie so that if I don't like the movie, I can catch up on my sleep . . . can we say Skyfall?
Anyhow, surprise, surprise, I didn't even get my pillow out of the backseat! I do not like to give spoilers, so just suffice it to say that it was sooo not what I expected. Yes, there was violence, and yes, there was foul language, but it was obviously there to show how evil Mickey Cohen was; neither the violence nor the language seemed designed just to titillate or shock--it actually had a purpose.
I think what I really liked was the fact that even the good guys fell into a gray area once or twice. They used whatever means they deemed necessary to try to get Cohen. Isn't that really sort of relevant to today's culture-dilemma of whether the ends always justify the means? I thought so.
I liked it. I would give it ❤❤❤❤.
The second feature was This is 40 starring Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann. I think there were some other big names in the movie, but I didn't see them. No, I didn't get out my pillow and blankie . . . after about two minutes, Dude and I looked at each other, made gagging noises that, after decades of marriage we both know means, blech, let's get the heck out of here and go watch NCIS reruns on TV, so that is what we did. We did not let the proverbial doorknob hit us where the good Lord split us.
I don't think we missed a thing. Maybe we're old prudes. . . I mean, this is humor? How? I don't get it. We loved Rocky Horror Picture show and it was kind of vulgar, but it was creepy and fun, too. This one just took vulgarity to new heights, I mean, lows. (I downloaded a pic to include here, but I guess the Mac was in agreement with my assessment because it refused to cough it up!)
No spoiler here, either (I couldn't if I wanted to, I have no idea what happened, didn't even watch it in the rearview as we pulled away), just suffice it to say, I give it this many hearts:
And no, that isn't a typo.
Afterthought:
Hopefully, next time, I will be reviewing one of the umpteen books I'm reading ~ or the movie Silver Linings Playbook. It's at the walk-in movie. They don't have chihuahuas or char burgers, and it costs three times as much as the drive-in. But hey, it could happen . . .
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