My Salinger Year - This is a fine little literate comedy about a woman Joanna (Margaret Qualley) who, in 1995, takes a job at a literary agency run by Margaret (Sigourney Weaver). The agency's main important client is J.D. Salinger. Joanna's job includes responding to anyone who writes seeking anything from Salinger with a form letter and then shredding whatever they sent. A subplot involves Joanna and her obviously soon-to-be-history boyfriend Don (Douglas Booth). Joanna Rakoff wrote the book based on hr experiences at this agency.
It's a simple plot. Joanna is an aspiring writer of her own and wants to grow out of her position and her relationship. Meanwhile, she takes pity on some of the letters that she receives from Salinger fans. Sigourney does a light impression of Meryl Streep's Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada. You won't learn anything about Salinger, and The Devil Wears Prada is a better and more important movie, but this is still worth watching on a small screen.
No Time to Die - The fifth and final film of Daniel Craig's take on James Bond (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, and this one), of which all of his movies form a single story arc. Craig has been the most serious of Bonds, with much grit and gravitas. Unfortunately, his films also have the most violence. I liked Casino Royale quite a bit, I didn't particularly like Quantum (bad cinematography and confusing story), I literally laughed out loud (in a bad way) at various points during Skyfall (the insanely ridiculous plot of the bad guy and the multiple, insanely ridiculous misunderstandings of how computers, technology, and security work), and I was not overawed with Spectre. I think I liked this one well enough, if not as much as Casino Royale.
Bond is unsure whether to trust Madelaine, the girl he ostensibly loves, when Specter finds him in a remote part of Italy. Meanwhile, some bad guys want to kill Bond, or maybe also want to kill people who belong to Spectre. In the meantime, the CIA and MI6 are both trying to stop someone who stole an insane biosignature nanobot weapon from MI6 that can kill specific people with DNA traits by spreading from person to person lie a virus (once again we have the trope of the "good guys" inventing a killer weapon for "good reasons", and the bad guys stealing it in order to kill massive amounts of people). Meanwhile, Bond is retired from MI6, and his own loyalty is in question. He ends up running from place to place to kidnap, steal, or rescue people, and attempting to stop someone from using the weapon against the world.
The plot is somewhat confusing if you have not seen previous films in this series, but only a little confusing if you have. I followed it pretty well. The emotional stakes are somewhat higher, with characters getting some dimensionality on screen. The acting is superb, the plot not too bad, and there are very few idiotic misuses of computer security (Q actually plugs an enemy's disk-on-key into a sandbox computer instead of, as he did in Skyfall, the main networks of MI6, yay). Rami Malek is delicious as the villain, and Lea Seydoux is good as the "Bond girl" with a bit of spunk (although she runs in perfect high heels a few times too often). This film also features a few more Black female 00s than we are used to, as well as Ana de Armas as a giggly but ultimately kick-ass CIA agent assigned to help Bond in Cuba. Cinematography is excellent, and so is the sound and music.
But I had a few problems. One is that the violence, particularly near the end, is so relentless, artless, and gratuitous that I felt like I was watching a war movie rather than a spy movie. It is numbing and dehumanizing; it was not entertaining after a while. Second is that while there is some characterization, there could be a whole lot more. We really don't come to care much about these people. Also, like in other Hollywood movies dating back 100 years, Bond must be in his 60s while his love interests are in their 20s an early 30s, which is remains a sexist and unsettling trope.
I watched this on the big screen. If 15-20 minutes of the shooting were taken out, and maybe a bit more of Bond as a person were added, it would have been a great Bond film, but it was good enough for an action film.
Palm Springs - In this romcom, Nyles (Andy Samberg) is stuck in a time loop at a wedding he doesn't want to be at, waking up each day to a girlfriend who is cheating on him. Cristin Milioti is the similarly miserable woman he accidentally traps in the same loop (after also accidentally trapping someone else (Roy, played by JK Simmons). Eventually one of them discovers a risky path to exit the loop (or die trying); should they take it? Standard romcom tropes ensue.
And this is an above average romcom, especially considering that I had low expectations of an Andy Samberg film. Thankfully, it is not too over-the-top. The acting and cinematography is adequate. The explanatory plot is sort of ridiculous, as time loops tend to be, but it is the kind of ridiculous you can ignore in favor of the comedy and drama. The leads are genuinely sweet. Worth watching on a small screen.
The Sparks Brothers - This is a documentary about an influential but obscure band, nothing special. Sparks tended to choose originality over commercial success, which is respectable. However, IMHO their music is not very enjoyable; they don't have the raw musical talent of weirdos like Frank Zappa. For some reason, this documentary got really good reviews, but I can't fathom why.
Spider-Man: Far From Home - The next Spider-Man movie is almost upon us, so here are a few words about this followup to Avengers: Endgame from 2019. It's a Marvel movie. The stakes feel particularly low, and the plot feels more cookie cutter than ever. The fights are repetitive and forgettable As for the plot, for some reason Tony Stark willed all of his weaponry over to Peter Parker, who is duped into giving it over to an unhinged ex-Stark employee who hopes to take over the world. They fight, and guess who wins in the end?
