[Note from Steve: This week’s featured movies were both directed by women.  That’s probably a good thing.  Men tend to make high testosterone action flicks; women more pensive flicks about social situations.  Which is better?  Dunno, but maybe the day will come when we turn these stereotypes on their heads.  These films are comfortable both comfortable fits—you won’t be dropping your box of popcorn.]

Learning to Drive.  Isabel Coixet, dir.  Ben Kingsley does well in every movie he’s in, even as a fake terrorist in Iron Man.  He seems to delight in playing exotic characters, too.  Here he’s a Sikh cab driver by night and driving instructor by day in the most polyglot of cities, New York.  Patricia Clarkson plays a woman who’s an emotional wreck because her husband of many years leaves her for a younger woman.  Kingsley is spot on, Clarkson overacts.  Cultural contrasts play a starring role.  There are some comedic moments and some dramatic ones.  Sikhs are often misunderstood and wrongly persecuted in this country.  Kingsley’s character was even persecuted in India along with his family.  Lots of visual tidbits to watch for here—discrimination against the Sikh’s arranged bride by a black store clerk, for example.  Worth seeing, and B+ (PG-13, but G except for one scene).

The Intern.  Nancy Myers, dir.  Robert De Niro saves this movie like Kingsley saves the last one.  He plays a seventy-year-old intern, applying for the job because he’s bored with retirement.  As an ex-VP, his character understands corporate dynamics a lot more than the internet startup’s owner, played by Anne Hathaway.  De Niro’s character thinks she’s fit for the job; you probably won’t.  The worst character is her philandering husband, although you can’t blame the guy completely—Hathaway’s character is immersed in her business, to say the least.  The plot was weak.  The highlight, about the middle of the movie, wasn’t enough to save it.  De Niro did.  A pleasant piece of fluff, I suppose, so I’ll give it a B-; it’s worth going to in order to see a master at work (completely G, although your kids wouldn’t understand any of it).

CSI: the Final Episode.  Not exactly a movie, but movie-length, last Sunday’s final episode of the 15-year-old show was a bit nostalgic, weird as always, and irregular.  Many regulars returned, including Grissom.  Heather, the S&M lady turned therapist, is also back.  The case is weird because it involves her and her clients.  It’s also a bit sappy at the end.  The bombs never looked real to me (some were).  They never explained who the crispy critter in the burned car was.  But if you grew to like this forensics-art show and get past the bad science (immediate turn-around on DNA tests, for example), this show was steady entertainment from a well-aged franchise.  It was the original and always the best of the CSI spinoffs.  TV drama as it used to be—not HBO, Netflix, or other cable lightweights; this one rates an B+ (in spite of all the blood, gore, and sexual innuendoes and situations, it’s still PG-13).  If you missed it, catch it any way you can.

In elibris libertas….

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