I don't know how much longer it's going to be in theaters, so I'm urging everyone to run as fast as possible to see Kubo and the Two Strings. This is an amazing beautiful heartbreaking piece of art, and because life is cruel and unfair it is failing utterly at the box office.

I really want to see it!

Vonnie, I just saw Hell or High Water yesterday. I loved it! I think Chris Pine is one of the most overlooked actors, today. His performance is so nuanced. While your eyes may be completely drawn at times to Ben Foster and his antics, it lingers completely on Pine. Nothing is overstated, but you feel and see the desperation in him at the most personal levels. Kudos to Jeff Bridges, too. While the character is similar to others he's played, the oortrayal of the ranger is another one that is understated desperation at where his life is going. My friend and I sat in stunned silence at the end of the movie, when everyone else was leaving. The ushers had come in and started cleaning by the time we left, then we got out to the parking lot and hashed it out for another 10 minutes, discussing ethics and where the ending left the characters to move on to from there.

It's also one of the best written and produced movies I've seen in a while. It uses the scenery to great effect. You absolutely feel the desolation in their lives as it's expressed in the harsh land around them. The dialogue is spare and every sentence has meaning. My movie partner and I were raving about how it's one of those rare movies that shows more than it tells. I absolutely loved the scene where they're burying that first car, like there is a huge hole in their lives and they're burying their past in their future.

It's also one of the most suspenseful movies I've seen in a long time; my heart was pounding through the majority of the movie. The only thing that kept it from exploding was the little touches of humor that never took away from the building tension, but just made the following moments so heartbreaking and eventually showed the deepest fears and hopes of each character.

I thought the movie was going to pull a Butch and Sundance, or a Thelma and Louise, with the brothers going out in a blaze of glory, together to the end, but the ending was so much more. These two who stuck together through thick or thin, knowing there was only one way out and that was in the way they'd lived their own lives up to the point they joined forces. When Tanner told Toby they were taking two cars for the last heist, it still didn't really dawn on me what Tanner intended. But it's so in character: they went separate ways at an earlier time, and they could only end following that same pattern.

Suspenseful and heartbreaking; I just can't stop thinking about it. I didn't even think it would be "my kind" of movie, I'm not frequently drawn to character study films--Silver Linings Playbook did nothing for me, I couldn't even finish it--but this one, damn, I'm glad I went to see it.

When I asked my friend to go to it, I told him it was sort of a western-style mystery; he glommed onto the "western-style" and thought it was going to be some kind of cowboy movie, because he hadn't seen the previews. Boy, was he surprised! But he ended up loving it even more than if it had been. Really, everyone should go see this.

I thought it particularly brilliant the way it draws out our sympathy for the Howard brothers. For a large part of it, the movie is a condemnation of the broken system that reduced them to this circumstances. We go along with them, wishing they'd come out of this ahead, knowing they won't, and we root for them -- until we can't. In my theater, there was an audible gasp among the audience when Alberto got shot.

I was kinda shocked to learn that the director was a Brit. The place where the drama was unfolding (West Texas and part of Oklahoma) felt like as big a character as the humans.

discussing ethics and where the ending left the characters to move on to from there.

Yeah. I wasn't sure what kind of ending we were in for. What we did get was perfect.

I was kinda shocked to learn that the director was a Brit.

I did not know that! He really had a great read on this script, then.

The place where the drama was unfolding (West Texas and part of Oklahoma) felt like as big a character as the humans.

Yes, you felt like they were fighting the land as much as they were fighting for it. It wasn't just the fact that they were fighting for their own property, but that they were fighting the vagaries of what the land both gave and took away.

He really had a great read on this script, then.

I read that the screenwriter, Taylor Sheridan, was from Texas. This is only his second filmed script. His first was for Sicario, which was one of my favourite movies of 2015. Clearly someone to watch.

That reminds me of the way Taiwan-born Ang Lee used the landscape in Brokeback--as a character itself. Hell or High Water definitely sounds interesting from both of your descriptions.

Enjoy capsule reviews of Straight Outta Compton, About Time, My Neighbor Totoro, Girlfight, The Purge, The Purge: Anarchy, The Last Five Years, Kiki's Delivery Service, Pitch Perfect 2, Cape Fear, The Hateful Eight, Jackie Brown, Prisoners and The Lobster.

So I saw Kubo and the Two Strings this afternoon, and it was lovely and there were lots of people in the audience. What a marvelous little movie: it was gorgeously made, the characters were great (especially Monkey and Beatle), and the themes of love and memory were really nicely done.

It reminded me thematically of Avatar: the Last Airbender, especially the end.

Such a nice little movie. (Although Kubo could have been a girl, with no change in the plot!)

Shoot, I thought Kubo WAS a girl.

Saw an interesting oldie over the holiday weekend: Illegal, starring Edward G. Robinson as a D.A. with political ambitions. He resigns as D.A. after convicting a man of murder, then finding out he's innocent when it's just barely too late to stop the execution. After a bit of heavy drinking, he goes into private practice and catches the eye of a local gang boss (Albert Dekker). Then his right-hand attorney from his D.A. days (Nina Foch) is accused of murdering her husband (Hugh Marlowe) -- and our former D.A. has to defend her while also not disclosing information that the gang boss wants kept non-public.

The plot itself is fairly predictable, but the movie moves fast enough that things aren't boring. Also, this is Robinson's movie -- he's front and center of most scenes, and the part fits him like a glove. And if that isn't enough, you can pick out the actors that later became famous in parts like Bones McCoy, Maxwell Smart's Chief, and Grandma Walton. Oh, and yes, that is Jayne Mansfield in a featured role as the chanteuse/mistress of the gang boss.