{"id":11216,"date":"2024-09-26T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-26T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11216"},"modified":"2026-01-04T13:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T18:11:10","slug":"looking-for-a-weekend-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=11216","title":{"rendered":"Looking for a Weekend Movie?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Here are brief takes on four films we\u2019ve seen lately. All have good points. The one I enjoyed most is first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cowboy and the Queen
<\/em>You may have seen previous coverage of horse whisperer Monty Roberts. Now you see him in a reflective mood, looking back over the shape of his career. Son of an abusive dad, he was determined not to follow that path (trailer<\/a>). By watching horses in the wild, he began to understand how they communicated, and he adopted their approach in his training. \u201cBreaking horses,\u201d he says, amounts to breaking their spirit; they\u2019re abused until they give up. He doesn\u2019t do it that way. So, where does the Queen come in? We\u2019re talking about Elizabeth II, late monarch of Britain, who read articles about Roberts and wanted him to coach some of her equerries in his methods. Like most traditional U.S. horsemen, they were skeptical. They relied on using their aggressive techniques for a week or two until the horse would accept a saddle and, ultimately, a rider. Roberts could achieve this in less than twenty minutes. The Queen comes across beautifully, and so does the cowboy! A real feel-good film. For a fictional take on humane horse-training, there\u2019s the wonderful 2018 film, The Rider<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Critic
<\/em>You can\u2019t fault Ian McKellan\u2019s portrayal of an odious 1930s theater critic for a dying London newspaper (trailer<\/a>). He delights in skewering the shows and performers he reviews, and, although at first I found him a nice contrast to the starchy newspaper publisher, when he roped an ambitious female lead into his manipulative schemes, I gave up on him. The performances are all good, but he\u2019s no hero.
Rotten Tomatoes Critics\u2019 Rating<\/a>: 47%; Audiences: 73%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between the Temples
<\/em>Ben Gottlieb (Jason Schwartzman) is the nebbishy cantor of a synagogue with a transparently ambitious rabbi (trailer<\/a>). Through stress and anxiety, he\u2019s lost his voice and is near suicide. Coming to his rescue (in more ways than one) is Mrs. Kessler (Carol Kane), his elementary school choral teacher. No one in their families is sure what the relationship is, exactly, they just know they don\u2019t like it. Some good jokes, some outlandish family behavior. A pleasant film with a few slow spots.
Rotten Tomatoes Critics\u2019 Rating<\/a>: 85%; Audiences: 41%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Skincare
<\/em>This thriller loosely inspired by a true story, centers on a Hollywood entrepreneur who has developed her own line of facial products, using European (fancy!) ingredients (trailer<\/a>). Her struggling business faces an existential crisis when a competitor moves in across the street. Violence ensues (nothing too graphic). Entertaining, and Elizabeth Banks is perfect as the increasingly frantic beauty maven. Coincidentally, I recently read a short piece about her in The New Yorker<\/em>, where she talked about difficulty getting parts in her early career, in part because \u201cI wasn\u2019t pretty enough.\u201d In this film, she\u2019s a knockout!
Rotten Tomatoes Critics\u2019 Rating<\/a>: 65%; Audiences: 64%.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here are brief takes on four films we\u2019ve seen lately. All have good points. The one I enjoyed most is first. The Cowboy and the QueenYou may have seen previous coverage of horse whisperer Monty Roberts. Now you see him … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Any of these films at your local cinema? One is great, the rest get mixed reviews, but still have their strong points.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[269,265,61,272,52,366,57,35,104,32],"tags":[2236,2238,2235,2233,2232,2237,2231,2234],"class_list":["post-11216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-actor","category-biography","category-character","category-comedy","category-crime","category-drama","category-movies","category-real-life","category-the-morgue","category-thriller","tag-between-the-temples","tag-elizabeth-banks","tag-ian-mckellan","tag-monty-roberts","tag-queen-elizabeth-ii","tag-skincare","tag-the-cowboy-and-the-queen","tag-the-critic"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2UU","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11216"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11218,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11216\/revisions\/11218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}