Two Movies

 Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen two movies.  One of them I liked, the other I detested.

First, the film that I liked... "Nuremberg"

Ever since the movie premiered in the U.S. last December, I had wanted to see it.  At that time, the talk was that Russell Crowe was a shoe-in for an Academy Award.  (As it turned out, he did not even get a nomination, although I think that he was worthy of one.)  I have no idea why it did not appear in the movie theaters here until a couple weeks ago.  Usually films from the U.S. premiere in Mexico at about the same time.

The movie is a sold historical film, although not as good as the award-winning "Judgement at Nuremberg" from 1961.  The plot centers around an army psychiatrist (Rami Malek) who is assigned to ascertain whether or not the Nazi war criminals, including Hermann Goering (Russell Crowe), are mentally fit to stand trial.  The performances were excellent, especially Crowe, who learned to speak what to my ear seemed to be flawless German.

Now the movie which we both hated... "If I Had Legs, I'd Kick You"

The film centers around a therapist, wife and mother whose life is falling apart.  Her husband is away at work, and she must deal with a myriad of problems on her own.  Her daughter has an unspecified disorder that requires that she be fed through a tube in her stomach.  The ceiling of their apartment collapses, and she and her daughter must move into a shabby motel.  She turns to alcohol and drugs as an escape.  The character does not earn the viewers' sympathy.  She is simply too shrill, angry and argumentative.

For some reason the critics raved about this movie, but we just wanted it to be over.  One movie goer, however, wrote a review on the internet which encapsulated our feelings perfectly... "too much strife, too much stress, too much shouting, too much whining..."

Sitting through the nearly two hours of the film was torture.  We thought that it was the worst movie that we had seen in a long time!