Q-Tips Reviews

Live Twice Love Once –  Emilio searches for the great love of his youth, with the help of his daughter and granddaughter. Will he be able to reconnect with this lost love before his memory fails?

Q – tips say: Was OK – enjoyed it.  Drama about facing Alzheimer’s.  Need to know: that Live Twice, Love Once is a Spanish-language film set in and around Valencia, Spain. It’s a dramatic story, incorporating comedy and irony, about a university mathematics professor after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. As the retired professor’s condition worsens, his relationship with his exasperating but well-meaning daughter and his own awareness of what is to come send him on a journey to find an early love that he’s never forgotten. Some profanity is included, mostly “f–k,” often uttered by a precocious 11-year-old. While there’s no sexuality, infidelity plays a role in the story. Wine is consumed in social settings; some drunkenness occurs at a boisterous wedding. For English-speaking audiences, the film is available on Netflix, either translated (dubbed) into English or with English subtitles.

TROOP ZERO – In rural 1977 Georgia, a misfit girl (Mckenna Grace) dreams of life in outer space. When a national competition offers her a chance at her dream, to be recorded on NASA’s Golden Record, she recruits a makeshift troop of Birdie Scouts, forging friendships that last a lifetime and beyond. NOTE: PG (for thematic elements, language, and smoking throughout.)

Q-tips say: We did like it.   The movie offers a lovely message of self-worth that makes the picture mandatory viewing for pre-teen audiences.

Once upon a Time in Hollywood – Quentin Tarantino’s ninth feature film is a story that takes place in Los Angeles in 1969, at the height of hippy Hollywood. The two lead characters are Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio), former star of a western TV series, and his longtime stunt double Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). Both are struggling to make it in a Hollywood they don’t recognize anymore. But Rick has a very famous next-door neighbor…Sharon Tate.

Q-tips say:  Complex, conversation-starting look back at the film business at the close of a tumultuous decade.  No real plot, fancy car driving shots with some stand out scenes but overall disjointed and a tad dull.  Many famous names/actors.

1917 – At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers, Schofield (Captain Fantastic’s George MacKay) and Blake (Game of Thrones’ Dean-Charles Chapman) are given a seemingly impossible mission. In a race against time, they must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers–Blake’s own brother among them.

Q-tips say: 1917 is an impressive technical achievement, 1917 captures the trench warfare of World War I with raw, startling immediacy.   War remains hell, and this movie shows us that inferno to devastating effect. Not an easy movie, but certainly a memorable one. Technically, it is undeniably impressive.

JOKER -Joker is indelibly portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix. It is of a man struggling to find his way in Gotham’s fractured society. A clown-for-hire by day, he aspires to be a stand-up comic at night…but finds the joke always seems to be on him. Caught in a cyclical existence between apathy and cruelty, Arthur makes one bad decision that brings about a chain reaction of escalating events in this gritty character study.    

Q-tips say:
The Mr. really wanted to see this movie.  Mrs. Q said, “ok, let’s get it over with and see it.”  Dark, weird movie about a sick, mentally sick person and much killing.

Mrs. Q says: With all the killing/destruction in our society these days, do we need another movie that children see and follow thru with what  is done in this movie. The ending shows others in clown masks celebrating what “Joker” has done – killing all types of people.

Shame on [Martin] Scorsese for making this piece of trash. He has much more talent than that. I guess violence & killing sells in Hollywood and other places. But since he did, Mrs. Q will say that he picked Joaquin Phoenix to be the Joker and Joaquin did an excellent job in acting as the Joker which is a most difficult role indeed.

R (for many strong bloody violence killing, disturbing behavior, language and brief sexual images). No child or young adult should see this movie.