The Last Five

Since I am not following the Olympics and most of my programs are on break during the games, I have cranked through a lot of movies in the past week.

42 (2013):  This film about Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in major league baseball was decent, but I tend to find biopics boring.  In recent years, the biopics about Truman Capote, Johnny Cash, and Ray Charles all left me cold.  I would have preferred to watch a good documentary about each person.  Even though I knew Robinson endured unbelievable racism, it was still startling to be reminded of the overt prejudice of that era.  Harrison Ford stars as Branch Rickey, the Dodgers executive who signed Jackie Robinson, and I found his performance to be oddly distracting.
3 out of 5

Enough Said (2013):  I appreciate that the characters in Nicole Holofcener movies tend to be flawed, but not horribly unpleasant.  Sometimes movies that are trying to present "real" characters are tough to get through because I don't want to spend 90 minutes with a nasty or miserable person.  The characters in Enough Said could be snobby or hurtful, but were also capable of being funny and kind.  This was James Gandolfini's last movie and I enjoyed watching him embody a character so different from Tony Soprano.
3 out of 5-- but a high 3

He Got Game (1998):  I decided to watch this Spike Lee joint during NBA All-Star Weekend since I was in the basketball zone.  I always liked Ray Allen during his Celtic years, but man, I did not like this movie.  It would have been nice if a single person in high-school-basketball-star Jesus Shuttleworth's life wasn't trying to take advantage of him.  I understand how a kid growing up with no money and a bleak family life could be extremely manipulated by others who hoped to benefit from his success, but just one friend, family member, or coach who wasn't a greedy douche would have been a nice inclusion.  Denzel Washington's portrayal of Jesus's convict father was super dickish, but I think that was intended.
2 out of 5

Salinger (2013):  I just said I would prefer to watch a documentary about an interesting person rather than a biopic.  Well, this documentary may be the exception to that rule.  I think the fact that Salinger was such a private person and so few of the people close to him were interviewed kind of tanked this documentary.  There was very little new or interesting information presented that a fourteen-year-old who loves Catcher in the Rye couldn't find on Wikipedia.  (And to be clear, I loved Catcher in the Rye and Salinger's Glass stories when I was a young adult.)  He was a recluse with a penchant for very young women.  Nothing groundbreaking there.
3 out of 5-- but a low 3

Short Term 12 (2013):  I listed these movies in alphabetic order, but that coincided with saving the best for last.  Short Term 12 is a funny, sweet, and also heartbreaking movie about young adults in a residential home and the staff who work with them.  The main character Grace was a mess, but a mess who excelled at a difficult job and had good reasons for her emotional messiness.  I very much liked this movie.
4 out of 5