Four Upcoming Movies for Old People

I don’t know what this says about my readers, but my most viewed page by far is titled “Four Young Girls Go to the Movies.” What are you people expecting to find there? Here we have the opposite. Four movies currently in production or about to go into production featuring senior citizens in the lead roles.

GREAT HOPE SPRINGS – A middle-aged couple goes through an intense weekend of counseling to examine issues threatening their thirty year marriage. Meryl Streep reteams with her DEVIL WEARS PRADA director David Frankel after Mike Nichols dropped out of the project following a table read.

@ – Ooh, pinch me. Where do I sign up to not watch a pair of grandparents bicker about their dying love? Escapist entertainment at its yuckiest. I’m going to trust Nichols’ instincts on this one.

THE LOOK OF LOVE – A widow (Diane Keaton) meets a man (Ed Harris) who looks exactly like her dead husband. That connection rekindles old feelings.

@@ – Ew. I don’t want to see Diane Keaton rekindling anything. Besides, this is like STARMAN but without The Dude being an alien, and honestly, who would have gone to see that?

MR. MORGAN’S LAST LOVE – Sir Michael Caine stars as a retired, widowed American philosophy professor in Paris. His life is changed when he meets a much younger woman. Dramedy based on a French novel.

@@ – What’s NOT wrong with this picture? It’s bad enough that the protagonist is an old retired widower, but making him a philosophy professor? Not even an active one, but a retired former has-been philosophy professor. It’s like they’re trying to come up with the most boring, uncinematic character imaginable. And then making him American but casting a Brit? And setting it in France? Are they trying to get people to not want to see this? Who’s producing this, Bialystock and Bloom? Are there a bunch of little old ladies somewhere investing in this? I don’t know what they mean by “much younger,” but might I recommend you instead check out Mr. Caine getting it on with a much younger woman in an all-out comedy farce (no apologetic “dramedic” attempts to be serious) in 1984’s BLAME IT ON RIO? I would so love to see a sequel to that instead of whatever this is. Maybe Caine could hook up with Michelle Johnson‘s granddaughter!

MAX ROSE – A widower revisits key moments in his life to unlock the mysteries of his marriage and family. Jerry Lewis has announced plans to star in this indie drama which has not begun production yet.

@@@ – If Lewis’s character is also in any way a washed up comedic performer, then Dick Van Dyke did a similar movie in the 1960s called THE COMIC that sucked. This sounds like a vehicle for Lewis to attempt to make a respectable final big screen bow, like the way comedic actor Peter Sellers wowed everyone with his dramatic-ish role in BEING THERE before he croaked. There is no real concept to this movie, so it all depends on the execution. It may be surprising. For me, Lewis’ best film performance ever was a straight role as Robert De Niro’s kidnap victim in Martin Scorsese’s THE KING OF COMEDY. So it might be interesting to see how this plays out.