PLEASE GIVE: AND PLEASE WATCH

Kate: I'm not spending $ 200 on a pair of jeans for my teenage daughter when there are '45' homeless people living...
Abby: What does that have to do with anything? They don't want jeans!

Catherine Keener is one of the most under rated actresses of our time. She is lovely and amazing (ha ha) smart and tender, funny and authentic. In this film, she plays a New Yorker whose sense of guilt guides her misguided efforts to be a genuinely good person. For the lack of a more delicate explanation her family is waiting for their neighbor, a hilarious Ann Guilbert, a 90-year-old woman whose death will allow them to expand their apartment. While they are waiting, they make friends with the woman's daughters, Amanda Peet and Rebecca Hall. Intertwined in the storyline about life and death and real estate, there is the stories of the relationships between mother and daughter, husband-and-wife, sister and sister. It is a very honest film where there aren't no bad guys, just people who are trying to make things right and rationalize their actions. Basically, it's about people trying to get along with each other however misguided their attempts may be. It is a subtle and poignant film, not to be missed.

HAPPY TEARS: SAD MOVIE

I really wanted to like this movie. Demi Moore (Laura) and Parker Posey (Jayne) are both competent and potentially wonderful actresses when given the right roles. However, the roles weren't so bad as the script on the whole. An ailing father and two adult sisters, both very different, return to care for them the best they can. It turned out to be a maudlin, crazy ride of a film; fantasy sequences that add more confusion than anything. The high point for me was watching the few minutes of Ellen Barkin as a hot mess of a crack whore. Overall, I found this movie depressing without any good payoff at the end, despite all its efforts.

SUNSHINE CLEANING

SUNSHINE CLEANING IS SPOTLESS
Rose Lorkowski (Amy Adams) wants a better life for her son and herself. After her mother died when sh was young, she has spent her life taking care of everyone but herself. Full of high hopes and positive affirmations, she works as a housekeeper until she can earn her real estate license; her ticket out. She passes the time in a "relationship" with her high school boyfriend, now married to someone else. She struggles to care for her handful of a son, her get-rich-quick scheming father, Joe (Alan Arkin) and her emotionally bruised sister Norah (Emily Blunt). She tries to find solace in the arms of her married ex-high school boyfriend, Mac, but she comes up alone and broken. An opportunity comes knocking; working as a crime scene clean-up worker to which she dives into full force, dragging her sister behind her. Rose exudes confidence and starts to glow with the pride of doing meaningful work and feeling like she is making a difference. Her sister reluctantly joins her as she seems allergic to working in general.
She doesn't like it, but tries her best, perhaps to please her sister and even finding her own self worth. She has spent a lifetime morning the loss of her mother without being sure exactly how to do just that. She is a pathetic mess trying to find some peace of mind.

SISTERS

SISTERS... WAS MADE ONCE, FOR A GOOD REASON
(bigger picture doesn't mean better one)

In 1973 Brian De Palma released the original Sisters, staring Margot Kidding. Some movies never could be re-made. Some movies should never be re-made. This is one of them. Slowly we are introduced to our characters. Grace (Chloe Sevigny) is an investigative reporter working on an expose about Doctor Philip Lacan (Steven Rea) as she is sure he is mistreating his patients. Newcomer, Lou Doillon, is the mysterious woman, Angelique Tristiana, who draws Grace in deeper than she ever thought possible. It was hard to stay awake for the first part of this film. The second half quickly provided motive and action and even felt like a totally different picture. However, both parts sucked majorly. The gore and the script seemed terribly forced and the actors involved, followed soon after. This isn't a horror movie, despite the blood, it isn't a suspenseful film because you can guess the ending. Existentially speaking, this film just wasn't.

NOT a pick: Stay home and rock in the fetal position and then rent almost anything else.