Review: "Queen Bees"

“Queen Bees” is sort of a “Mean Girls” for the golden years set -- nice older woman moves into a retirement home ruled by a group of imperious gals, clashes with and then joins them, helps them chill out a bit and also finds a nicely creased fellah to get all moony with.

It’s pretty predictable stuff, and you can practically map out the entire plot beforehand with sure-handed accuracy. But it’s also genuinely warmhearted, has some solid funny moments and features an admirable cast of older performers.

If movies were a meal, this is meatloaf with mashed potatoes and buttered corn: familiar comfort food. It won’t wow anyone with originality, but if you like that sort of thing you’re sure to come away satisfied.

This movie, directed by Michael Lembeck from a screenplay by Donald Martin, is notable if for no other reason that it isn’t often you see an 88-year-old actress as the lead in a mainstream film. That would be the inimitable Ellen Burstyn, who plays Helen, a fairly recent widow who clings to her independence.

Her daughter, Laura (Elizabeth Mitchell), is pushing her to sell her home and move into the nearby Pine Grove community. Her loving grandson, Peter (Matthew Barnes), acts as the supportive middleman and peacemaker between them.

But when Helen, who has a tendency to lock herself out of her house, accidentally burns down her kitchen, she agrees to move into Pine Grove for a month while repairs are done.

She soon runs afoul of the titular group that has all the other seniors running -- OK, ambling -- away in fear. They rule the central table in the dining room, decide who is or isn’t in the bridge club, and do early morning exercises in the courtyard with military precision, complete with whistles to wake everyone up.

Jane Curtin plays Janet, the iron-fisted leader of the group who takes a special dislike to Helen. But when one of their bridge foursome dies, Sally (Loretta Divine) recruits her to be her partner. It seems that she and the other queen bee, Margot (Ann-Margret), have been bucking under Janet’s stern yoke, and see Helen as a means to shake things up.

I enjoyed the portrayal of elderly folks in a rather closed community, and the comparisons to high school society are apt. Because the women outnumber the men, romance tends to be a by-committee type of thing. For example, Margot is currently sharing the amorous affections of one randy stud played by Christopher Lloyd (not me, the talented one) with a few other women. Lloyd is clearly having fun in a humorous role, complete with a squirrel’s nest toupee, though he gets one terrific, brief dramatic scene.

The other piece of the puzzle is James Caan as Dan, who moves in shortly after Helen and quickly commences with pitching woo at her, inviting her to every event going on at the retirement home. Helen resists, but soon finds those tender feelings welling up inside just when she thought they were long gone.

Caan’s a little worse for wear these days, walking gingerly with a noticeable stoop. But his scenes with Burstyn still have plenty of magic, and when they gaze into each other’s wet eyes with a feeling of longing and joy… well, I defy you not to get a little misty yourself.

“Queen Bees” is a story about fitting in, taking chances and the need to love and feel loved -- all of which are vital at any age. 

Review: "The Purge: Election Year"

Despite the title, “The Purge” isn’t an overtly political take in its third outing into a nasty dystopian future where people are allowed to murder and rape each other one night a year to vent their collective spleen.

There is indeed a presidential election going on, with the leading candidate a member of the New Founding Fathers of America, who wants to preserve the Purge as a quasi-religious way for citizens to rid themselves of their sin and wanton urges -- sort of preemptive confession and absolution, but with violence instead of penitence.

Christ spilled his blood for our sins; now let us spill others’ for the ones we haven’t committed yet.

The good candidate who wants to do away with the purge is Charlie Roan, an idealistic young Senator played by Elizabeth Mitchell. Eighteen years ago she was a victim of the Purge, losing her entire family, and now wants to do away with the day of infamy once and for all. She points out that most of those killed are poor and minority, claiming the NFFA is doing it simply to ease the burden on welfare rolls.

There’s definitely a one-percenters-versus-the-rest-of-us vibe to the Founding Fathers, who are uniformly white, old and patriarchal as all get out. If you can’t figure out who’s supposed to be who in this configuration, then a red and blue electoral map towards the end spells it out for us.

Still, this film is about bloody mayhem first, with any sort of coherent political message a distant second… or seventh.

The first “Purge” movie fell more in the horror/psychological thriller camp, as a single family was stalked inside their fortress home. The second and now the third ones are purely cathartic action flicks, with Frank Grillo as Leo, a tough but virtuous cop who gets caught up in the killing frenzy.

I liked the first two movies well enough, different as they were, but “Election Year” grows tedious at times. Like the last one it features a thrown-together group of folks just trying to survive the onslaught, who end up banding together to take down the nefarious leaders of the Purge -- giving them a goodly taste of their own medicine in the process, of course.

Mykelti Williamson plays Joe, owner of a tidy little deli/convenience store who’s determined not to see it go up in flames. He acts as both comic relief and the blue-collar voice of reason, and gets most of the best lines in the movie -- courtesy of writer and director James DeMonaco, the man behind all three movies.

Joe’s employee, a persevering Mexican-American immigrant named Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria), turns out to have some useful skills picked up during the drug wars down in Juarez. He’s also got a friend (Betty Gabriel) who runs a volunteer ambulance on Purge night, but used to be known as a champion nicknamed Little Death on the wrong side.

Edwin Hodge plays Dante Bishop, leader of upstart rebellions who oppose the Purge, but adopt its tactics. And Terry Serpico, who looks like Anthony Michael Hall’s malevolent twin, is chilling as the leader of some white power mercenaries.

“The Purge: Election Year” replicates the experience of the previous movies well enough (especially the last one) without really adding any new layers or expanding this world. There’s some disturbing images cooked up for their own benefit -- purgers dressed up as bloody Abraham Lincoln and Lady Liberty, for instance -- but there’s nowhere left for this series to go.