Watched A Good Year with Russell Crowe last night and was finishing it from catching the ending a few nights back. Yes, it’s a formula movie and we have seen it many times in movies like Under the Tuscan Sun and Family Man and Baby Boom where the workaholic person who cares only for money, learns to love and appreciate a beautiful place and settle down. Naturally they almost always have a multi-million dollar place given to them for consideration, and in this case it’s an estate with pool, tennis court and vineyard in Provence in France. The scenery is lovely and worthwhile itself (and probably the reason I like the movie so much). The performances are good as I liked the people and wanted the best for them. The female lead is striking (Marion Cotillard) and I hope is in more movies to come. Russell seems to be getting back on screen after a bit of a hiatus, and does a decent job here. This was directed by Ridley Scott, which surprised me as he seems to do more epics, but he has a very impressive body of work (Blade Runner, Alien, Black Hawk Down, Gladiator and Kingdom of Heaven to name a few)…
Perhaps it all gets explained away in the idea that I am thinking about spending some time in Europe this summer and it would be nice to head to the south of France and enjoy this scenery. I was able to remove the public Russell Crowe badboy here from the character (as he does his best to play Hugh Grant as a cad)….but I also liked her (Marion Cotillard) and I am presently trying to find out where I can see La Vie En Rose which has her playing Edith Piaf. Looks like a good movie that I heard nothing about. It looks like it is out on DVD, but is only playing in Toronto at a small theatre on Queen Street. A long drive for a movie headed to video soon, and likely not a big screen flick anyway.
Mondays With Robbie 