February 23rd, 2009

This weekend Ex-wife rented Blindness with what looked like a good cast (Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Julianne Moore). In a word it’s HORRIBLE. I am glad to only have caught the last 45 minutes of this, and thinking I utilized the other hour for better pursuits. This story is a mess. It reminds me a bit of Doomsday (a UK version of an outbreak movie with Scotland this time being isolated and rescuers going in to see who if anyone has survived). Neither movie really works that well but Doomsday was better. There is this uncertain virus in a city that makes people blind and so they are put in isolation. In truth I am not sure where Ex-wife finds these movies, but she strikes me in her selections like a kid playing with her parents’ gun. You don’t know what she’s going to pick, but in the end you know someone will get hurt. Usually it’s me having to sit through another painful selection. She usually hates my picks.

February 9th, 2009

So this weekend I managed to get out to see Taken.   I will preface this by saying that at Gran Torino, Ex-wife saw the preview of this and thought that she would like to see it.  A couple weeks later it is out, and we went to see it.  I did not get out to see an Oscar nominated film.   I highly doubt that this one will fall into that category at next year’s awards.

This is a fairly simple plot, but a departure for Liam Neeson in becoming more of an action spy hero guy (think Jason Bourne who remembers what he does for a living).  Liam was a dedicated government man who let his job rule his life and it cost him his marriage.  He has a daughter who he moved closer to in looking to re-build a relationship with her.   She is a perky, 17yo just finishing high school who doesn’t lack for anything (Mom re-married well).   Anyway, daughter wants to go to Paris with her 19yo friend and ‘stay with adults’ in Paris.   Dad is concerned but begrudgingly agrees to let her go.   Not minutes upon arriving, daughter ends up in trouble and is kidnapped.   I am giving nothing away here that was not already given away in the trailer.   The rest of the movie is spent with Dad trying to track down his daughter through the criminal underworld in Paris.  The big bad Albanians (An Armenian co-worker would be proud) are a criminal syndicate that have a good stronghold in Paris.   Suffice it to say that my difficulty with this movie comes from the level of disbelief required in having Neeson track down the baddies.   Quite frankly I can’t see how even having someone’s name and picture alone allows you to find a guy attending a party in a city the size of Paris.  Or that have a blurry picture in a reflection in a window allows you to find someone at CDG airport in Paris.   That airport is monstrous!   Anyway, I can confirm shrugging my shoulders at the end of it and thinking this was mind candy.   The director seems to have seen a little too much Jason Bourne films and Neeson does his best to act like a spy.   I smiled and laughed at the disdain and disinterest in all the other ‘victims’ in this scheme that Neeson was singularly focused.  I cannot recommend seeing it in the theatre.

January 14th, 2009

So Saturday night I did get out to see Gran Torino and I enjoyed it a great deal.  It was funnier than I had expected, with the racist humour that can be uncomfortable at times.   At the same time, you see this as very much in character for this “grumpy old man” who lives in an old neighborhood in Michigan that is no longer “his people”.   The theatre on Saturday (Colossus) was packed!   Lots of people out to see movies, and I noted at least two more that I need to see (Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire).   I caught the last 30 minutes in the Golden Globes and was pleasantly surprised to see Kate Winslet win two awards (Best Actress and Supporting Actress) and from her reaction and ill-preparedness for the latter she was too!   I had thought that Kriten Scott Thomas is still the likely winner for the Oscar (or Meryl).   It also seems that this Slumdog Millionaire is a movie to go see as well.   It is getting quite a buzz.   So I’ll need to check it out.

December 29th, 2008

The Bucket List was on Friday night and I watched 90% of it (missing the first 10%).   I did not take anything out of it really.   Then two nights ago WIT was on with Emma Thompson as a professor who is stricken with ovarian cancer (which took a law school friend of mine a number of years ago).   If you want to see a movie about a cancer survivor, with months to live then the more realistic movie is Wit, and you also get more out of it.   That was Ebert’s point on the Bucket List.   Heck Terms of Endearment deals with it more realistically too, and is a better vehicle for Nicholson.  So it is with eager anticipation that I look forward to a night out at the movies.  Another movie to add to the list to see will be the new Winslet/DiCaprio film (Revolutionary Road).   I did watch Mamma Mia the other night too.   It was decent.  I had seen the play.  Pierce Brosnan should stay away from singing anything ever again.  Streep I guess because she is who she is (one of the greatest living actresses) gets this role, but I think that there are better singers available here.   The scenery is excellent and is a nice travel brochure for Greece.    This movie (and play for that matter) turns on the song “The Winner Takes It All” and Streep handles it effectively.   The stage version was even better I felt.

November 4th, 2008

So this week was one of those rare occasions that I actually had a chance to go out and see a REAL movie at a REAL movie theatre.   The movie:  Changeling.  The Theatre:  Colossus.   It was a fairly busy night on Saturday to see the 7:10 show, yes, although I am an adult I still have a 4 yo who needs to get to his bed after a long day.   Ex-wife had really wanted to see this one, and it turns out her sister and her husband saw the same movie at a different theatre on Saturday.   I enjoyed this movie and the performances.   As an actor I think it would be hard to take on the Jolie role here as you are constantly being asked to get emotional and tear up.   It would be a difficult shoot for her.   As a storyline, I liked the arc and where it went.  I was surprised at a couple of the turns.  It is more disturbing to see that this is a true story, and that there was an continues to be tremendous powers in the police force.   Unfortunately all of the bad stories seem to come out of the LAPD.   But I have little doubt other such stories exist elsewhere at the same time.    I had a couple of questions for this film however, like how does a single woman with a child manage to get a mortgage for a house in 1928?   I saw no family to speak of to help her out or co-sign for the mortgage.  Presumably if your child disappeared, you would have parents and others for support.   I further noted the one gaff in the print where it was evident that Angelina’s tattoo (one of many) on her back was clearly visible.   I will not go further into this story than to say that I think that Clint Eastwood in his latter years is putting together an impressive body of work.   Jolie has a very good performance here and could likely garner some Academy support for it.   I would not be disappointed if she did.   This story incidentally brings forth a notion that I have always maintained in that there have always been freaks and ‘bad people’ but in older times we were not so aware of them.  Yet again, southern California has been home to a number of them.   By sheer population increase alone (California has as many people as in all of Canada), we would have more of these freaks, but it is not to say that our children are in any more danger or any safer than before.   Missing children and the attitude surrounding them has undergone some change with Amber alerts and the like, but there is still that feeling in police departments I suspect that searching for a young child is not a top priority.   As a parent, this is disconcerting.

June 18th, 2007

As for movies I tried watching the Will Ferrell ice dance movie and could not get through it (Blades of Steel?).  The movie is just too darned stupid.  It is not very funny.  Napolean Dynamite should consider a sequel to ND soon, rather than other roles which have bombed (like Benchwarmers and this stinker).

Shopgirl was on a fair bit this past weekend (Sat AM and also Sat night) and I watched a little bit of it.   I also watched the last Sopranos episode and all I have to say there is ‘nothing like petering out’.  I liked the head crunching by the SUV on Phil, but the plot here was confusing and tried unsuccessfully to tie up a lot of loose ends.  Half the ends I had no idea who or what they were dealing with.   So a thumbs down for me.  I only watched the Sopranos from the last couple of seasons and to be honest I think that it’s overrated.  His endings are generally lame like the Xmas set-up at the end of last season.  So I have little incentive to actually rent the previous seasons and try and get caught up.  I find little AJ annoying and typical of his generation.  I would have let him go to the Army and learn some discipline.   But that’s just me.

May 9th, 2008

Atonement:  Saw this movie last night.  I had no sympathy for the young girl whatsoever, and thought her simply to be a precocious bitch who thought she knew more than the rest of them.  Without any sympathy (and frankly I didn’t like her at all, and would rather give her a spanking than anything else) this movie falls apart in the end.  Yes, you can understand where it goes, but you’re not really satisfied with the result.   This movie jumps around a lot as well.   I really had no idea what buddy was doing in WWII, where he was (yes he was in France, but what was this pull out?)   I might have my dates wrong and he was there at the beginning of the war when the Germans took over without firing a shot, as opposed to DDay and the return.  Even so, how did he get injured?  Was there NO medical attention?    To me, there was no atoning for what was done, in the least, and simply writing about it isn’t nearly enough.   I would like it if movie directors would get back to telling stories in a linear fashion rather than bouncing around between times and places.   This movie with all the other nominated films again showed me that this was indeed a weak year.   A movie like Saving Private Ryan or Chinatown that lost out on an Oscar for Best Picture would have won this year in a landslide.

April 15th, 2008

As for movies, I saw Enchanted on the plane on the way back home and it was okay.   A fun story that my 10yo daughter would enjoy.   I liked Stardust better, but maybe that was because I like Claire Danes a little better than Amy Adams.   I am not really a Dempsey fan.   I also finished watching Gone Baby Gone on the flight over.   When I got back home I watched Knocked Up, which was not really very funny.  There were a couple of decent laughs but nothing that made me roll on the floor.   The scene were she tells him that she is pregnant – now THAT was funny with his reaction!   However, NOT in this lifetime would Seth EVER get to be in bed with Heigl here.   It just doesn’t happen except in movies and TV.   Ugly fat dudes who are unshaven and act like children get to date Roseann Barr and not supermodels.

March 25th, 2008

So I had a chance to catch a couple flicks over the long weekend.   I saw Rendition which to me was only average.    Not much of a stretch performance for Reese Witherspoon, and it seemed everyone involved had little ‘skin in the game’ to help out the poor sap who was taken away and imprisoned for questioning.   I find it interesting that they hint that there is always a US observer for the interrogation sessions involving nasty torture.   These are (sometimes) their own people getting tortured like this.   This has a good cast (Meryl Streep too) but it does not show you the end result and whether this practice has stopped.   I suspect somehow that it continues.   Where’s the due process?   Where is the trial amongst peers and being able to face your accuser?   The “home of the free” takes another beating in the guise of national security.   I hardly think of the Jake character as a hero, who simply has his job on the line that he really can’t seem to stomach anyway.

Last night it was No Country for Old Men.   A disappointment to put a word on it.    There was a build up here for a really good battle between the headstrong dude (Brolin) looking to keep his ill-gotten booty, and the mindless automaton (terminator-like killer) looking to exact some revenge, but then it all fizzles out.   Harrelson dies limply.   Brolin who looked to be ready and preparing himself for a kick ass battle just ends up dead, and you have a closing speech by Jones as the retired cop, and Spanish buddy (Javier Bardem) walking away with a broken arm from a senseless crash in his car.   I had expected more.  Is this really the Best Picture of the year?!   Sad to say that if it is, then it was indeed a lean year.    Funnily, no sooner had Tommy Lee Jones’ faces gone black off the screen did my ex-Wife jump out of her chair and say “Is that it?!”   It pissed her off to no end, and she claimed this is why she doesn’t like the Oscars.   Because of the above, I tend to agree with her on this one.    And Spanish buddy (Bardem) wins a Best Supporting role here.  For what?!   How many lines did he actually deliver?   Is the little discussion with the Texas native in the gas station enough to make that happen?   I don’t know but it is disappointing.   So I cannot agree on this being a great film.   I will accept all arguments to the contrary.