September 1st, 2009

Last night it was Pride and Glory with Edward Norton and Colin Farrell, and the red-headed guy who played Jim Carey’s best friend in Truman (Noah Emmerich).   I am a big Norton fan but have been utterly underwhelmed by his choice of movies in the last little while.   He is better than the material he has been working with, and this is no exception.   I found this predictable, although there were minor twists like Carrottop NOT taking the money so that he could pay for his Wife’s expensive cancer-treatment drugs.   There was little in the way of development in the Norton-girl relationship and others areas were begun but not finished.  This movie was okay, but when another movie like Serpico about police corruption is on earlier in the weekend, it makes this one seem weak.

I had not even realized until elder son was talking about seeing Halloween 2 with his friends, that THIS Halloween was based upon a 2007 remake of the original Halloween done by Carpenter (and starring Jamie Lee Curtis) for which I KNOW that there was a sequel.  Then last night I caught the first hour or so of this Rob Zombie re-make of Halloween where they are explaining more about Michael Myers (how does Austin Powers think about this?) and why he became what he did.  How typical to blame it on a stripper mother.   Isn’t it MORE scary if this psycho comes from the kid-next-door from a middle class family with no apparent dysfunction?   Why the gratuitous use of nudity, when it’s not really necessary?   Do I really need to see the full frontal nudity of this clearly acknowledged 17yo cheerleader who is full of herself?   Why this mass of long hair in front of Myers’ face all the time, and why the fascination with masks?   Now Scout Taylor-Compton is cute and worthy of seeing a sequel, but I went to bed early not finishing it and did not feel less because of it.

April 6th, 2009

So last night was Benjamin Button time, and I have to say that I was disappointed in this.   I am more disappointed in the actions of the main character and the fact that you lose any sympathy that you have for him.  He is already in a challenged relationship with his lady-friend, and yet he decides to walk away from the relationship at a very early stage.  He does not get to enjoy watching his daughter grow up.  Instead he writes her postcards about wishing to be there to kiss her better or see her first day of school.   At the age of 30-something, he could be a very good father to her, and yet HE decides on behalf of everyone to just leave.   How sad.   I am also puzzled by the daughter saying that she knew nothing about her Mom’s dance past (as she opens up some pictures of her).   Well Mom owns and operates a dance studio, you think that she would have her marquee posters up from the ballet in Russia and NY and other places.  That would help with business.   Overall, a remarkable make-up performance, but an unsatisfying movie that loses it’s Forrest Gump appeal with the choices that our main character makes.   Funny too how the young couple when they finally get together live in squalor with no furniture.  Why?  He owns a very successful button business, and the home of his father.  Clearly he would have money to do more than live with nothing.   You can set sail around the islands and enjoy that life, surely you can afford a proper bed!   Needless to say, I had a number of issues with the film.

April 1st, 2009 – April Fool

Frost/Nixon:  I watched this last night.  I liked it.  Although in some ways, the entire movie turns on whether or not Richard Nixon actually made that phonecall to Frost in his hotel room.  If, in fact, he did, then that was a colossal blunder.   Like gloating in the 7th inning when winning 11-0 it does nothing but motivate the other guy (who is already down) to put you away.   This is what happened to Frost who was not over-matched but simply did not direct his mind to the no holds barred duel that he was only watching until then.   He had to focus on the 10% of the time that Nixon did stuff that he knew was wrong and did them anyway.    I was surprised that the Nixon team did not subtract from that last taping episode the 25 minutes that Frost spent asking about burning the tapes.

Nixon was a sharp guy, no doubt, but he was also highly suspicious and had an inferiority complex.  Losing his governor’s race earlier in his career scarred him for life.   Anyway, I enjoyed this as I had studied Watergate back in University with John Dean (book Blind Ambition) and All the President’s Men.   It’s an interesting lesson in mistakes and trying to cover them up.  Both the principal actors did a fine job here, and notably the guy who played Nixon (Frank Langella).   That was good.   I loved the mental games he played with him just before going on air “So…did you fornicate last night?…”  LMAO!!

March 30th, 2009

I did manage to watch Rachel Getting Married last night and I enjoyed it.  It’s amazing how you get deeper into someone’s life, and how little comments made earlier in the movie (like the first scene) are much more hurtful than you initially thought.  This story unravels at a good pace, and you can see the underlying issues come forward.  Funny that I didn’t have the sense that you did that this was a wedding that I wouldn’t want to attend.   Actually the food and the music seemed marvelous.   There was a curious mix of ethnic genres here (Indian, African, blues, island), and there were some cliché areas that could have gone wrong but they (to their credit did not) – like the racial issue.   The Father is an interesting figure here, as I also thought was Debra Winger as the Mother and the pivotal scene where daughter goes to confront Mother.  Sadly we don’t get much of a resolution on that front, except my take which was that Mom was just looking to put that all behind her and move on.    I started not liking the me-only Hathaway character but she became more sympathetic as you explored her a little more.  She feels, and feels deeply.   Her reaction to those feelings are self-destructive, and it was very emotional for me to think about what she went through in that car.   I thought that the rest of the cast played this out well.

March 26th, 2009

I watched Slumdog Millionaire last night and I enjoyed it.  There are a lot of depressing images here from the slums in India , and I cannot imagine going there and seeing it first hand.   At the same time it opens your eyes as to why you have a money pouch when you travel.   It’s a feel-good story with a plot that is interesting   But it was good to watch and created some real tension.   I was most impressed by the child actors in this film as they are all very good.   They made this film what it is.  Sure, on some level I wonder how a young girl living in that kind of poverty and situation turns out to look the way that she does (and she is a striking woman).   I liked the way that they explained Dev Patel’s knowledge of seemingly independent questions with things that have happened in his life.  The relationship with the brother is an interesting one and the redemption that occurs at the end.   Was this the BEST movie of the year?   I don’t know.  But so far it is a pretty good one.

March 23rd, 2009

The Day the Earth Stood Still:  I have not seen the original.   I liked the premise and the story and it was more engaging than I thought that it would be.   Reeves plays a very wooden character well that is not really sure about being human, but this is a typical Reeves performance.    This movie also plays on an interesting idea that John Cleese of all people, expands upon very well.  Without giving too much away, you have a sense about how any alien being would see the human race if it had to deal with our leaders and our military.  Time and time again, in ET, Starman and others you see our true colours only shown by who we are and how we react than by our over-protective government.  I liked this movie and was glad that I watched it.   I thought that it was touching when the boy took the alien to the meeting place nearby and made a request that only he could make.   It’s a nice moment.

Hulk:  So in re-making this movie you have a solid cast, with Norton, William Hurt and the underutilized Tim Roth.  I do really wish that Tim Roth did more work, since he plays such a good villain.   But then you try and make the Hulk the hero and a more tragic hero, without ultimately making it ‘tragic’. I think that the problem is that the viewer has no real feelings or sympathy for the green monster and that makes it fall flat. You also go through the first movie with the beginnings of the Hulk in the opening credits which now you presume that the viewer already gets and accepts.  Banner now is being mercilessly tracked down, and he’s trying to prevent himself (or his blood) from being turned into a weapon. And yet in the end he accepts the need for utilizing his alter ego as a weapon. Norton was very involved in this project but I am not sure why. The fight scenes are still like watching King Kong on a computer game.  The final clip of this was just pure cheese, and I am presuming that we are talking about the Hulk and Iron Man getting together here (God I hope not).  I would like to see Norton stick to meatier material here, and utilize his real acting talents.  They are wasted on this material.   Liv Tyler, what the heck has happened to you? – or is it just me that thinks her overbite has gone into surreal mode.

Oddly enough I have seen Jennifer Connelly is two recent viewings with Pollack and The Day the Earth Stood Still and she would have been better in reprising the Hulk role than Tyler.

March 17th, 2009

So last night I watched on MPix movies on demand Pollock, which I had been meaning to see for a long time.  I was interested in Ed Harris but importantly to see what it had to say about the creative process.  Quite frankly I am not a fan of modern art, but I do enjoy the creative process and trying to better understand it.   Pollock was a wanna-be great artist in my mind from the US working in the shadows of Picasso.   Picasso seemed to be just one step ahead of him, even as they were contemporaries.   What I had not remembered until later on in the movie was the performance here of Marcia Gay Harden, who was outstanding.   She wins the Oscar as I am now seeing, and deservedly so.  There is a scene where Pollock is demanding a child from her, after she had essentially demanded a wedding ring from him and she denies him.  She has a great speech where she talks emotionally about the fact that they have little money, but he is a great artist but that he “needs, needs, needs” all the time.  And the look on his face shows that he understands that she is correct.   It is a powerful scene for a woman who is his greatest supporter, but who is more like his manager than his spouse and lover.   He gets into this drip painting essentially and it’s messier and less precise than pointillism (like Georges Seurat and Claude Monet) which I enjoy very much.   Anyway, it’s an interesting piece with some good performances.   Funny these artist types though that are so self destructive.   Here it’s alcoholism.

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.