more movies from the last month…
thomas the tank engine and the magic railroad: emmit zoned out to play with his actual lead-free thomas trains, but i was a deer in headlights. i’ve always said that even annoying movies or characters created for kids (think jar jar binks, then shudder if you’re over 7-years old) are acceptable so long as they are entertaining to their audience. emmit had no interest in this movie and he loooooves his thomas the tank engine old school videos. what oh what were they thinking to go live action for this? bring on the trains. that’s what my boy loves.
notes on a scandal: i just didn’t get what the point was. i mean other than the oscar winning kate blanchett bitchslapping the oscar winning judi dench at the end of the movie. that was kind of awesome. i like dark movies, sad movies, challenging movies, but this story just wasn’t enjoyable or edifying in any way. it was like a trashy single white female dressed up with british accents.
paris je t’aime: felt just like a sampler plate at a restaurant, delightful but not necessary very substantial. after watching 18 short films about love in paris, i can’t imagine someone not struggling to want to book a flight right away. it’s a pleasing jumble. some work better than others, but even the bad ones are only 5-minutes long so there’s nothing to lose. alexander payne’s was my absolute favorite.
live free or die hard: a big dumb lug of a movie. okay, really, here’s the deal: i love action movies. sometimes the stupider the better. that drives josh a little crazy because he likes a little smarty-pants, not a lot necessarily, but just enough. josh loves the original die hard and likes the sequels well enough. he had to leave the room during this one. to do dishes. as for me, i was doing alright until the ludicrous fighter jet v. semi truck sequence. i mean, come on with that nonsense. bruce willis still has it as far as i’m concerned. he might be getting a little too old for all this nonsense, but i believed him. it’s just the “more is more” action sequences weren’t fun. there was no joy in it. after 20 years, the original die hard did more with 1 sky scraper than this movie did with the entire eastern seabord. i actually liked that there were real stunts with real stunt people rather than all the cgi that most action movies use now, but still – too much!
waitress: i was charmed by this pastel colored food porn fairy tale. it is sweet and funny and sad and just really pleasant. i liked the warmth and humor in the female camaraderie. i liked that the style faintly echoes early hal hartley (a favorite of mine). i liked the quirkiness and emotion. i liked keri russell and nathan fillion and the rest of the supporting cast. i liked that it deals with the misgivings felt by a pregnant woman and the transforming effects of motherhood.
sunshine: i think i want to applaud the filmmakers for trying to do something new with the somewhat tired sci fi genre, but i hesitate. i went into it a little nervous that it was going to get all creepy. nothing in the trailer suggested that it would, but i had a feeling. from the box and the trailer, i expected a taut psychological thriller, but nothing prepared me for the startling left turn into horror. the end was a bad trip with confusing strobe lights and confounding editing. i actually thought our dvd player was skipping. i tend to be able to suspend my disbelief pretty easily. that’s my movie watching super power: to be able to watch the worst dreck and still believe in the world of the movie, but the odyssey of stupidity within this plot, one bad decision piling on another threw me for a loop. i liked the 1st two-thirds of the film. it starts interestingly as a character study with a lovely ethereal quality that slams quickly into “what the hell?!” i cannot decide if i would recommend this movie because of the end. and yet, the great production design (i loved the ship), the interesting effects (not too computery) and the powerful way that they incorporated light into the story kept me thinking about it after it was over and seemed to push out the horror elements (like the very freaky quick cuts and monster/not a monster). so, yeah, torn.
