Amores Perros

I realized something disturbing tonight. I watched the film Amores Perros with some friends. I was the only one who hadn't seen it, but they all loved it enough to see it again. I'd heard it was an excellent movie, and I liked 21 Grams, so I was sure I'd like it too. I can honestly tell you if it weren't for being with my friends tonight, I may have turned off Amores Perros after the first fifteen minutes because I was so disturbed by the violence and gore. I never thought I'd say that about a movie. Not that I love violent films, but violence in films has never bothered me. Not until tonight. And the reason I was bothered by the violence bothers me even more than the violence itself.

One of the storylines in Amores Perros involves dog fighting. The dogs are vicious and often end up getting killed in the fights. Now, I'm not an uber-animal lover. I love my dog, and I pretty much like other people's dogs, but that's about as far as I go. But watching dogs fight and kill each other was way too much for me. I had to turn my head and really wasn't sure that I could handle it. But I soldiered on for my friends. (I'm glad I did, the film is excellent!) After the movie it dawned on me that I've seen people in films and TV doing the same and worse, but it rarely causes a reaction in me anymore. To say we are desensitized to violence from our exposure to it on film and TV is an understatement. Very disturbing.

to do #178: see Amores Perros

Wedding Crashers

The way I see it, I have two choices. Either: 1, stop going to see big budget Hollywood movies or 2, stop expecting them to be any good. Knowing me, I'll take option two; but knowing my optimistic and forgiving nature, it will be difficult to sustain the low expectations and then I'll be right back in the position I'm in today- sorely disappointed at a movie I desperately wanted to be good.

It seems like lately all I do is bitch about Hollywood movies. If you're getting tired of all this bitching, don't worry, I am too. I don't want to hate them, honestly, but they leave me no choice. They are sloppy. They're filled with bad acting and bad writing and bad storytelling and bad everything else that you can think of. They are just bad. Wedding Crashers is no exception. My love for Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson couldn't even save this movie. Sure, if you were sitting next to me in the theatre you would have caught me laughing a couple times. But a few laughs does not a good movie make. You could tell in the first ten minutes that this movie was going to suck. It was solidified about twenty minutes in when they went into a way too long (I'm talking at least 5 minutes) montage of scenes from various weddings the pair crashed set to the beat of loud annoying music, a la what you might expect to see in a trailer or a teaser for the movie. But this wasn't a trailer or a teaser, this was the actual movie. Dumb.

Just so you don't think I'm a movie snob, I adore Vaughn and Wilson's work. I love Vince Vaughn in Swingers (one of my favorite comedies), Old School and Dodgeball; he was even pretty amusing in Mr & Mrs Smith. And Owen Wilson, he's one of my favorite actors. He's phenomenal in all the Wes Anderson films like Bottle Rocket and Royal Tennenbaums and Life Aquatic. His cameo in Meet the Parents was hilarious, and I'm ashamed to admit I loved Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights. So being a genuine fan I hoped for the best going into this film. And I got the worst. Vince Vaughn's long fast-talking monologues can be hilarious. They can also fall flat- that's what these did. The same with Owen Wilson's quirkiness, it can be hilarious, or it can just be dumb- this was dumb. There were weird choices in this movie- weird character traits (Vince Vaughn's over-eating), weird characters (the gay brother), weird makeup (Owen Wilson looked like a woman at times, it was caked on so thick). I could go on, but honestly I'm tired of hearing myself complain about the same things in movie after movie, and I'm sure you are too.

I'd have to give Wedding Crashers two and a half stars. There were some times I laughed, but I'm not sure if I was laughing because it was funny, or because I felt bad that other people were laughing and I wasn't. I'm beginning to wonder how I've strayed so far off the mainstream, where critics are giving this movie three and a half stars and popular opinion is giving it four and a half stars, and I can barely muster a chuckle. Ah well, that's a topic for another post. For now I'll just cross off #249 from my list: see Wedding Crashers.

March of the Penguins

Since the week I saw War of the Worlds and Fantastic Four, I've been on a break from seeing movies in the theatre. I think it was the combination of the mediocre movies I'd been seeing, and the prospect of more mediocre movies in the future that kept me away. But, it was Sunday afternoon, and I started to miss my old friend, the movie theatre: it's sub-zero temperatures, the sickening aroma of fake buttered popcorn and floors sticky with spilled soda. I just couldn't stay away. Luckily for me there was actually a movie playing that I'd been wanting to see- March of the Penguins.

I'd seen a preview for March a month or so ago, and it looked absolutely adorable. I must admit I'm a sucker for nature/animal documentaries, especially when they involve an animal as cute and cuddly as penguins, and March did not disappoint. It was filmed by a French documentarian, Luc Jacquet, and is the story of a year in the life of an Emperor Penguin in Antartica. The movie follows the 70 mile trek the penguins make to a common mating ground, and the subsequent search for a mate, laying of an egg, trek for food, hatching of the egg and the hatchlings first swim. All this amidst the brutally harsh winter storms. The film is beautifully shot with amazing footage of the frozen Antartic. The penguins' story is endearing and the shots of these animals are gorgeous. My only complaint was that since the film is rated G it was filled with parents and their kids. I'm not sure if it's being marketed as a kids film, but I honestly think it's way too slow/boring for kids, and will result in what I experienced: kids and parents talking through out the entire film. A bit annoying and distracting, but otherwise a great experience. I'd give this film 3.5 stars.

With my relationship with my local movie theatre temporarily redeemed I cross off #283: see March of the Penguins.

Movie Reviews

As you may or may not have noticed, I've been quite a slacker this week in keeping up with my blog. But where I've lacked in blogging I've more than made up for in movie watching. In the past week I've seen six movies. Instead of writing separate reviews for each I'll just get it all over with in one post. Get ready for (mostly) a list of movies not to see...

My movie watching jag started last Sunday with War of the Worlds, probably the most disappointing of all the films. Apart from the hype the entertainment magazines have been doling out on this movie, I had it on pretty good authority from two of my most reliable film obsessed friends that this was a great movie. So I went against my better judgment and Tom Cruise loathing and saw it. That was my first mistake. It was terrible. Awful. It goes without saying that the special effects were incredible, but special effects couldn't save poor writing and poor storytelling. It would have taken so little to tighten the story up a bit, but alas, it was sloppy and lazy. This one gets two and a half out of five stars.

Next up, on Wednesday, An American in Paris. Having had an off-again on-again love affair with Paris for a few years, and knowing that it was one of AFI's top 100 movies, I felt it was my duty to see An American in Paris eventually. I'm happy I did, but I think I clocked it at 14 minutes into the movie that I first wanted to turn it off. And the feeling never really left me until the final credits rolled. But, this film had a strike against it to begin with, in that it's a musical. Not my favorite genre. As one of my friends recently said to me, as soon as they start singing I stop paying attention. I second that. This film gets two and a half stars.

Thursday was the Fantastic Four. By now you might be wondering what the hell I'm doing picking movies that seem destined to fail in my eyes. With this film I can honestly say I had no choice. It was part of a day of teambuilding with work colleagues. The teambuilding involved painting pottery, so I rallied a small resistance group against painting pottery and we ended up seeing a movie (Yes, I am aware of the irony in that it was a teambuilding activity. What can I say, I'm not a team player.). The only movie playing at the time we arrived was Fantastic Four, still, we were happy to be out of painting pottery. The movie was actually better than expected, and dare I say the story was even more cohesive than War of the Worlds. Yes, I am serious. The movie was chock full of ridiculous movie cliches, but it actually started to crack me up (a dalmation in a fire truck, the giant half-rock half-man creature, Thing, stopping in a Big & Tall Men's store for clothes, etc). Pretty cheesy but better than teambuilding whilst painting pottery, this one gets three stars.

Saturday night found a friend and I looking for an interesting movie. Distant looked promising. A Turkish film set in Istanbul chronicling the days of two depressed men. Wow, not what we were expecting at all. This movie was down right numbing. Probably the most striking thing about this film was the lack of dialogue. Minutes would pass with not a word uttered from the screen. It was heavy on sound, but not dialogue. The discomfort of the characters was practically leaping into the living room through the television. We had to laugh when we realized the two men were watching TV in silence, and that the program they were watching on TV also had no dialogue. Ah, kill me now! At the time I really didn't enjoy the film, but I've had some time to reflect and realize that though it was difficult to watch, it made it's point about loneliness, despair and the distance between people in these conditions brilliantly. Three stars for this film, but know what you are in for.

After a movie like Distant you are so shaken and depressed you need a pick-me-up. An injection of life and entertainment. And so we watched The Count of Monte Cristo. I didn't know much about the film, and was thus pleasantly surprised. It's a visually appealing and engaging drama with a well told story (based on the book of the same name by Alexandre Dumas) and good acting. There's also a nice revenge twist. It accomplished what it set out to do: entertain without being mindless and boring, three stars.

To cap off my week of movies, tonight I watched Maria Full of Grace. It's a Colombian film recommended by a Colombian friend, which instantly gave it some well-deserved clout. It's by far the best movie of the week. An excellent story of despair and hope and rising above the constraints of your up-bringing. The film is tense and difficult to watch at times, but is such a well-acted and well-told story. Four stars for this film, and a hearty recommendation that you see it as well.

Although there were some disappoints and many mediocre moments of film-watching this week, I'm happy to say I saw all these movies. Loving movies as much as I do, I appreciate the bad as much as I appreciate the good because I feel like a more informed viewer, and more easily able to spot a really excellent film. And so I cross off #289: watch a mixture of good & bad films, and be able to tell the difference.

Saving Face

Today I saw the movie Saving Face, by Alice Wu. Although I love foreign films, Chinese films usually aren't among my favorites. I think the harsh sound of the language is distracting and a bit too foreign for my ears. However, Saving Face looked interesting enough so I decided to give it a try.

Out of 5 stars, I'd give this film three and a half. It's a nice light romantic comedy, but also examines some of the cultural issues facing Chinese-Americans. The movie takes place in New York City and chronicles the struggles of two women, mother & daughter, to live up to the old Chinese cultural standards. The mother is a forty-eight year old widower living with her over-bearing parents after the death of her husband who suddenly finds herself pregnant. The daughter is a promising twenty-something doctor who endures the efforts of the community to marry her off though she is a lesbian. When the mother is kicked out of her parents house for becoming pregnant, she moves in with her daughter, which is where the long road to understanding begins. The two are able to find common ground and build a strong bond despite sometimes being ostracized by the tight-knit community they live in. And in the end love and understanding prevail. Despite some cliches, it's an enjoyable and entertaining movie.

Though I still have reservations about Chinese films, I'm happy to have crossed #217 off my list: see Saving Face.

Netflix

Netflix, originally uploaded by carriemcm.

Sometimes, for no logical reason at all, a movie will arrive from Netflix that you just don't feel like watching. It was on your queue and at the top, no less, but still, you're not in the mood. You hang on to it for a few days thinking that the time just hasn't been right. You hang on to it for a few more days thinking what a waste it would be to send it back now. And before you know it, you've had the movie since June 1st. At this point there's no way you are returning it without watching it, and so you buckle down, pop in the dvd and get comfortable.

The movie is L'Homme du train/The Man on the Train, a French film made in 2002 starring Johnny Hallyday and Jean Rochefort. When it comes to foreign films, French films are among my favorites. In French films you can expect the old standby's of breathtaking scenery and the lovely poetic sing-song quality of the language. L'Homme du train did not disappoint. The cinematography was striking from the first frame and never relented. It was an integral part of the storytelling and perfectly conveyed the moods of the characters and the film in general. It also ensured that even the shots of bathroom toiletries were gorgeous. The story was interesting and the storytelling straightforward and simple. No fancy twists or turns, no overly complex storylines or complicated characters. Just well written and nicely delivered lines. And the characters, they were an unlikely and charming team. You'll fall in love with Rochefort's kind and generous heart, and will be simultaneously mesmerized and creeped out by Hallyday's blue eyes, gruff exterior and tender interior.

Out of five stars, I'd give this one three and a half. It was a great afternoon movie, and I'm proud to send it back having actually watched it, even if it did take me three and a half weeks!

Yesterday Mr. & Mrs. Smith left me unsatisfied, but today I am happy to report I've seen a good movie, a movie worth recommending. And so I cross off #108: watch my damn Netflix.

Mr. & Mrs. Boring

Mr & Mrs Boring, originally uploaded by carriemcm.

Being a woman and having a pulse pretty much means I think Brad Pitt is uber good looking. It also pretty much means I'll see whatever crap movie he's in, which is what I did today.

Maybe saying Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a crap movie is a bit harsh, but I thought it had some pretty huge flaws. The first being character development. You leave the movie hardly knowing the characters at all. Is that part of the whole 'we're spies and we're married and we don't even know each other' aspect of the movie? Cause if it is, that was idiotic. We're the audience, we're supposed to know these characters. And speaking of knowing the characters, that brings me to my second issue with the movie: story development. In a word, it sucked. The story was so unclear- are they spies, are they assassins, are they good guys, are they bad guys, who is Vince Vaughn's character, and more importantly, what the hell is Adam Brody doing in this movie?! All questions that deserve answers, and none of which are answered through the course of the movie. Now, maybe I should take a second to pause and remind you of the previously mentioned adoration of Brad Pitt. It's entirely possible that I was so enraptured with his presence on screen that I missed out on the finer (and broader!) details of the story, and for the sake of the movie let's hope this is true.

But, that doesn't explain my third issue with this movie- bad acting. Brad Pitt may not be the best actor in Hollywood, but he's done a good job in some great movies: Kalifornia, Seven, Fight Club, Snatch and Ocean's Eleven, just to name a few. I was trying to think if I'd ever seen an Angelina Jolie movie, and the only one I could think of is Gone in 60 Seconds, which hardly qualifies as an Angelina Jolie movie, but merely a movie she was in. So, I have nothing to compare her acting to. Is she normally a good actress, or is she just a nice pair of legs and great tits? I'm not sure. But in this movie, I'd say that's all she was. Between the two of them, I was so bored. It was as if the director said 'in the majority of the movie you're going to act disinterested in each other' and they took it to heart, resulting in flat acting and an audience who was totally disinterested in them. Where is this 'chemistry' everyone is buzzing about? I must have missed it.

For me, the best part of the movie came during a scene where John (Brad Pitt) shows up at Jane's (Angelina Jolie's) office. Jane flies off on a zip cable between two skyscrapers. They'd both had the chance to kill each other but John hesitated and Jane ran. From across the building John yells 'Chickenshit!'. To which Jane yells 'Pussy!'. To which the 6 year-old kid across the aisle from me says 'She's a pussy!'. 'Shhhhh', his mom said, but too late, we all heard it and we all cracked up. And this was the best part of the movie.

Out of five I'd have to give this movie two and a half stars. Brad & Angelina should be grateful Brad's marriage broke up because I think that's why people are going to see this movie- to check on the 'chemistry' between them (okay, how pathetic is that?!). At least that's what I've heard. I wouldn't say people are going to see it because it's good.

So with a Brad Pitt craving satiated and a good movie craving still in the lurch I cross off #145: see Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Traveling Pants

Traveling Pants, originally uploaded by carriemcm.

When it comes to movies, the chick flick is not my genre of choice. It's not my back-up favorite, or even the back-up for my back-up. But every now and then we all love a feel-good movie, including yours truly, so this afternoon I grabbed a fellow chick and we went to see The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Out of five stars, I'd give the movie three. It was successful as a feel-good flick, and apparently to the majority of the audience it was quite a tear-jerker. But it also required the audience to suspend a pretty sizable chunk of disbelief, which is where I have to take issue. The story itself is good, albeit one you've likely seen before: a gang of friends from varying backgrounds form a bond of friendship which is tested and survives adversity whereby making each individual and the gang stronger. Add to that the classic coming-of-age story, and you have the Traveling Pants in a nutshell. The story is engaging; the characters are very different from one another and therefore the audience can easily identify with a particular character or her situation; the cinematography is average (though the scenes in Greece are pretty stunning); and the dialogue, well here's where the aforementioned suspension of disbelief is required. The characters in the movie are 16 years old, yet if blindfolded, you'd think they were Yale intellectuals. Okay, this may be a bit of an exaggeration, but c'mon, I was sixteen once, I know what the conversations with my girlfriends sounded like, and they were nothing like this. Wise beyond their years, and beyond the likelihood of any sixteen year old. They had amazing depth of thought, clarity of emotion and articulation of those thoughts. Pah! I'm twenty-nine and rarely have these sorts of exchanges with friends. But maybe I'm just jealous. Oh, and don't even get me started on the sage twelve year old in the film, it's so far beyond the scope of reality, it's laughable.

Having said all that, I did enjoy the movie. It was the perfect Sunday afternoon movie to share with a girlfriend, and was successful at injecting a bit of feel-good into my life (along with a healthy dose of cynicism!). And so with a nice balance of the two I cross #357 off my list: see The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.