Movie Diary
1. Avanti!
Being a fan of Some Like It Hot and even moreso of The Apartment, I was immediately interested when I saw that there was another Billy Wilder/Jack Lemmon teamup. And despite it being one of their lesser known collaborations, it's pretty good, lots of very subtle humor in the dialogue and twists and Juliet mills looking ridiculously hot. Lemmon's character is from Baltimore and spends half the movie calling people in Baltimore and making references to the city, if any local hip hop producers want to chop up the dialogue for samples they're welcome to use my idea.
2. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream
I've always really liked Tom Petty, possibly more than any trad rocker of his era, and I'd gladly watch a documentary or TV special about him. Still, a comprehensive 4-hour documentary by a moderately big name director, Peter Bogdanovich, is a little bit more than even I would ask for. Maybe he's playing catch-up with Scorcese's Dylan doc (which, if that's the case, still isn't as embarrassing as the way his last movie played catch-up with Capote at least).
3. Winter Passing
I guess Zooey Deschanel has done her share of indie dramas, but I've mostly only ever seen her in lighter mainstream fare, so this movie's use of her as a depressed, strung out, dysfunctional character was actually effectively jarring for me. The first half really did feel like watching some cute girl I knew in high school ending up really down on her luck and in really depressing situations. Unfortunately, Will Ferrell's presence in the movie, as well as Ed Harris's unconvincing old man hair/makeup, kind of puncture the solemnity of the story and it ends up being just a slightly dark, dingy variation on the same estranged child coming home and finding redemption story we get sold a couple times a year.
4. London
Chris Evans (a.k.a. the male Jessica Biel) and Jessica Biel (a.k.a. the female Chris Evans) in an Intense Edgy Drama about two exes at a party together working through their baggage and looking pretty and hanging out with Jason Statham. Kind of talky and forgettable, but not bad.
5. The Queen
I had no real interest in seeing this when the Oscar hype was in full gear, but I ended up liking it once I finally did. I'm sure one of the hundreds of reviews I haven't read already said something like this, but it was an interesting portrayal of the calm, tense, quiet decisionmaking that can happen at the center of a media circus.
6. I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry
Although this movie was pretty stupid and offensive, when it got down to actually watching it, I groaned and laughed in about the same quantities that I do at any other Adam Sandler movie. And in a strange way, I appreciated the way this wasn't one of those gay panic comedies where the protagonist mistaken for/pretending to be gay constantly spouts "not that there's anything wrong with that" PC-isms. Early in the movie Adam Sandler says "faggot" a few times in a really venemous, hateful tone that kind of makes the whole thing feel like it's not pulling punches, even if the rest of the movie is garden variety gay jokes and a corny happy denouement. I'd say that this movie is beneath co-stars like Steve Buscemi and Ving Rhames, but, well, they were both in Con Air.
7. Wicker Man
Speaking of awful Nic Cage movies, this one's already kind of becoming a cult classic for all its ridiculous moments (Cage donning a bear costume, Cage punching women), but watching it I really am kind of awestruck by how stilted and bizarre it is. I really don't know how pictures like this get made with everyone keeping a straight face.
Being a fan of Some Like It Hot and even moreso of The Apartment, I was immediately interested when I saw that there was another Billy Wilder/Jack Lemmon teamup. And despite it being one of their lesser known collaborations, it's pretty good, lots of very subtle humor in the dialogue and twists and Juliet mills looking ridiculously hot. Lemmon's character is from Baltimore and spends half the movie calling people in Baltimore and making references to the city, if any local hip hop producers want to chop up the dialogue for samples they're welcome to use my idea.
2. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream
I've always really liked Tom Petty, possibly more than any trad rocker of his era, and I'd gladly watch a documentary or TV special about him. Still, a comprehensive 4-hour documentary by a moderately big name director, Peter Bogdanovich, is a little bit more than even I would ask for. Maybe he's playing catch-up with Scorcese's Dylan doc (which, if that's the case, still isn't as embarrassing as the way his last movie played catch-up with Capote at least).
3. Winter Passing
I guess Zooey Deschanel has done her share of indie dramas, but I've mostly only ever seen her in lighter mainstream fare, so this movie's use of her as a depressed, strung out, dysfunctional character was actually effectively jarring for me. The first half really did feel like watching some cute girl I knew in high school ending up really down on her luck and in really depressing situations. Unfortunately, Will Ferrell's presence in the movie, as well as Ed Harris's unconvincing old man hair/makeup, kind of puncture the solemnity of the story and it ends up being just a slightly dark, dingy variation on the same estranged child coming home and finding redemption story we get sold a couple times a year.
4. London
Chris Evans (a.k.a. the male Jessica Biel) and Jessica Biel (a.k.a. the female Chris Evans) in an Intense Edgy Drama about two exes at a party together working through their baggage and looking pretty and hanging out with Jason Statham. Kind of talky and forgettable, but not bad.
5. The Queen
I had no real interest in seeing this when the Oscar hype was in full gear, but I ended up liking it once I finally did. I'm sure one of the hundreds of reviews I haven't read already said something like this, but it was an interesting portrayal of the calm, tense, quiet decisionmaking that can happen at the center of a media circus.
6. I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry
Although this movie was pretty stupid and offensive, when it got down to actually watching it, I groaned and laughed in about the same quantities that I do at any other Adam Sandler movie. And in a strange way, I appreciated the way this wasn't one of those gay panic comedies where the protagonist mistaken for/pretending to be gay constantly spouts "not that there's anything wrong with that" PC-isms. Early in the movie Adam Sandler says "faggot" a few times in a really venemous, hateful tone that kind of makes the whole thing feel like it's not pulling punches, even if the rest of the movie is garden variety gay jokes and a corny happy denouement. I'd say that this movie is beneath co-stars like Steve Buscemi and Ving Rhames, but, well, they were both in Con Air.
7. Wicker Man
Speaking of awful Nic Cage movies, this one's already kind of becoming a cult classic for all its ridiculous moments (Cage donning a bear costume, Cage punching women), but watching it I really am kind of awestruck by how stilted and bizarre it is. I really don't know how pictures like this get made with everyone keeping a straight face.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, December 23, 2007 at 12:07 PM.
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brandon : 7:25 PM