Movie Diary
1. Vantage Point
I have a suspicion that the audience that J.G. and I saw this with was the dumbest audience I've ever shared a movie theater with (like, dumber than the audience that cheered approvingly at Norbit, seriously). Every single aspect of this movie's ad campaign right down to the frigging title made it pretty clear that he whole idea was that you'd be seeing the central event of the film, a presidential assassination attempt, from the perspective of several characters to get the full story. But every 10-20 minutes, when the story would rewind and restart from a different POV, with the clock starting back at 12 noon, half the audience would groan and shift in their seats, louder and more obnoxiously each time, and J.G. and I were just astounded that these people were dumb enough to pay to see this movie and expect something different. We enjoyed it, though, not a perfect movie but enough twists and novel uses of the unique structure to keep me interested. Definitely more of a rental movie, but we really wanted to go out that weekend and this is a lean time of year.
2. The Lookout
One of the indie flicks, along with the overrated Brick, that transformed the kid from "3rd Rock From The Sun" into a respected actor worthy of such WTF casting as being Cobra Commander in the upcoming G.I. Joe movie. Here, he works extra hard to play against type, almost as if he decided to impersonate his 10 Things I Hate About You co-star Heath Ledger's later roles with his drawling stoicism, and it doesn't totally work. Matthew Goode, on the other hand, is surprisingly solid and convincing as an American scuzzbag with Federline facial hair. This is one of those obnoxiously illogical movies where the main character is haunted by a mistake made well before the events shown in the film, and in the course of the film does much worse stuff but at the end seems only concerned with the same demons he had in the first place, nevermind the new demons he should have, and the resolution is just a little too tidy.
3. A Night At The Museum
I fully expected to this be yet another crappy Ben Stiller movie on his steady downward slide before its PG rating and Christmas release date catapulted it to the 2nd biggest box office of his career. And even more surprisingly, it was bearable enough to spend a bored evening watching on TV (the presence of Carla Gugino helped), the ensemble cast kept things kind of snappy and there were a few real laughs that caught me off guard. Still kind of crap, but benefitted from lowered expectations.
4. Tamara
Kind of a horror flick version of She's All That, where the nerdy plain girl gets ridiculed by her peers, then accidentally killed by them, then comes back as a hot chick to wreak revenge. Step Up's Jenna Dewan is well cast in the title role, since she kind of naturally strattles the ugly/hot divide.
5. The Lonely Guy
An early Steve Martin flick that I was surprised to find out, after watching it, was written by Neil Simon and not Martin itself, since it retains a lot of the tone and gag-heavy approach of The Jerk but takes in a different direction. It's kind of a nice farcical version of the usual romantic comedy sadsack protagonist, though the pacing is a bit slack and a good amount of the gags fall flat, but Charles Grodin is great.
6. Broadway Danny Rose
Another 1984 footnote by one of my comedy heroes (in fact, it came out the same day as The Lonely Guy!) and didn't like it quite as much. One of those Woody Allen movies that goes for a black & white look and old-timey tone, but half-asses it a little, and the storytelling structure never quite clicks. Woody and Mia did much better a year later with The Purple Rose of Cairo.
I have a suspicion that the audience that J.G. and I saw this with was the dumbest audience I've ever shared a movie theater with (like, dumber than the audience that cheered approvingly at Norbit, seriously). Every single aspect of this movie's ad campaign right down to the frigging title made it pretty clear that he whole idea was that you'd be seeing the central event of the film, a presidential assassination attempt, from the perspective of several characters to get the full story. But every 10-20 minutes, when the story would rewind and restart from a different POV, with the clock starting back at 12 noon, half the audience would groan and shift in their seats, louder and more obnoxiously each time, and J.G. and I were just astounded that these people were dumb enough to pay to see this movie and expect something different. We enjoyed it, though, not a perfect movie but enough twists and novel uses of the unique structure to keep me interested. Definitely more of a rental movie, but we really wanted to go out that weekend and this is a lean time of year.
2. The Lookout
One of the indie flicks, along with the overrated Brick, that transformed the kid from "3rd Rock From The Sun" into a respected actor worthy of such WTF casting as being Cobra Commander in the upcoming G.I. Joe movie. Here, he works extra hard to play against type, almost as if he decided to impersonate his 10 Things I Hate About You co-star Heath Ledger's later roles with his drawling stoicism, and it doesn't totally work. Matthew Goode, on the other hand, is surprisingly solid and convincing as an American scuzzbag with Federline facial hair. This is one of those obnoxiously illogical movies where the main character is haunted by a mistake made well before the events shown in the film, and in the course of the film does much worse stuff but at the end seems only concerned with the same demons he had in the first place, nevermind the new demons he should have, and the resolution is just a little too tidy.
3. A Night At The Museum
I fully expected to this be yet another crappy Ben Stiller movie on his steady downward slide before its PG rating and Christmas release date catapulted it to the 2nd biggest box office of his career. And even more surprisingly, it was bearable enough to spend a bored evening watching on TV (the presence of Carla Gugino helped), the ensemble cast kept things kind of snappy and there were a few real laughs that caught me off guard. Still kind of crap, but benefitted from lowered expectations.
4. Tamara
Kind of a horror flick version of She's All That, where the nerdy plain girl gets ridiculed by her peers, then accidentally killed by them, then comes back as a hot chick to wreak revenge. Step Up's Jenna Dewan is well cast in the title role, since she kind of naturally strattles the ugly/hot divide.
5. The Lonely Guy
An early Steve Martin flick that I was surprised to find out, after watching it, was written by Neil Simon and not Martin itself, since it retains a lot of the tone and gag-heavy approach of The Jerk but takes in a different direction. It's kind of a nice farcical version of the usual romantic comedy sadsack protagonist, though the pacing is a bit slack and a good amount of the gags fall flat, but Charles Grodin is great.
6. Broadway Danny Rose
Another 1984 footnote by one of my comedy heroes (in fact, it came out the same day as The Lonely Guy!) and didn't like it quite as much. One of those Woody Allen movies that goes for a black & white look and old-timey tone, but half-asses it a little, and the storytelling structure never quite clicks. Woody and Mia did much better a year later with The Purple Rose of Cairo.
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on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 at 8:40 PM.
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PenDragon : 10:24 AM