Netflix Diary
a) Watchmen
I kinda thought I'd be the ideal audience for this movie; I read the book recently and enjoyed it, although not so much that I felt precious about any adaptation taking liberties with it, and I liked 300. But man, I dunno. This was kind of bloodless and unloveable in a way that very few special effects behemoths I've ever seen are. From the cringe-inducing opening credits (the Nixon nose!) to the terrible Dr. Manhattan CGI (it really wouldn't have been hard to use Crudup's face and make it blue, guys, and then the lips would've actually matched the words), stuff that I didn't think I was reverent enough to be offended about being mishandled irked me to no end. There were a few setpieces done really well, though, and some performances that I thought were strong and held it all together much better than it would've been otherwise: Patrick Wilson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jackie Earl Haley especially. I once said "Malin Akerman should not be in comedies," and I would like to upgrade that: she should not be in movies period. Jesus fucking christ she's awful.
b) Defiance
It's funny, I didn't realize until a few days ago what Inglorious Basterds is actually about, and it kind of feels like the whole Jews-kicking-ass WWII movie it's going for is kind of what this already did except in a more serious, based-on-a-true-story format. And I have to say, I'm glad that so many Holocaust movies exist and are as heartbreaking and gutwrenching to watch as many of them are. But having seen so many films depicting the majority of the victims that survived (or didn't) powerless and in fear, seeing a movie like this, about a group who banded together and got out of the ghettos and fought back, is so incredibly cathartic and thrilling that it almost feels like a guilty pleasure. I'm not saying these guys go around kicking ass like Rambo, but when they do get out there and make some trouble I found myself yelling at the screen and cheering like I very rarely do during action movies.
c) "West Wing," Season 5
Since I started watching "West Wing" well after the show's run had ended, I had both the advantage and tbe burden of knowing that the Sorkin/Schlamme era ended with Season 4 and that the show's peak ended with it. But, like probably anyone else following it in real time, 100 episodes of getting to know those characters and stories got me invested enough that I still want to try and get through those last 3 seasons anyway, even if I lose some of my momentum and do so more slowly from here on out. I jumped right into this one to see the resolution of the storyline from the end of S4, though, which is proof that cliffhangers can work even in Netflixland. I just keep trying to relax and take the episodes one at a time and not too think too hard about whether the dialogue isn't as sharp as it used to be or the direction is somehow different, but man, it's hard.
d) She's Having A Baby
Since John Hughes died, I've had the urge to watch some of his movies, but not so much the ones I know and love; my family will watch Planes, Trains & Automobiles this Thanksgiving just like we do every year, and I'm sure I'll catch Ferris Beuller or The Breakfast Club on cable sooner than later. So instead I'm going through the less revered ones that I've never sat down to watch, starting with his lowest-grossing directorial effort ever, which I've always associated with that weird meta moment in Planes where Steve Martin's wife has the TV on and it's playing a clip from this (then-unreleased) movie where the main characters are having this extremely angry argument. This is a good time for me to watch a movie like this, though, being a newlywed expecting a baby and going through a lot of the overly exaggerated but still kind of truthfully and insightfully depicted emotions and thoughts that Kevin Bacon goes through in this movie. It's definitely a kind of disjointed movie with a lot of awkward tone shifts and unsuccessful ideas, and I think a lot of that owes to the fact that story spans 5 years or so (note that most of Hughes' best movies take place in a single day, or at most a week or two). But there's definitely a handful of individually great, well executed scenes.
I kinda thought I'd be the ideal audience for this movie; I read the book recently and enjoyed it, although not so much that I felt precious about any adaptation taking liberties with it, and I liked 300. But man, I dunno. This was kind of bloodless and unloveable in a way that very few special effects behemoths I've ever seen are. From the cringe-inducing opening credits (the Nixon nose!) to the terrible Dr. Manhattan CGI (it really wouldn't have been hard to use Crudup's face and make it blue, guys, and then the lips would've actually matched the words), stuff that I didn't think I was reverent enough to be offended about being mishandled irked me to no end. There were a few setpieces done really well, though, and some performances that I thought were strong and held it all together much better than it would've been otherwise: Patrick Wilson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Jackie Earl Haley especially. I once said "Malin Akerman should not be in comedies," and I would like to upgrade that: she should not be in movies period. Jesus fucking christ she's awful.
b) Defiance
It's funny, I didn't realize until a few days ago what Inglorious Basterds is actually about, and it kind of feels like the whole Jews-kicking-ass WWII movie it's going for is kind of what this already did except in a more serious, based-on-a-true-story format. And I have to say, I'm glad that so many Holocaust movies exist and are as heartbreaking and gutwrenching to watch as many of them are. But having seen so many films depicting the majority of the victims that survived (or didn't) powerless and in fear, seeing a movie like this, about a group who banded together and got out of the ghettos and fought back, is so incredibly cathartic and thrilling that it almost feels like a guilty pleasure. I'm not saying these guys go around kicking ass like Rambo, but when they do get out there and make some trouble I found myself yelling at the screen and cheering like I very rarely do during action movies.
c) "West Wing," Season 5
Since I started watching "West Wing" well after the show's run had ended, I had both the advantage and tbe burden of knowing that the Sorkin/Schlamme era ended with Season 4 and that the show's peak ended with it. But, like probably anyone else following it in real time, 100 episodes of getting to know those characters and stories got me invested enough that I still want to try and get through those last 3 seasons anyway, even if I lose some of my momentum and do so more slowly from here on out. I jumped right into this one to see the resolution of the storyline from the end of S4, though, which is proof that cliffhangers can work even in Netflixland. I just keep trying to relax and take the episodes one at a time and not too think too hard about whether the dialogue isn't as sharp as it used to be or the direction is somehow different, but man, it's hard.
d) She's Having A Baby
Since John Hughes died, I've had the urge to watch some of his movies, but not so much the ones I know and love; my family will watch Planes, Trains & Automobiles this Thanksgiving just like we do every year, and I'm sure I'll catch Ferris Beuller or The Breakfast Club on cable sooner than later. So instead I'm going through the less revered ones that I've never sat down to watch, starting with his lowest-grossing directorial effort ever, which I've always associated with that weird meta moment in Planes where Steve Martin's wife has the TV on and it's playing a clip from this (then-unreleased) movie where the main characters are having this extremely angry argument. This is a good time for me to watch a movie like this, though, being a newlywed expecting a baby and going through a lot of the overly exaggerated but still kind of truthfully and insightfully depicted emotions and thoughts that Kevin Bacon goes through in this movie. It's definitely a kind of disjointed movie with a lot of awkward tone shifts and unsuccessful ideas, and I think a lot of that owes to the fact that story spans 5 years or so (note that most of Hughes' best movies take place in a single day, or at most a week or two). But there's definitely a handful of individually great, well executed scenes.
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on Thursday, August 20, 2009 at 10:32 AM.
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PenDragon : 1:56 PM