Movie Diary
a) Quarantine
I suppose I should be more jaded and tired of these hand-held horror Blair Witch/Cloverfield-type movies by now, but I still like them. This one does a really good job of establishing the characters and setting a rhythm before anything amiss happens, possibly better than either of those movies, but unfortunately (SPOILER ETC) it ends pretty much the same way those movies did, which in a way feels as unimaginative at this point as a forced happy ending would be. Still, some pretty good scary scenes before it kinda becomes overkill.
b) The Nanny Diaries
The problem with Scarlett Johansson being a 'thinking man's sex symbol' (or indie man's, I guess) is that she gets put in movies that no other busty blonde who can't act would be asked to do, and is about as well equipped to carry a movie as Pam Anderson. Most of her movies are watchable in part because there's usually at least one other lead who can pick up the slack, but here she's the narrator and center of attention the whole time, and the effect is deadening. Watching ScarJo and Alicia Keys try to share scenes together as carefree best buddies is like staring into some kind of black hole of really attractive, well-meaning vapidity.
c) Feast
I think horror is a genre I just don't have much invested in, so anytime someone inverts the formula and/or injects some comedy into the premise, I enjoy it a little more than I would a straight genre exercise. And as a horror comedy, Feast is pretty fun, maybe paling in comparison to its most obvious influence, Dead Alive, but still entertaining and subverting expectations at every turn. Plus, Henry Rollins wears pink sweatpants in it. Until the credits rolled and I saw Affleck and Damon's names in the credits, I had no idea that this movie was made in a season of "Project Greenlight," I'm kind of impressed. I don't know if I should give into the temptation to see this movie's 2 straight-to-DVD sequels, though.
d) Billy Wilder Speaks
I've gotten big into Billy Wilder movies in recent years, still slowly working through his filmography, and enjoyed catching this documentary on cable recently. You forget sometimes that someone with such a great ear for dialogue for American actors was born in Austria and spoke English with a thick accent, but hearing him tell all these stories and anecdotes (sometimes in German with subtitles) is pretty entertaining.
e) The Jimmy Show
The weekend my brother moved into his new apartment, he turned on the TV before the cable was hooked up, and was able to pick up one channel, which was playing something called "The Jimmy Show." Thinking it was an actual series, I just started bullshitting about it like "this must be the third season, I've only gotten through the first two on Netflix" and "oh, that's the girl Jimmy rapes in season four" and "I heard about this, this is the episode where Jimmy tries to assassinate the president." I don't think anyone else thought it was that funny but I amused myself for a good five or ten minutes like that. Maybe one of these days I'll try to seriously watch the movie, though, I dunno.
I suppose I should be more jaded and tired of these hand-held horror Blair Witch/Cloverfield-type movies by now, but I still like them. This one does a really good job of establishing the characters and setting a rhythm before anything amiss happens, possibly better than either of those movies, but unfortunately (SPOILER ETC) it ends pretty much the same way those movies did, which in a way feels as unimaginative at this point as a forced happy ending would be. Still, some pretty good scary scenes before it kinda becomes overkill.
b) The Nanny Diaries
The problem with Scarlett Johansson being a 'thinking man's sex symbol' (or indie man's, I guess) is that she gets put in movies that no other busty blonde who can't act would be asked to do, and is about as well equipped to carry a movie as Pam Anderson. Most of her movies are watchable in part because there's usually at least one other lead who can pick up the slack, but here she's the narrator and center of attention the whole time, and the effect is deadening. Watching ScarJo and Alicia Keys try to share scenes together as carefree best buddies is like staring into some kind of black hole of really attractive, well-meaning vapidity.
c) Feast
I think horror is a genre I just don't have much invested in, so anytime someone inverts the formula and/or injects some comedy into the premise, I enjoy it a little more than I would a straight genre exercise. And as a horror comedy, Feast is pretty fun, maybe paling in comparison to its most obvious influence, Dead Alive, but still entertaining and subverting expectations at every turn. Plus, Henry Rollins wears pink sweatpants in it. Until the credits rolled and I saw Affleck and Damon's names in the credits, I had no idea that this movie was made in a season of "Project Greenlight," I'm kind of impressed. I don't know if I should give into the temptation to see this movie's 2 straight-to-DVD sequels, though.
d) Billy Wilder Speaks
I've gotten big into Billy Wilder movies in recent years, still slowly working through his filmography, and enjoyed catching this documentary on cable recently. You forget sometimes that someone with such a great ear for dialogue for American actors was born in Austria and spoke English with a thick accent, but hearing him tell all these stories and anecdotes (sometimes in German with subtitles) is pretty entertaining.
e) The Jimmy Show
The weekend my brother moved into his new apartment, he turned on the TV before the cable was hooked up, and was able to pick up one channel, which was playing something called "The Jimmy Show." Thinking it was an actual series, I just started bullshitting about it like "this must be the third season, I've only gotten through the first two on Netflix" and "oh, that's the girl Jimmy rapes in season four" and "I heard about this, this is the episode where Jimmy tries to assassinate the president." I don't think anyone else thought it was that funny but I amused myself for a good five or ten minutes like that. Maybe one of these days I'll try to seriously watch the movie, though, I dunno.
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on Sunday, September 06, 2009 at 7:51 PM.
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