Movies at Home

This totally random movie called Last Night with Sam Worthington and Keira Knightley. I think it was trying to ask big questions about the nature of marriage, loyalty, cheating, etc. But it didn't really work as I never really bought them as a married couple, so I didn't care if they cheated.

But they lived in this very swank NYC pad, so the real estate porn was totally working for me!

Colombiana was awful, terrible and horrible, but lord is Zoe Saldana hot as fire.

Even with the insanely low standards I had J. Edgar was just dire. It has no narrative flow and I thought I was prepared for it but the old age make-up is so terrible. I had no idea when anything was meant to be happening and when I did manage to get a time frame it would randomly jump for no reason and I was lost again.

After catching the last 20 minutes of We Were Here on PBS I rented it from iTunes. It was a great little documentary about the history of the AIDS crisis in San Francisco. Interspersed with the personal stories of men who lost partners and friends, contracted HIV themselves, endured grueling drug trials, etc. were interesting tidbits of information about how the AIDS crisis affected the queer community in general. I found the section dealing with the lesbian response to the AIDS crisis to be quite affecting. Despite a somewhat longterm enmity between gay men and women in San Francisco, the girls spearheaded a blood donor campaign using posters that called out that "our boys need blood", worked hospice and hospital wards, participated in home care volunteer programs, and formed advocacy groups supporting efforts to speed up FDA drug aproval. Good stuff, recommended.

I saw that on Sunday! It was indeed excellent, and heartbreaking. Independent Lens is one of my favorite programs.

I watched Crazy Stupid Love last night and was enraged all over again by the stupid babysitter plotline. I was watching with my husband and wanted to fast forward through all those parts, but I guess he didn't remember HOW bad it was until the big fight scene. The whole thing with her parents finding the pictures (actually EVERYTHING with the pictures) was so unnecessary to what could have been the emotional climax of the film, with the worlds colliding.

Still the Dirty Dancing scene remains gold.

I really loved that movie when I first saw it, but I have a feeling that if I were to watch it again, I'd fast-forward most of it just to get to the Gosling/Stone scenes.

They should make an edit cutting out the babysitter stuff. Because I don't know anyone that likes those bits. And then add more Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling! Together or separate works.

So I finally saw Shame aka

Spoiler:

. The best thing about it is that it reminded me how much I love Chic and "I Want Your Love" is used in the most effective sequence. I mean I'm not sure we needed a movie about how damaged people are damaged, and it's sad. Wow, drop some more science on me my friend. A major waste of two great performances, but sometimes spare is spare and sometimes spare is just lazy and empty.

blixie wrote:A major waste of two great performances, but sometimes spare is spare and sometimes spare is just lazy and empty.

This. Fassbender and Mulligan are just throwing everything they have but there is NO SCRIPT AT ALL for them to work from. I'm sorry, but, "We're not bad people, we just come from a bad place" is a terrible line that underlines the lazy vagueness that plagues this movie. It isn't a "oh, it's left vague on purpose to make you think" thing. It's a, "fuck, I don't really have a clue so let's dance around specifics and burn time by having Carey sing 'New York, New York' really awkwardly for five minutes."

blixie wrote:I mean I'm not sure we needed a movie about how damaged people are damaged, and it's sad. Wow, drop some more science on me my friend.

Heee.

Immortals was pretty bad and frequently made no sense. It's only redeeming feature was a lot of gorgeous guys with no shirts. And the ridiculous god helmets. (I'm actually serious the helmets were amazing and made me sad all over again that Eiko Ishioka won't be designing anything else.) I'll stick with The Fall when I want a gorgeous Tarsem movie because the thin plot there is actually affecting and it looks better anyway.

We watched The Muppets last night and it was gorgeous. As a someone who grew up in the 80s watching the original Muppets, I adored it!

I watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona last night because I've been having inappropriate feelings about Scarlett Johansson's ass. Holy shit, that was depressing. But on the plus side, Scarlett and Penelope Cruz made out, and I'm a shallow bitch, so that made it all worth while.

RiverThames wrote:Frankly, for a movie that might as well have been Gina Carano Punches Everyone, I wanted more punching. Far too much "plot" and "set-up".

Aw, no! Tell me not really. I keep meaning to go get this one because I need a movie where a lady beats dudes (people, any gender, whoever) into a fine paste for two hours. I am pretty sure it would significantly improve my quality of life right now, if it does what it says on the tin.

What you need is parts of Haywire, Aliens, Terminator 2, and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. However, Haywire isn't a bad movie. Just not quite what was promised.

I'm a big fan of feature documentaries, and I recently watched Ultrasuede, which is all about the fashion designer Halston. While the guy who is the director/interviewer is somewhat annoying (I prefer it when they stay OFF camera), it was really interesting if only because of the interviews with people who were in Halston's inner circle. I also have to admit, I generally think of the 70s as having TERRIBLE clothes, but Halston's stuff STILL looks fabulous. His designs were so streamlined that they wouldn't look out of place today.

PrincessCleo wrote:

RiverThames wrote:Frankly, for a movie that might as well have been Gina Carano Punches Everyone, I wanted more punching. Far too much "plot" and "set-up".

Aw, no! Tell me not really. I keep meaning to go get this one because I need a movie where a lady beats dudes (people, any gender, whoever) into a fine paste for two hours. I am pretty sure it would significantly improve my quality of life right now, if it does what it says on the tin.

Well, it's only about 90 minutes long. And at that length, I wanted a good, say 45 minutes of it to be Gina Punching Everyone. Instead, it's more like 15. And certainly not in a row.

... Well now I'm just totally disillusioned.

:(

I wonder if anyone on YouTube has made a Gina Carano Punches Everyone supercut?

I've been on a total Netflix tear. The past few days I've seen Adventureland, Thor, Heartburn, and Ira & Abby, each for the first time. That is a crazy amount of movies for me. Maybe it's all about managing my expectations, because I enjoyed Adventureland and Ira& Abby - two films I'd never heard of before, more than I expected to, and was disappointed in Thor and Heartburn (yes, watched this one because of the Nora Ephron news). It was funny seeing young Kevin Spacey in Heartburn, the way it was hilarious seeing young Matt Damon in Steel Magnolias. Heartburn seemed really dated.

I actually liked Haywire. I think I was about the only person besides Soderbergh who did.

And, I am loading up my queue in advance of my gent going out of town. Lots of Merchant-Ivory and Ewan McGregor film festivals ahoy.

I liked Haywire, too. I thought it was a pretty good twisty 70s style spy thriller and there was more than enough fighting. Also there were a lot of very pretty people.

Today I had myself a romantic movie marathon, with all the movies based on favorite books: Jane Eyre (the miniseries with Ruth Wilson & Toby Stephens), Persuasion (Amanda Root & Ciaran Hinds), Emma (Gwyneth Paltrow & Jeremy Northam), and lastly but not least Bridget Jones' Diary. I had not watched a couple of them in a while, but by the end I remembered why these are among my go to movies any time I need a pick me up.

Now if I could only find myself a man that is combination of all the guys in those books, I'd be all set . . . .

Moneyball which was terrific and I enjoyed it tremendously. Brad Pitt was awesome and totally deserved his Oscar nom. The scenes with his daughter were adorable.

I loved the whole feel of the movie, how it didn't rush things in many places, just let the story and the atmosphere play out. I really liked how they intercut footage from the real team in places. Not knowing anything about baseball or this particular team/story, I thought it really added that bit of realism to the whole thing. It was also cool to see the types of situations and relationships that a GM has to navigate and juggle. So yes, two thumbs way up on this one.

I also checked out Never Let Me Go which I also liked a lot. The performances were excellent, particularly Mulligan and Garfield. Lovely score, too, which I had already been listening to for ages so it was nice to put it with the visuals.

I watched Young Adult last week which I enjoyed, despite Mavis being such an arrogant bitch to everyone. Charlize Theron really nailed that role.