WWTBAM Bored

I had a huge Jones to see some movies today, since it's been a while since I spent the day watching the silver screen, select or not.

First up: MILK, with Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, James Franco and Emile Hirsch. Like another of the movies I saw today (which I'll get to in a minute), Gus Van Sant chose to over-make his movie. The script is good, the performances excellent (especially Brolin, Hirsch and -- to a lesser extent -- Penn). But the constant changing of film stocks, mainly done to make the integration of TV broadcasts and historical footage less jarring), really started to grate on my nerves. And while Penn is generally excellent, and perhaps true to Milk's own personality, the flashes of queeniness and flamboyance seemed more offputting than "real". I never got a good sense of the purpose behind Milk's relationship with Jack Lira; was his loneliness that severe that he'd choose a destructive, paralyzing relationship over none at all? Why not explain that further? And poor Josh Brolin, while terrific with what he's given, really should have been fleshed out more; the brief paranoid glimpse we're given of him at home just left me wanting more. I just got the impression that Van Sant wanted to make a 2 1/2 hour or 3 hour movie, and was forced to chop major sections to get it closer to 2 hours....and that's a shame. Still, worth seeing if only for the performances. I'd give it a B+.

The second part of my day at the movies was spent in the company of a British fop and a former US President. Ron Howard's FROST/NIXON was, without a doubt, my favorite of the three movies I saw today. Like the other two movies, it's got its flaws, but far fewer, IMHO. Michael Sheen, so good as Tony Blair in "The Queen," is excellent as David Frost (partially because he's been living this part in London's West End and Broadway for the last couple of years), but he's overshadowed completely by Frank Langella's tour-de-force performance as Richard Nixon. Langella pulls no punches, choosing not to imitate Nixon (although there's a flash or two of that), but to INHABIT him. Equal parts smarm and charm, ooze and schmooze, he is absolutely perfect (and again, since he's played the part in London and on Broadway, he's also had plenty of practice). Howard's direction is less in-your-face than stay-out-of-their-way, and it works. The final interview session has tension so palpable, you can almost feel it. Give this one a solid A.

Then there's the third (which I mentioned briefly in the thread named for the movie), SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. Very good story (although heavily contrived in parts), good if unspectacular acting (especially by the older Jamal), but director Danny Boyle insists on punctuating every point with an EXCLAMATION POINT instead of a period, or a comma, or even the occasional ellipsis. While the movie's conceit of having the questions lead to flashbacks is hardly original, it does work well here. And Boyle succeeds in, if nothing else, portraying the poverty and difficulty of the underpriveleged in India, but the love-story construct just didn't work for me. I'd give it a B-, and it would have been a C+ had they used anything other than WWTBAM.

I wanted to make it a four-fer, and see DOUBT,too, but I just couldn't pull it off. Maybe next weekend.

I think I've been to three movies in all of 2008.

jaybee wrote:I think I've been to three movies in all of 2008.

That's three more than I've been to this year.

Well, if you two are interested (yeah, right! ), there are a couple of movies you SHOULD see (a couple of which are out on video already). My top 5 for the year:

1. WALL-E. I admit it, I'm an absolute sucker for animation, and nobody does it better than Pixar. There were sections when I was POSITIVE that these robots weren't animated, but were really real. It's funny, it's touching, it makes great use of the music from "Hello Dolly!" Every time I think Pixar can't make a movie better than their last (in this case, the extraordinary "Ratatouille," and "Cars" before that, and "The Incredibles" before that, and "Finding Nemo" before that, and...), they do. WALL-E is magical.

2. THE DARK KNIGHT. Not you're father's Batman movie. Stunningly beautiful in its way, with hands-down the best performance of the year (Heath Ledger's Joker is breathtaking), just ignore Maggie Gyllenhaal and you'll have a great time.

3. FROST/NIXON. See above.

4. IN BRUGES. I'm not the world's biggest fan of Colin Farrell, but he's so good in this movie, I may become a convert. Yes, it's bloody as hell. Yes, it's got more swearing than all of Tarantino's oeuvre put together (which makes for a GREAT bonus feature on the DVD where you can see the entire movie in 3 minutes, by cutting everything out that ISN'T a swear word). But Bruges (the city) is beautiful, and BRUGES (the movie) is half travelogue, half black comedy, and half Shakespearean tragedy. Yep, that's three halves, but it makes for a terrific movie. Oh, and this gets the 2008 "Six Degrees of Harry Potter" award for starring Brendan Gleeson (Mad Eye Moody), Clemence Poesy (Fleur Delacour) and Ralph Fiennes (He Who Must Not Be Named)....all swearing up a storm.

5. FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. OK, this is my out-on-a-limb pick for the year (even more so than IN BRUGES). If you can stomach seeing a Full Monty by Jason Segel (of "How I Met Your Mother" and "Knocked Up"), you'll be rewarded with a terrific story, well told, about a guy who takes a Hawaiian vacation after getting dumped by his girlfriend (while he's literally and figuratively naked), only to find that she's staying at the same hotel with her new lover, a foul but sweet Russell Brand. Mila Kunis ("That 70s Show" and Meg Griffen's voice on "Family Guy") is wonderful as the hotel worker he finds on the rebound. Very funny stuff.

And just because, two Honorable Mentions: TROPIC THUNDER is better than it should have been (and Tom Cruise is funny as hell, believe it or not), and BURN AFTER READING is better than you've heard.

KillerTomato wrote: And while Penn is generally excellent, and perhaps true to Milk's own personality, the flashes of queeniness and flamboyance seemed more offputting than "real". I never got a good sense of the purpose behind Milk's relationship with Jack Lira; was his loneliness that severe that he'd choose a destructive, paralyzing relationship over none at all? Why not explain that further?

If a mid-40's, powerful, successful heterosexual male in a movie had a relationship with a mid-20's very attractive female with some very self-destructive habits, no one would say they couldn't get a "good sense of the purpose" behind the relationship. It's something that you've seen hundreds of times in the movies as well as happening in real life. There's a lot of men who would latch onto an attractive younger woman who worships them and then rationalize themselves into saying that they could "work through" the problems. This is the exact same situation.

This movie showed the romantic/sexual side of gay relationships in more depth and more realistically than any mainstream film I've ever seen. Most often, gay characters are shown as asexual stereotyped safe "pals." When it is shown, gay romance is usually either played strictly for laughs with mincing queens chasing anything that moves or tragically with one or both parties in a state of denial. True, Milk's relationships didn't end well, but there was a realism to them (as well as a considerable amount of physical affection depicted) that you don't see in mainstream films.

My triple feature this holiday season, though not all on the same day:

The Tale of Despereaux
Marley & Me
Valkyrie

All three I will recommend. Though they are all very different and not too many people will like all three.

Comment on ratings.

Marley & Me was rated PG for thematic elements, some suggestive comment and language. I would give it a PG-13. The suggestive comment was excessive for a PG. I was uncomfortable with my kids.

Valkyrie was rated PG-13 for for violence and brief strong language. Well the brief language was one f-bomb (with a British accent so its not so bad). The violence was no more than what you'd see on Rat Patrol. We were told it was bloody. Nope. Most scenes where they could have bloodied it up they held the camera right up to the 'incident' then pan away and all you get it the sound.

So I'd give Marley & Me the PG-13 and Valkyrie the PG.

BackInTex wrote:My triple feature this holiday season, though not all on the same day:

The Tale of Despereaux
Marley & Me
Valkyrie

All three I will recommend. Though they are all very different and not too many people will like all three.

Comment on ratings.

Marley & Me was rated PG for thematic elements, some suggestive comment and language. I would give it a PG-13. The suggestive comment was excessive for a PG. I was uncomfortable with my kids.

Valkyrie was rated PG-13 for for violence and brief strong language. Well the brief language was one f-bomb (with a British accent so its not so bad). The violence was no more than what you'd see on Rat Patrol. We were told it was bloody. Nope. Most scenes where they could have bloodied it up they held the camera right up to the 'incident' then pan away and all you get it the sound.

So I'd give Marley & Me the PG-13 and Valkyrie the PG.

So did Despereau-X earn that X rating?

The last two movies I saw in actual theaters were Shrek the Third and The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. So that's like two in 4 1/2 years. Steve took the two youngest to Despereaux the other day, and I'm going to take Mini-me again for a class trip since they read the book and are doing a writing project on the differences between the book and movie. I didn't want Erin on the class trip, and it's not a bad idea to see it twice if it's part of a class assignment.

Otherwise, I'd never go see movies, I guess.......

silverscreenselect wrote:
If a mid-40's, powerful, successful heterosexual male in a movie had a relationship with a mid-20's very attractive female with some very self-destructive habits, no one would say they couldn't get a "good sense of the purpose" behind the relationship. It's something that you've seen hundreds of times in the movies as well as happening in real life. There's a lot of men who would latch onto an attractive younger woman who worships them and then rationalize themselves into saying that they could "work through" the problems. This is the exact same situation.

Yes, I'd have the same complaint in this case. My criticism has nothing at all to do with the sex of the participants, or their orientation, but only in the lack of motivation. Jack's self-destructiveness was a major plot point, but we're never told why Harvey would live with such a leech. I had no such problem with his relationship with Scott (and James Franco was certainly better looking than the guy who played Jack, at least to this heterosexual male), because their relationship was much more stable.

silverscreenselect wrote: This movie showed the romantic/sexual side of gay relationships in more depth and more realistically than any mainstream film I've ever seen. Most often, gay characters are shown as asexual stereotyped safe "pals." When it is shown, gay romance is usually either played strictly for laughs with mincing queens chasing anything that moves or tragically with one or both parties in a state of denial. True, Milk's relationships didn't end well, but there was a realism to them (as well as a considerable amount of physical affection depicted) that you don't see in mainstream films.

I agree completely. But that doesn't mean we should ignore the movie's faults.

I put far more faith in KT's reviews than anything Ican read in the papers or see in TV ads.

Dark Knight was one of the three I saw this year. I agree that HL's Joker was quite disturbing - amazing acting there. I did find it to be just a bit overpowering and super fast moving, although a part of that is we got to the showing a few minutes later than planned - watching at an Imax theatre from the third row is a bit too close for me.

The other two were the fourth "Raiders" movie which I enjoyed up until the farce of having Indy jump into a fridge to survive a nuke - I can only suspend belief so far. And Quantum of Solace which I liked as it had a flavor more like the earlier SC Bonds only with much better special effects. The plot and motives were confusing though.

I'm a simple guy - there are very few movies that aren't just as good for me on DVD.

And while Penn is generally excellent, and perhaps true to Milk's own personality, the flashes of queeniness and flamboyance seemed more offputting than "real". I never got a good sense of the purpose behind Milk's relationship with Jack Lira; was his loneliness that severe that he'd choose a destructive, paralyzing relationship over none at all?

Obviously I haven't seen the film since it isn't animated, but one of the things about Harvey that made him who he was was the fact he would not be one of the closeted "confirmed bachelor" types people were comfortable with. He was pretty upfront with who he was and you just had to deal with it. Or not, as the case was.

And if by "Jack Lira" you mean "James Franco," well then I see the purpose all right. Oh yeah. But I'm female....

This Rolling Stone review can't say enough good things about Milk. I don't like
Sean Penn as a person, but he is a hell of an actor. Looks like he did a pretty good job in this
movie as well.


http://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/mov ... /1066_milk

BackInTex wrote: So I'd give Marley & Me the PG-13 and Valkyrie the PG.

The MPAA "rule of thumb" is that an F-bomb automatically earns a PG-13 rating and two or more earns an R rating.

silverscreenselect wrote:

BackInTex wrote: So I'd give Marley & Me the PG-13 and Valkyrie the PG.

The MPAA "rule of thumb" is that an F-bomb automatically earns a PG-13 rating and two or more earns an R rating.

Unless it's Ocean's 11 and you disguise one with a heavy Chinese accent.

minimetoo26 wrote: And if by "Jack Lira" you mean "James Franco," well then I see the purpose all right. Oh yeah. But I'm female....

No, Jack Lira was played by Mexican actor Diego Luna, who was in "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Frida". Franco played Scott Smith, Harvey's long-time partner (and he was terrific).

KillerTomato wrote:

minimetoo26 wrote: And if by "Jack Lira" you mean "James Franco," well then I see the purpose all right. Oh yeah. But I'm female....

No, Jack Lira was played by Mexican actor Diego Luna, who was in "Y Tu Mama Tambien" and "Frida". Franco played Scott Smith, Harvey's long-time partner (and he was terrific).

Well, then that gets a "huh" since it's not Gael Garcia Bernal, who would also be understandable, to me.......

I envy you KT for the simple reason that, for someone who likes movies as much as I do, I just cannot make myself go to see movies in the theater unless it's a high-action flick that deserves to be seen on the big screen. And, what's even funnier (to me) is that there were several such movies I had wanted to see over the past few years but either could not find the time to go see or I could not persuade Lady G to go. And I am not one that can go to a movie by myself (with one exception, a second viewing of "Fellowship of the Ring"). In fact, I think the last movie I actually saw in the theater was "Return of The King." I have seen many movies since then, albeit on my Home Theater. But, I will probably see many of these films in the coming year once they go to DVD. I have a huge backlog of DVDs to get to right now. I have seen a lot of what I considered to be good movies (even though they were not box-office hits) within the last few months including "Capote", "Charlie Wilson's War", "Girl With the Pearl Earring", "The Bank Job", "No Country For Old Men" and "All The Kings Men."

jaybee wrote: The other two were the fourth "Raiders" movie which I enjoyed up until the farce of having Indy jump into a fridge to survive a nuke - I can only suspend belief so far.

But it was a fridge with a lead lining!





Which obviously would protect Indy not only from the blast and radiation, but also from being tossed hundreds of yards through the air.