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Didn’t get a lot of movie time this past month, but, here’s some thoughts on what we did get to see, in reverse chronological order.
Battlestar Galactica
I just wanted to make a few comments on this before I get into the actual movies. Terra and I have watched the pilot mini-series and the first four episodes in this last couple weeks and I love it so far. I grew up on sci-fi, but, I think sci-fi really changed in the early 90s or so. I watched the first season of ST:TNG back in the day but then lost interest in Trek altogether – especially when the god-awful fifth movie came out (followed by the god-awful sixth and god-awful seventh, etc.). But I still love the first four films and I can sit through most of the old episodes. So, as they say, “Kirk is my captain”. And I have tried various sci-fi stuff over the years and just have seen very little that is any good, especially on tv. Most sci-fi seems to have turned into action, popcorn stuff in a future/tech setting, but, little actual thoughtful stuff. Sci-fi is supposed to be about IDEAS. Good science fiction leaves you thinking and discussing long after you have seen it. 1954’s The Day The Earth Stood Still is a good example, 1982’s Blade Runner is one of my favorites, and a good recent example would be 1999’s The Matrix. Who am I to define what sci-fi is? Good question. So, perhaps all I am doing is referring to a sub-genre.
Anyway, what I have seen of BSG so far is great sci-fi; sci-fi as I understand great sci-fi to be. And just great in general. Great premise, great stories, great characters. And I really love the sound design. I am really looking forward to seeing more and I already have so many questions.
Primer
Speaking of great sci-fi…
I watched this in bed on my PSP. This is my fourth time or so to do this – I still haven’t watched it any other way. I love love love this movie. I love the small scale, just a couple of guys with little lives. And, made for $7,000, this truly is a ‘garage movie’. And sci-fi of concepts, no special effects needed. I also love the way it is filmed and acted – I always feel like I am just looking in, the acting is so natural I forget I am watching performances.
This is on my mental list of greatest science fiction films ever made. And such a unique twist on the whole time travel concept.
Vanilla Sky
Wow, um, what to say. I remember loving this movie – watched it several times with my wife and liked it enough to listen to the commentary a couple times. And, Terra had seen it and has been wanting to see it again.
Well, we didn’t really like it. Not sure why. Though, this was the second in a Cameron Crowe double feature. We watched Almost Famous, followed by this. Maybe it was too late at night to appreciate, maybe it couldn’t measure up to Almost Famous. Dunno’. Anyway, something just didn’t click. We both felt it took too long to tell the story. Just sitting there waiting for the surprise ending and not really getting much else from it. I have no idea how this happened.
But, I want to give it another chance some time.
Almost Famous
I didn’t know if Terra would like this one or not, so, I went easy on her and started off with the much shorter theatrical cut.
I knew I loved this movie but I had forgotten how much. This easily is in my top twenty of all time and I have really been thinking it deserves top ten placement.
This is real comfort movie material here. And it is all about the people. I want to spend more time with these people. (Maybe, like is said of the main character, they make me feel cool?) I was absolutely smitten with this film every moment it was on and I converted the director’s cut plus commentary and put it on my PSP the very next day so I can spend some real quality, personal time with it. Speaking of the commentary – this film has the best. commentary. ever. At least, if you love the film.
I have seen it many times and, again, I remember loving it, but, anytime I have considered watching it in the last year or so, I kept finding myself trying to remember WHY I loved it and couldn’t really think of anything. Like, maybe it was just the sort of thing I was into back then. I finally chose it one night because Terra loves Frances McDormand and I thought she’d love her in this one. And I expected to like it, but, I was just totally carried along the whole time.
I have that little list of ten movies I can’t live without on my sidebar, and I may very well bump one to add this one to the list.
By the way, see also August Rush for a movie about the love of music.
JFK
This was the director’s cut we watched and boy was I sorry. She had never seen this film and even the theatrical cut is just way too long. But, she loves mysteries and didn’t know much about the whole Kennedy assassination thing and I grew up in the Dallas area, so, I’ve heard it all. The problem is that Oliver Stone always takes forever to tell a story. I can’t even say it is always worth the journey. I think Natural Born Killers is and this one probably is. Obviously, you come to this one for the last forty minutes and have to sit through the first (what feels like) five hours to get to the finale.
Yes, this is a great film, but I would almost condone invasive studio control over a director’s work in this case :P
Iron Man
Meh.
I am biased, I don’t like action movies. Any movie that you can sum up to someone in terms of “this happened then that happened then this happened” etc. is an action flick. I used to have a practice that, whenever I watched a genre film in a genre I was not fond of, I would make it a double feature so I could compare them to each other rather than compare one to a “real movie”. But, even if I had done that and watched this with, say, one of the new Batman movies, Batman would win hands down.
Tony Stark was an interesting character and was well-acted, but, all that did was point out how everyone else in the movie is a cardboard cut-out. And, the plot was totally color by numbers. You knew the guy in the cave was going to be dead, you knew Jeff Bridges was going to become the bad guy, this is all typical comic book stuff. Then it was combined with typical popcorn flick stuff – action sequences and pratfall humor, etc..
A genre film is always predictable but tries to tell the story this time around with enough stylistic and interpretive differences to try to be a replacement for the previous versions and perhaps this succeeds somewhat for the superhero movie – I don’t know the genre very well. But that doesn’t make it a good film – it will be forgotten in fifty years, it leaves no legacy, it will not endure. I read Ebert’s review and just couldn’t believe his high praise for it and he even called it one of the best of the year.
There are much better films out there that tell a story of a bad man becoming a good man and making his wrongs right and no special effects or suspension of disbelief are required. And they WILL endure, so, if you haven’t seen them, that’s ok, they’ll still be around when you are ready.
L.A. Story
There was a day that Terra and I wanted to have a “light movie day”. Nothing deep, nothing to explain or ponder, just entertainment.
Heh, um, I had a REAL problem finding many like that in my collection. Just to be clear, remember I have a huge LaserDisc collection of all kinds of movies, but most of them are in storage and my DVDs and Blu-Rays are only movies I love. There are plenty of “light” movies in my LD collection.
Anyway, I love L.A. Story. It is a very romantic love story. But, there is so much more to it – it fits into my category of ‘movies that can’t figure out what they wanted to be’. But, it is another movie I say “watch it until you don’t laugh at the jokes anymore”. Sure, it works great as a comedy (see also American Psycho for a satirical view of L.A. life) but, if you want to get the full impact of the fantasy romantic side of it, watch it until that’s all you see.
On that note, though, it sort of failed us as a “light” movie because there were more than a few moments that I couldn’t help but pause and call Terra’s attention to something subtle. In that way, Clueless is another ’see also’ for this one. I know so many teens that love Clueless and don’t seem to see that they are being made fun of. It works so well on the surface level that it is easy to miss the underlying messages.
There is a scene or two in L.A. Story that seem to be only there so someone could get a cameo (I’m looking at you, Rick-Moranis-as-a-gravedigger scene!), but, there are a couple scenes that are so magical. For instance, when they go for a walk and feel young again, not middle-aged and hopeless, thinking love can never find them again – they now feel so much hope, like they have their whole lives ahead of them all over again. At least, that’s my interpretation of that scene. And I still get teary when she is on the plane to leave and I always hear his words spoken earlier about what he would do if he could to stop her from leaving.
(I have on my to-do list to make a blog post about movies that make me cry. But not today.)
Fletch
This is just a comfort film. I have seen it more times than I can count since I was a kid. I always love Chevy Chase’s shtick. The story is ok, the acting, whatever – none of it is anything special but I love Chevy Chase in pretty much anything. I can sit through a bad movie if it has Chevy Chase in it and this is probably my favorite.
BTW, this was the first in our “light movie day”, followed by L.A. Story.
The Matrix
One of the greatest science fiction films ever made and I stand by that ten years after seeing it the first time. And an action move I actually like – the chase scene at the beginning is so exhilarating and a big reason why I got the game Mirror’s Edge – just so I could live something similar. And, I love the visual style of it – I wish I had a poster of the group shot of them behind the phone, the first time they all go into the Matrix.
My main complaints with this one are as an action film, oddly enough. The fight scenes should have been done by real martial artists. Watch an old Jackie Chan film – these guys move like old men. In fact, Jackie Chan at his age now, moves faster than these young actors.
But, this one is full of great science fiction, semi-cyberpunk moments and ideas.
Oh, I almost forgot, this was the new Blu-ray release we watched and, um, WOW! IT looks absolutely stunning.
Too bad they never made any sequels :P
So, that brings this post to this month’s bottom line:
Was Ready To Re-Watch It As Soon As It Was Over: Almost Famous
Would Rather Re-Watch Any Other Film In This List Than This One: JFK