Catch Up

She’s baaaack. I know, where would you be without knowing about ALL the movies I have seen in the last several months? I just searched my NetFlix Queue, Library Account information, and my brain to try to remember the few movies I saw in the theaters which, I think, were Moonrise Kingdom and Sleep Walk with Me. I’m annoyed with myself for letting my blog rest dormant for so long, but I will try to be better this winter. Of course, this list is really just for me. I always want to keep a list of all kinds of things: books read, witticisms, best TV shows, and what not. Therefore, keeping a public list is a way to keep myself more accountable. So I venture on keeping a list of ALL the movies I have seen. The list below is arranged from most recently seen and goes back all the way to the summer. Must sees will get a *****. All the other movies will merely get a snarky, reductive summary.

Friends with Kids -- kinda cute but ultimately dumb romantic comedy.
Next Stop Wonderland – You’d think a movie with Hope Davis and Phillip Seymour Hoffman would be good but this “smart” romantic comedy was also kinda dumb.

Sleep Walk with Me – Mike Birbiglia bio pic about his sleep disorder with help from This American Life’s Ira glass. It’ a likable movie, but I didn’t think it was a great one.

Drive – Come on, Ryan Gosling. What else do you need to know? He struts around intensely or should I say drives around in a strutting fashion.

Wallis & Edward – Madonna tells the oft told story of the king who abdicates his throne with and addition of an unnecessary modern-look-back angle.

Idiocracy – The comedic movie is kind of a mess but I appreciated the effort to show what a future of increasingly dumber and dumber people would look like. I think this movie makes same good points about our modern American society.

Bernie – I like Jack Black and I thought he did a good job as a real-life funeral director who waits upon the rich lady in town who is played by Shirley McClain. The highlight of this movie is definitely the real Texans who narrate the scandal in their kooky vernacular.

Moonrise Kingdom ***** love, love, want to see again from the man who brought you Rushmore but better than Rushmore I thought. So wonderfully weird!

The Hunger Games – read all three books this summer and was excited to see the movie. I also really like Jennifer Lawrence from Winter's Bone who plays Katniss. I guess I thought the movie was pretty good but ultimately don’t think it captured the books intensity and the main character’s coolness.

Higher Ground ***** -- I’m going to five star this movie even though I know that not all would enjoy it, but I thought Vera Farmiga’s role (she also directed) about a woman’s search for God in her life is so beautifully depicted (and does not denigrate a religious person as so many movies do) that it really makes this movie worth watching.

Flipped – cute little nostalgic romance between two preteens – now that I think about it, a romance between pretweens. That’s kind of weird.

Marley ***** I did write about this one already but worth repeating because it’s so awesome! “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

Margaret ***** This lovely – tortured movie by writer director Kenneth Lonergan of You Can Count on Me (one of my favorite movies) is well worth watching. Anna Paquin plays a teen who really acts like a teen who encounters and has to learn to accept tragedy. The dialogue is so rich and compelling that I wanted to rewind and hear it again.

Sherlock Holmes – I got this at the library after watching the excellent PBS TV modern take on Holmes. This one with Robert Downey Jr. has a lot of flash but little substance.

Cinema Verite – is a fictionalized account of the making of a 70s PBS documentary called The American Family or one of the first reality TV shows. The movie stars Dianne Lane, James Gandolfini, and Tim Robbins who are kind of fun to watch in all their groovy 70s attire. The movie also sheds some light on the reality of reality TV.

Prime – a romantic comedy starring Merryl Streep, Uma Thurman, and as Streep’s son, the very cute Bryan Greenberg. Not great but not bad. Also, after watching this movie I got the HBO series How to Make it in America, also with Greenberg which I enjoyed.

We Bought A Zoo – I guess I kinda liked this sappy family drama. What are ya goin’ do?

Albert Nobbs – story of a cross dressing gay woman played by Glen Close during 19th Century Ireland. I found this movie just plain sad. Well acted but very grim.

Phew, feels good to be caught up!

Catch Up

Summer Vacation! A time when I can take a deep breath and slowly exhale! But before I can start watching a whole host of movies and TV series on DVD, I have to finally get around to writing about the movies I watched this Spring (some of these I actually watched as far back as January). Yikes.

So here they are:
Mildred Pierce: a two part HBO series that is a remake of a 1945 film of the same name. The title character is played by Kate Winslet as the mother who is both ambitious for herself and her daughter (Evan Rachel Wood -- she sure has played some freaky characters for such a young actress). I had heard the movie dragged but I liked it. I think it revealed what it might have been like to be a woman with ambitions in the 30s and 40s even though this particular woman was a tad off her rocker. Despite the craziness of some scenes or maybe because of it, this series was fascinating to watch.

50/50: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen play two randy young men about town. This movie starts out as a buddy movie but quickly turns toward a much more serious topic: cancer. Levitt’s character learns he has a rare cancer in his spine and has to learn to cope amid his hip-happening lifestyle. 50/50 is well acted and says something real about patients and friends who go through this diagnosis even if at times it seems overly trite on the topic.

Cedar Rapids – Ed Helms plays a lovable, naïve goof ball (similar to his Office character, actually) who is also a small town insurance agent who goes to the mid-sized town convention where he encounters all kinds of new experiences from silly to absurd. I was kind of ho-hum about this movie although it did have some original moments.

Secretariat – I did not see this movie when it first came out but was at the library so I thought what the heck. I liked it even if the script was full of cliché’s of the sports movie variety. Predictable but not the worst.

P.S. I Love You – dumb, sorry I watched it, but did watch the whole thing, so maybe it wasn’t that dumb. No, it was that dumb.

Like Crazy

– I had heard this naturalistic indie film about the romantic lives of two hipster-types was good. What I found was a painful trip through two not very likable characters kind of boring relationship. Did NOT like.

Zeigfield Girls (1941) – The CBS Sunday Morning Show profiled Heddy Lamarr who was a fascinating person: she was both one of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood and a brilliant mathematician. After seeing this profile, I decided to watch one of her most famous movies, Zeigfield Girls. Every once in a while I like to watch an old movie just to remind me how far movies have come, especially in the way they portray women and minorities but in this film there are so many other fascinating weirdnesses for the modern eye. Heddy Lamarr plays a married woman who is forced to become a Zeigfield girl because she and her husband are near financial ruin. Her story is just one of many in the film of women who seek the dream of become one of these famous dancers. Others in this ensemble cast are the likes of Judy Garland, Lana Turner, and Jimmy Stewart.