When Did You Last See Your Father?

When Did You Last See Your Father? tells about a man who is struggling to deal with his dying father, a father who he has been angry with most of his life. The movie is autobiographical and based on writer Blake Morrison’s real life resentment toward his own father. The adult Blake is played by Colin Firth and his father is played by Jim Broadbent. Both are great actors and do not disappoint in this film, but the younger Blake played by Matthew Beard attracted my attention the most. I think he will be a young actor to watch. Overall the movie is interesting and gets you thinking about things one doesn’t necessarily want to think about like our parents mortality, but it is also slow and not as interesting, say, as The Savages, which is also about dealing with a dying father.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

I must be some kinda sap. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner gets me every time. Sure it's a movie with some cheesy elements where the sentimentality is overt, yet my eyes start welling up about when Spencer Tracy's character, Matt, the liberal newspaper owner, disappoints his beautiful wife played by Katherine Hepburn with the news that he will not accept the pending marriage of his daughter to a black man. And Sidney Poitier is so moving throughout the movie, particularly when he explodes while talking to his father, explaining his place as a black man in modern society. He tells his father that he sees himself as a colored man while John, Poitier's character, sees himself as a man. With one short speech he gives a glimpse of what it might be like to be black in America and makes me think of how everyone's way of looking at being black in America has changed again, with Barack Obama's amazing and unlikely catapult to election win. Poitier plays an amazingly accomplished doctor who just came from Hawaii. Sound familiar? Adding to the emotion of the film, is knowing that this movie was Spencer Tracy's last (he died just 17 days after the completing the film). He expresses his love to his wife in the movie so movingly while we know that she, Katherine Hepburn, is his real-life love -- that really gets the tears going.

I wasn't going to watch a movie after a long weekend away from home and homework to do --- but Guess Who's Coming to Dinner sucked me again. And I've seen at least 4 times before. It's like a red-light food for me (A red-light food is a weight-watcher's term meaning a food that you know you won’t stop when you eat just one). Just five minutes into this movie I was binging.

Political Movies

I haven't seen any movies lately -- a conference, a night class, my job, and too much politics has kept me from them. Tonight, of course, I am glued to the TV watching the returns. Stick with me, though, I'll get back to it and keep up my goal of posting at least once a week. For tonight, though, I leave you with a list of political movies that I liked.


Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) Oh, you just gotta like this idealistic look at Washington


The Candidate (1972) a sexy Robert Redford combined with a smart suspenseful story


Wag the Dog (1997) A very cynical look at American politics

Bulworth (1998) weirdly goofy Warren Beatty movie

Primary Colors (1998) John Travolta does a surprisinly good Bill Clintonmerican politics, but gets ya thinkin'

Dick (1999) silly teens in the Nixon whitehouse -- silly but fun!

Election (1999) Matthew Broderick and Reese Witherspoon high school election satire. HIGH- larious! One of my favorites.

Thank You for Smoking (2006) Sexy Aaron Eckhart as smarmy tobacco lobbyist -- a strangely good combination

Recount (2008) (see earlier review) great recap of what happened in Florida during the 2000 presidentical election -- and a great movie

The Visitor and Baby Mama

Ooh! What an odd combo of movies I watched this weekend. I am going to start with The Visitor because I just finished it and it left me feeling sad and wanting to talk to someone about it. The movie potrays a middle-aged economics professor stuck in his joyless life and recovering from the death of his wife. His life changes when he encounters an exuberant Syrian drummer who is crashing in his New York apartment. The movie moves from being a story about drumming to a story about trying to save Tareq, the drummer, from being deported. This movie does not have a sunshiny view of how the good professor saves the immigrants from their doom -- sadly that is not even possible. The reality of life for immigrants in America after 911 is bleak and The Visitor examines this reality. But the movie didn't just bum me out about how are justice system can work, it also left me feeling like playing the drums or at least getting in touch with my inner drum beat!

Baby Mama, with Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, is a lightweight, sit-comesque comedy. It's kinda funny in parts and makes some interesting commentary about our me-centered American culture, but it is pretty forgettable which I say regrettably since I love Tina Fey and think 30 Rock is awesome, but BabyMama isn't as clever as that show or Mean Girls, another Tina Fey movie.

Bernard and Doris

Bernard and Doris tells about the real life heiress Doris Duke and her devoted butler. Susan Sarandon and Ralph Fiennes play the lead roles and attack these roles pretty admirably. I wanted to watch this HBO movie when I heard it nominated at the Emmys. Again, here's another movie with great acting and an interesting plot potential that falls flat. You don't even really care what happens between these two flawed people at the end.

The Duchess

The Duchess has everything I like in a movie: a period piece with great acting and gorgeous landscapes. And yet, I thought it was only so so. I thought Ralph Fiennes' dry cold humor is amusing, Kiera Knightly is lovely and the story of the Duchess Georgiana is fascinating, and yet, the movie didn't wow me. Georgiana, the main character, was known for being an 18th century Hollywood-like star -- everywhere she went people were awed by her wittiness and her magnificent outfits--but Knightly didn't seem to have the fire needed to play this big character. Knightly is definitely fantastically adorned and has many clever lines but she is too understated as this attention-seeking diva. I don't know. I liked it, I guess, but I just wasn't wowed.

Wired

I haven't posted in a while because I haven't seen any movies and my only DVD entertainment has been the fourth season of the Wire. It's so good I am savoring it by watching just one or two episodes at a time. This season's focus is on a really messed up Baltimore middle school. More later.