Away We Go

I was excited to see Away We Go. I was excited about the David Eggers screen play, cute John Krasinski and beautiful Maya Rudolf in the lead roles, And the previews made it seem smart. I imagined it would make witty commentary about modern societal ills. I also had hopes about the great comedic actors like Jim Gaffigan, Alison Janney, and Catherine O’Hara. Big expectations, I know. So, what usually follows big expectations is a handful of disappointment. And yes, that’s what happened. It wasn’t terrible. It had interesting characters, and it did a good job of showing two people who seemed genuinely in love, but, hmmmm, what was it missing? A plot for one. Cohesive dialogue for two. Some understatement for three. Let’s take the first complaint. The movie wandered from place to place – sure it had a thread running through, expectant parents search for a new home, (by the way it was easy to predict where they were going to end up) but that was really it. The dialogue was all over the place and seemed like it was just shooting for smart but not very meaningful. Finally, it is way over the top. Points about the way parents can be terrible were made by hitting you over the head with the absurdness. So bummer. I wish I liked it better, but maybe Eggers’ next script will hit the mark.

The Lucky Ones

The Lucky Ones is road trip movie about three Iraq war soldiers from different worlds who are home on leave and are forced to rent a car and travel across the country after their flight is cancelled. Tim Robbins plays the older and wiser soldier who learns that his wife is leaving him. Michael Pena is the driven career soldier who is wounded and impotent, and Rachel McAdams plays the tough but sweet Collee who is really the most charming of the three. The movie is filled with hokey contrived plot points but is buoyed by the great acting of the three and the good chemistry they create. It also has some very funny moments – usually supplied by McAdams’ sunny character; she even makes peppy hopeful comments about TK’s impotency problems. Luckily the movie makes few political comments about the war and rather portrays three interesting soldiers’ lives.

New in Town

I wanted to see New in Town, a film that depicts a Minnesota small town, and see how they made us Minnesotans look. And, big surprise, it made Minnesotans look like simple-minded, frumpy, totally out of touch goof balls, but they’re so darn nice, so that’s good. The accents are way over the top, and there is clear distinction between men and women's roles. The men hunt, ice fish, wear dorky Viking outfits while watching football, and go to the bar. While the women scrap book and make dishes to pass. Renee Zellweger is the outsider who tries to break into this foreign and harsh environment, and she is apparently dumb enough to wear spiked heels in freezing weather and snow (I’m pretty sure she would have learned a tip or two about what to wear before she came). She also rents a freezing house – because it always sooo cold in Minnesota, even indoors, according to this movie. The romance between Zellweger and Harry Connick's characters lacks chemistry and seems really beside the point. The ending kiss, I have to mention, is dumb, dumb, dumb. There is one bright spot in this movie though, Siobhan Fallon Hogan who plays Zellweger’s scrapbooking assistant, she is pretty darn funny even if she is playing a stereo type, but she does it with aplomb! So unless you enjoy seeing Minnesotans look like a bunch of stodgy rubes living in a hell hole, I would pass on New in Town. You heard it here. Ya you betcha!

I also saw Confessions of a Shopaholic and heard it was bad but think Hugh Dancy is soooo cute, that I watched. Guess what? it was el dumbo!

Milk and Last Chance Harvey

I watched these two movies over a week ago and I remember watching Milk but was racking my brain trying remember the other movie I watched that same night. Last Chance Harvey did not immediately come to mind (I actually had to check my Netflix account movie history) and thus I can summarize this movie with one word: forgettable. Milk, on the other hand, was amazing for one reason, Sean Penn. If there was any doubt that he was a great actor, his sympathetic portrayal of Harvey Milk, would dispel that. I don't think it's a great movie, it leaps from event to event as many biopics do, but the time that is presented and the fascinating and inspirational life of Harvey Milk makes up for the episodic plot.

Secret Life of W. and Australia

Three movies I have seen in the last week:

The Secret Life of Bees: I liked Dakota Fanning as Lily, the girl escaping her abusive father with the help of her African American housekeeper (Huck Finn, anyone?) But the movie gets too syrupy and "heartfelt". A bonus is the appearance of Paul Bettany, a great British actor as the father.

W.: too much of a caricature of George Bush -- Oliver Stone is as heavy handed as he was in JFK.

Australia: This movie could have been ended after two hours when the cattle were driven to market. A perfect ending, almost, but there was still another hour and a half! Yikes! I actually had to watch it over two evenings. I can't imagine sitting through the whole thing in the theater. There is a very cool Baz Lurman (Moulin Rouge) highly-stylized look with a dash of Gone with the Wind and Wizard of Oz thrown in. But it's a mess of a movie in the end. It could possibly be worth seeing it for the adorable aboriginal boy who is also the narrator for the story, but probably not.

The Reader

I was most interested in the boy who plays Kate Winselt's lover in The Reader. David Kross is a German actor who has a baby face and plays a 16-year-old who meets up with the older jaded Winslet, so at first you are horrified when you see Winslet's Hanna and Kross' Michael naked and hungrily grasping each other. As the movie progresses, though, it seems less lascivious and more a story about a very sad woman -- I had sympathy for all the characters, even Hanna who does unexplainable horrific acts as an S.S. officer. Kate Winslet is great as a the harsh perfunctory Hanna, and watching her listening so rapturously to great literature is mesmerizing. Ralph Fiennes is the adult Michael and is of course good, as he is in everything, but I think the best part of the movie is the young David Kross. The movie is based on the book by Bernhard Schlink's book of the same name.

Twilight

Sometimes curiosity gets the better of me, and I feel like I have to find out why everyone is watching this movie or reading that book despite bad reviews. That's what happened with Twilight, the Stephanie Meyer vampire novel. First, I read it -- even people whose tastes I respect seemed to like this book. I have never been a fantasy reader and certainly never a vampire book lover, so I was pretty sure I wouldn't like the novel, but I wanted to get in on the conversation. I mean I just corrected a set of middle school short stories and there were three different stories with the main character named Bella. Well, long story short. I read the book-- thought it was dumb -- couldn't finish the last few chapters due to extreme annoyance. Then I saw the movie mainly because I really like Kristen Stewart ever since Speak. The movie was just like the book and dumb in the same way. Both show a vapid female lead falling in love with not very charming but overly confident vampire. Both versions of Twilight are beyond ludicrous.