Mary's Lame List

I’m so lame. My blog was limping at the beginning of the year but then it became bedridden. I shall push on by keeping the following pitiful list:

In the Theater –
Life of Pi – if I could stand to watch it again, I would. It made me want to read the book again too. I like its ponderings about religion and the amazing visuals – I actually saw it in 3-D (first one for me in the modern era)

57 and Up – part of the 7UP series. If you haven’t seen this documentary series, you should. Director Michael Apted has chronicled the lives of 10 or so real English people from different classes, starting when they were age 7 in 1964. This movie makes me think – mainly about what makes a meaningful life.

Silver Linings Playbook-- I thought it was going to be a simple little meandering indie flick, enjoyable but not great. But it turned out to be great, funny, with a cohesive plot that builds to a very satisfying conclusion. I just loved it!

Anna Karenina – beautifully and uniquely made and staged. I didn’t think that another Anna Karenina was needed but this one offered something new.

Argo – fast paced and thrilling. Worthy of best picture? Not sure. But definitely well made.

Lincoln --a dark little film. By dark I mean actually dark, faces half-lit, figures silhouetted against a grey sky. Sometimes it seemed liked you had to strain to see what was happening both strain the eyes and the ears. With that being said, I liked it. I liked imagining what it might have been like to be that political world where you are reminded of our current divided country. Daniel Day Lewis, who plays Lincoln, holds the movie together with his wonderful performance. His Lincoln seems so kind and entertaining and even funny in parts. He seems like an august grandfather who you want to sit at the feet of and soak up some of his wisdom.

DVDS Since the beginning of December. I’ve put the more forgettable ones into a couple of categories but will highlight the deserving standouts.

SELF-INVOLVED INDIE FILMS: (not bad, but they don’t have much to say) 2 Days in New York, Safety not guaranteed, Your Sister’s Sister, Ruby Sparks, Darjeeling Limited

MEDIOCRE ROMANTIC COMEDIES: What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Think Like A Man, Friends with Kids

STANDOUTS:
Game Change: this movie depicts Sarah Palin’s story surrounding the 2008 presidential election. Fascinating and I found it myself more sympathetic towards Palin after I watched it.

Monsieur Lahzar (French subtitles): sad story about a teacher and his students dealing with oppressive grief – a beautiful film.

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!

Liven Up Yourself

“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.”

Marley is a pretty straight forward biography of Bob Marley’s life, from being born of a white man in St. Ann Parish in Jamaica to his final treatments for melanoma in the mountains of Germany. This documentary doesn’t take many risks when telling us about the life of Bob Marley, but it does manage to infuse the movie with Bob’s irrepressible spirit. Or maybe it’s just that Bob’s lyrical music is playing throughout making it seem so joyous and sad at the same time. Knowing that this great man who had so much energy and musical genius, who had such an impact on not only the world of music but on issues relating to the poor and violence in his country, died at a mere 36 years old seems so very wrong and so sad. I couldn’t help loving Marley and don’t think it’s just because I love Bob Marley.

50 Best Movies on Netflix Instant from Paste Magazine

I thought this list was interesting. I particularly recommend Winter's Bone with Jennifer Lawrence (Hunger Games) and Half Nelson (Edgy teacher movie) with Ryan Gosling.

Tree of Life

I wanted to see Tree of Life, really I did. A person such as myself who likes to think she is up on all that’s cool, hip and now (in movies that is) should see Tree of Life. But it sounded kind of boring. So how did it stack up against my preconceived ideas? Well, it was kind of boring. Yes, it’s cool looking and all that – but on my small screen the awesome visuals could not make up for the inexplicable. For example: What is with the molten lava amid opera music? Views of space overlaid with whispered words — and then dinosaurs? I was like Wha? The whole experience reminded me of watching the animated Fantasia – a movie everyone praises for its loveliness, and I find torturous to watch (have I mentioned that I’m not a big fan of animation). Now, Tree of Life

has a narrative where a family is struggling after the death of one of their boys. There is good acting – I was especially drawn to the oldest as a boy who has an expressively sad face. But the director’s, Terrance Malick, decision to present the story with little dialogue where we merely get a glimpse on everyday scenes of their life, is frustrating. I think there is supposed to be a grand theme about the birth of life or some such thing, but man, I gotta have some plot!

Margin Call

Do you want to be annoyed/angered at the rich bastards who cavalierly rob the general public out of their meager dollars? Then Margin Call is the movie for you. Granted I don't understand half of what is going on about how the millions of dollars are blithely moved around by a phone call here or there, but I understood enough to be pissed off! Margin Call “follows the key people at an investment bank, over a 24-hour period, during the early stages of the financial crisis." (I quotes because I can't figure out how to explain this one) Stanely Tucci's character uncovers some major ef up that will apparently cost the regular Joe a financial crisis on the same day that he is getting fired for downsizing. Tucci's brilliant underling puts the pieces together and calls the big bosses, starting with high-powered characters played by Paul Bettany, Kevin Spacey, Simon Baker, Demi Moore (token female suit) and then the big, big gun Jeremy Irons. The big guns try to decide how to minimize the damage to the company before the public gets wind of the major ef up. At first I thought there was going to be a character who was going to act as a whistle blower – a heroic character whose conscience would get the get the better of him and he would risk all and call the newspaper and or some such thing but to no avail. These a-holes are way more worried about their own million dollar salaries than the impact their actions will have on society. Margin Call makes me want to occupy Wall Street!

Two Documentaries

Resurrect Dead: The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles
Documentaries can be so wonderful because there about real things and often tell stories that if they were fictional, no one would believe it. This is so true of Resurrect Dead. This movie tells the story of tiles, tiles that a mysteriously show up throughout the Eastern United States and South America.

(see a picture of one here) They show up on busy roads, smack dab in the middle of the road. Not only is this the story of cryptic tiles, but also it is the story of those who seek to solve the mystery of the tiles, in particular one man named Justin Duerr. While getting the answers to the mystery are worth watching this movie for, the portrayal of Duerr is another compelling part of the movie. He becomes obsessed in this kind of low key way. If an obsessed person can be low key, that is. I think this movie tells us something about the nature of obsession and what makes people pursue an endeavor that to others seems pointless. Suspense builds as Duerr and his companions get closer and closer to the answers of the tiles and while the answer may or may not be everything we hope for, we realize that the journey was pretty cool.

Project Nim
Project Nim is the story of one cute, sad, and abused little chimpanzee and the freaky folks who took turns trying to care for him. Nim starts out as a test subject in one university doctor’s effort to teach a chimp sign language. Nim’s first host family is a 7Os hippy mother who goes as far as to try to breast feed Nim but not discipline at all and Nim rules her strange household. The Doc in charge, who by the way previously had an affair with hippy mom, decides Nim needs a new home and finds a secluded mansion that he stocks with eager graduate students ready to teach Nim sign language. The egotistical doc has an affair with one of the students. Meanwhile Nim grows up gets violent and unruly. Finally, unable to care for him, the doc moves him again abandoning his language project. This time Nim is sent to a crazy place that houses chimps and does experiments on them. There’s more to Nim’s story and while I won’t give away the ending, it does end in a satisfying way, sort of. The movie is full of real people, most who turn out to be shmucks (from the documentarian’s perspective, of course) but a few turn out to be heroic in their small way.