Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Movie Reviews


Greetings! They say "write what you know" and I figured no one would care to read about how many times my dog has peed today, so movies it is!


I am a certified movie buff (at least that’s what the guy said after I paid him $100 and he took a picture of me topless next to a projector reel). I love watching them, dissecting them and wishing I looked more like Scarlett Johansson in The Avengers. Justin suggested I write about the movies I’ve seen - I suspect so I wouldn’t talk his ear off after seeing a movie. Opinions are my own and probably not even that good.

Hugo
I rented this last week and watched it at home; I really wish I would have seen it in the theater. I heard how amazing the 3D was, how well it served the story, how seamless it was. It must have been phenomenal 3D because without it, the story didn’t grab me. I thought I’d love it because it’s partly about the early days of the cinema. But the majority of the film focused on young, orphaned Hugo trying to fix an Animatronic robot his dad had been working on before he died. For being billed as a children’s film, it moved incredibly slow at times. Bonus points, however for the appearance of a Harry Potter alum (Helen McCrory, as Ben Kingsley’s wife, portrayed Narcissa Malfoy in the Harry Potter films.)

The Hustler
 This movie has been on my list for a long time because a) I’ve heard it described as a classic and b) Paul Newman is hot. “Fast” Eddie Felson is a pool shark seeking to challenge Minnesota Fats, the best there is. It’s a real quality movie and the pool scenes in particular are fantastic. But this is not the movie to watch if you’re feeling light-hearted. This film dives deep into the soul of a self-destructive guy with immense talent he can’t quite harness in a positive way. As he pushes everyone in his life further away, Paul Newman gives the character of “Fast” Eddie a true sense of desperation; all while remaining really, really good looking. 


Being John Malkovich
Another one on Netflix instant watch. John Cusack discovers a portal through which a person can enter John Malkovich’s mind. How had I not seen this innovative movie yet? It had me pulled into its other dimensional weirdness until the 3rd act when it tried to explain why the portal exists. I didn’t care why it existed. I cared what it was doing to the people who entered it. My only issue with movies like this? They’re so out there, so bizarre, require so much suspension of disbelief on the viewers. Sometimes the filmmakers take advantage of that and create characters that also don’t make sense. It can make you feel disconnected from the people in the movie and thus, disconnected from their discoveries. Character development still needs to be rooted in realty even if everything around them is going bonkers.


That's it for now - see you at the movies!
 

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