Movies
I have watched a lot of movies lately... it's a symptom of my nesting. Even cooler, I've actually seen three of the five movies nominated for Best Picture. Yeah... I know. I'm cool. I totally picked best actress, best actor and best picture. This has been a good year, and these awards were well deserved.
Anyway... here are some quick and easy comments on the movies I've seen recently:
The Wrestler - Good. Good acting for sure. A bit gory though. It's sort of painful to watch, but yet worth the time, if that makes sense. And although I respect Mickey Rourke's comeback (I actually looked up his story on Wikipedia to get his "real" history), I think his skin is weird. And by weird, I mean gross... but, of course, now I feel guilty because I know what happened to make him look that way. So karma comes back to bite me in the butt: I think he's creepy, and now I feel bad about it. Moving on...
Milk - Simply amazing. Sean Penn (regardless of how you feel about his politics) was phenomenal. Truly incredible. I think this role has been one of the best roles of his career, and the Best Actor win was deserved 100%. He said it best when he won last night when he said, "I didn't expect this, and I want to make it very clear how hard I make it to appreciate me often.. But I am touched by the appreciation." This is a movie you shouldn't miss - it's well acted, and historic. Go. Go now.
Slumdog Millionaire - Anyone who hasn't seen this movie yet should be beaten. Okay, no... I'm kidding. But it's a great movie. It's admittedly choppy, a bit unnerving at times (the spoon!), but it's well showcased, well directed. The acting is good, but it's not the acting that makes this such a fabulous movie. It's the story, the story-telling, the fantastical nature of the scenes, and, of course, it has love in it... so the girls will love it. It's actually NOT a Bollywood movie, it's English, but it has all of the fun and fanciful touches of Bollywood... so you'd never know. :)
Inkheart - Loved it. If you have teenagers or young kids, take them. It's like Jumanji meets Labrynth. Cool effects, nice story, good acting. It's a family film of sorts but good for adults, too. I enjoyed every minute.
Sherrybaby - (Netflix) Good, but another story about a girl who can't kick the habit. She has lots of sex, shoots up, doesn't understand why her daughter (who hasn't seen her because she was in jail) is confused. Okay... worthy up a weeknight viewing, but not a must see, unfortunately.
Half Nelson - (Netflix) Ryan Gosling does a great job in this story about a teacher who also happens to be a drug addict. I couldn't decide how bad I felt for him because the movie doesn't automatically try to get you to like the guy which was nice. He's a decent guy who cares about kids, but he's weak... he just can't stop, and actually gets worse. It's worth watching, but more introspective than entertaining.
Sweeney Todd - (Netflix) LOVED IT. Loved it more than when I've seen it on stage. It's so dark and morbid that it's a hard show to watch... but Johnny Depp made the character dark without being horrid. The music was great, the vocals were great, the scenery was awesome, and in creating the film version they removed the "chorus" scenes, so there's no singing/dancing street scenes... that should be helpful to those of you who don't like musicals. It's Johnny Depp, for goodness sakes... go see it.
I've also watched Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and two of the three DVDs for Weeds, Season 3. All good... and so my quest to make the most of my Netflix subscription continues...
Anyway... here are some quick and easy comments on the movies I've seen recently:
The Wrestler - Good. Good acting for sure. A bit gory though. It's sort of painful to watch, but yet worth the time, if that makes sense. And although I respect Mickey Rourke's comeback (I actually looked up his story on Wikipedia to get his "real" history), I think his skin is weird. And by weird, I mean gross... but, of course, now I feel guilty because I know what happened to make him look that way. So karma comes back to bite me in the butt: I think he's creepy, and now I feel bad about it. Moving on...
Milk - Simply amazing. Sean Penn (regardless of how you feel about his politics) was phenomenal. Truly incredible. I think this role has been one of the best roles of his career, and the Best Actor win was deserved 100%. He said it best when he won last night when he said, "I didn't expect this, and I want to make it very clear how hard I make it to appreciate me often.. But I am touched by the appreciation." This is a movie you shouldn't miss - it's well acted, and historic. Go. Go now.
Slumdog Millionaire - Anyone who hasn't seen this movie yet should be beaten. Okay, no... I'm kidding. But it's a great movie. It's admittedly choppy, a bit unnerving at times (the spoon!), but it's well showcased, well directed. The acting is good, but it's not the acting that makes this such a fabulous movie. It's the story, the story-telling, the fantastical nature of the scenes, and, of course, it has love in it... so the girls will love it. It's actually NOT a Bollywood movie, it's English, but it has all of the fun and fanciful touches of Bollywood... so you'd never know. :)
Inkheart - Loved it. If you have teenagers or young kids, take them. It's like Jumanji meets Labrynth. Cool effects, nice story, good acting. It's a family film of sorts but good for adults, too. I enjoyed every minute.
Sherrybaby - (Netflix) Good, but another story about a girl who can't kick the habit. She has lots of sex, shoots up, doesn't understand why her daughter (who hasn't seen her because she was in jail) is confused. Okay... worthy up a weeknight viewing, but not a must see, unfortunately.
Half Nelson - (Netflix) Ryan Gosling does a great job in this story about a teacher who also happens to be a drug addict. I couldn't decide how bad I felt for him because the movie doesn't automatically try to get you to like the guy which was nice. He's a decent guy who cares about kids, but he's weak... he just can't stop, and actually gets worse. It's worth watching, but more introspective than entertaining.
Sweeney Todd - (Netflix) LOVED IT. Loved it more than when I've seen it on stage. It's so dark and morbid that it's a hard show to watch... but Johnny Depp made the character dark without being horrid. The music was great, the vocals were great, the scenery was awesome, and in creating the film version they removed the "chorus" scenes, so there's no singing/dancing street scenes... that should be helpful to those of you who don't like musicals. It's Johnny Depp, for goodness sakes... go see it.
I've also watched Anne of Green Gables, Anne of Avonlea, and two of the three DVDs for Weeds, Season 3. All good... and so my quest to make the most of my Netflix subscription continues...
Labels: movies
posted by Charissa at 7:00 PM
5 Comments:
I loved Half Nelson. Have you seen Lars and the Real Girl? Ryan Gosling is so great in that movie!!!
thanks for the half nelson recommendation. i'm sorta obsessed w/ryan gosling... drug addict or not.
Haven't seen Inkheart, but did you see Stardust? You should check it out. Much in the same vein of those movies you compared Inkheart to.
And as for this year's Oscar crop, I think I finally made it through the whole list this past weekend by seeing The Reader, which I really enjoyed, and for reasons different than I enjoyed The Wrestler and Slumdog. Penn totally deserved his win, but Rourke would have been an equally qualified choice, both gave great performances. I still need to catch The Visitor, which I've read nothing but good things about, and Frozen River, but that one's hard to track down.
Okay, so I've never seen Stardust, but I just read about it; and it's not only going on my Netflix, it's moving to the top. That looks good! A friend of mine might have a bootlegged copy of Benjamin Button which I want to see (but I'd rather not pay for), and The Reader I am dying to see. The Visitor is actually a Netflix instant movie so you can watch it whenever you want if you have Netflix (it's on my list) and Frozen River is a regular rental.
The real issue is that I have 209 movies in my Netflix queue...
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