Happy St. Patricks Day! What movies did you watch this weekend?

deej

deej

Tol Eressea
Tell us about them here!

I saw a great movie on Saturday - 'Be Kind, Rewind'. It was directed by Michel Gondry (who did 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'), and is about a video store clerk (Mos Def), whose slightly dim friend (Jack Black) becomes magnetized (it would take too long to explain!) and accidentally erases all of the videos in the store. In order to stay in business, they decide to re-film all of the movies in the store starring themselves, and soon bring in other people from the neighborhood to help out. In the meantime, the stores owner (Danny Glover) is fighting to keep his business from being demolished in the name of urban development. It's a very sweet, funny movie - their version of 'Ghostbusters' alone is worth the ticket price.
 
A generally fun movie, with Frances McDormand as Miss Pettigrew (a nanny who has trouble finding a job) and Amy Adams (as a singer with an unpronounceable stage name). It's not consistently "fun" as it does a fine job at showing London just before WWII started in England. Ciran Hinds and Lee Pace (Pushing Days) give terrific support.
 
Which was odd, quirky, funny, and touching and made me go, "Oh no... they did NOT go there." quite a few times. If I had to describe it I would liken it to movies like Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, etc... but with an 'edge' to it. This movie goes places those movies did not. Alan Tudyk is great. Matthew MacFayden has put on a few pounds but I still love him (he is really reminding me of someone else and I can't place it). The only extras I watched was the blooper reel and it's amazing this movie got made with all the uncontrolled laughing that went on.
 
and it took me about three days to watch it. I had seen it in the theatre when it came out, and I don't know how I managed to sit through it. I found it more disturbing this time, so only watched in small snatches. But it was nice to see Sean Bean in a sympathetic role for a change, even if he did struggle with an American accent. Sounded more Irish than American, mostly. Excellent performances from him, Charlize Theron and Frances McDormand.
 
I'd describe it as "the Brits take a page from the Farrelly Brothers." The humor was too often forced and I could have done without the toilet humor, but Alan Tudyk was wonderful.

Matthew MacFadyen sometimes reminds me of Tom Hanks.
 
This movie definitely keeps you on the edge of your seat. Javier Bardem got a well deserved Oscar for his role in this movie.

The way it doesn't wrap everything up into a nice neat bundle at the end is wonderful.

I understand it is very true to the book.
 
I'm Not There - The bits with Cate were great, most of the rest was so-so (even the Heath Ledger parts, which I wanted to like more); the stuff with Richard Gere was not good at all.

1408 - In this movie, John Cusack is a writer who writes travelogues about haunted places. He books "the evil room" at a hotel in New York against the strong advice of the manager of the hotel. Chaos ensues. Some of it was really scary, some of it was ordinary scary, and some of it was funny. Then it turned into a drama about the writer's daughter who had died and his wife whom he had left, which was unexpected and didn't quite fit into the "thriller" genre. I still don't know why the room itself was evil.
 
Jedi...what can I say? Not crazy about the ewoks but love this flick. Ghostbusters II - well, it's not Ghostbusters. No Country For Old Men - great flick, a typical Cohen brothers for me, had that 'Fargo' vastness feel for me. Sometimes they pick up on the small things, the fact that almost every character goes out of his way not to get blood on his shoes was one of those things for me. Much like Fargo, I like the Cohen's ability to show these types of scenarios happening in relatively every day life. And that this kinda of stuff 'just happens' and once it's over everyone goes back to their lives.
Stardust - A good fantasy flick. I thought everything in it was great, without giving anything away of course, I'll just say DeNiro is hilarious. Adds fuel my fascination with the British lately. I have been so disinterested lately in the seemingly generic and rehashed tv shows and movies coming out of North America lately, that I have found myself going to the BBC and watching more movies coming out of other parts of the world. There are exceptions of course! Off the soapbox now sorry!
 
I will watch anything Alan Tudyk is in, and thought that Peter Dinkage (as Peter) was also really good in this.
 
of 1408 wasn't the ending at all, after which the film moved up another couple of notches for me. I found it a smart and spooky thriller.

Wasn't it written by Stephen King?
 
After watching it a second time I realised its dialogue isn't as wonderfully quotable as The Princess Bride. But the overall package is wonderfully done.

Clare Danes still kills me early on with her "I just do" line. [laugh]
 
L.Ron and I went to see this documentary on Sunday morning, at a special screening. It's about the staging (in 1997) of a production of 'Turandot' in the Forbidden City in China. It was fascinating - I was jealous of the HUGE budget the show had, but intrigued (and kind of glad) to see that the director still had trouble with divas who didn't like their costumes, lighting designers who didn't do what he wanted, and stage crew who weren't really pulling their weight. The final production looked spectacular - at a budget somewhere between $12 and 15 million, so it jolly well should have done!! [;)] I was also reminded, when listening to the different (there were three casts) Calafs singing 'Nessun dorma', of just how amazing Domingo and Pavarotti were in their day; these guys (in the film) were of course very good, but just not in the same league as those exceptional superstars.

I also saw, on Saturday, the Met's HD broadcast of 'Peter Grimes' - not a movie, but I did see it on a movie screen! It was fabulous. And yesterday evening I watched 'Elizabeth' on DVD. A flawed movie, but still one which I love.

I really want to see 'Be Kind, Rewind' - glad to know it was good, deej!
 
Brent Spiner, who was Data in Star Trek NG. In this movie in particular (well, the trailer for it, as that's all I've seen) I really thought he looked like him - in fact, when I first saw the trailer I thought it was him.

But maybe that's just me... [crazy]
 
According to Han Solo, anyway! Or maybe he was just bluffing... Yes, that's what it was, a deliberate joke on George Lucas' part... [crazy] Those scifi writes eh? Gotta love 'em... [laugh]
 
which we recently bought on DVD.

It's only the second time I've seen it, and it's certainly a film that rewards careful [re-]watching. So many details, and such a delight to watch masters of the acting craft.

A couple of nice docos with it, too: a "Making of", and one on how they strove for authenticity by having as on-set consultants three people who were servants in great houses in the 1930s.
 
I haven't read the book, but a glance at wikipedia explains why (to me) Tommy Lee Jones felt underused, until the end: in the book, there is a backstory involving his service during WW II that the film omits.
 
I saw Feast of Love on video, and Wild Horse Redemption and the "World's Best Commercials" at the Cleveland International Film Festival. The commercials were entertaining, as usual (the compilation was somewhat disorganized, also as usual). Feast of Love is an uninteresting drama starring Greg Kinnear as a man unlucky in love. Wild Horse Redemption is an affecting documentary about prisoners in Colorado who work on a ranch taming captured mustangs for adoption. Not very deep, but consistently engaging and good looking.
 
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