Last movie you watched......

My 24 year ar old son has been waiting for it for months---he's a big Gladiator fa
He saw RH last night. Said it was mediocre.
Reviews have been uniformly bad.

 

I'm probably in the miniscule minority, but I wish Crowe would stop mucking about and make another Master and Commander movie. Love the books, loved the movie. Watch it at least once a month or so.

 

DVRd The Searchers a few weeks ago...watched that again. Still worth it.

The Art of the Steal...one-sided doc about the Barnes Foundation and the Philadelphia Art Museum...interesting, but biased. Still...you can help but think a great injustice was done.

Iron Man 2...like too many other superhero sequels...convoluted, melodramatic, trying to balance a broad story with distinctive dialogue makes for a long, tough slog...won't see it again unless by accident.

Robin Hood...love Blanchett, and sometimes Crowe, but this is a grim piece of business. Some myths aren't worth debunking (especially when the myth is the whole point). I'm sure Republicans will eat it up, though.

Chloe...Atom Egoyan has lost his fastball a little bit; he uses high-profile actors here (and Where The Truth Lies) where he would have been better served by lower-wattage stars than Julianne Moore and Liam Neeson. Seyfreid is the best thing about it; I suspect there's more of her personality in this film than her others. There's something very intimate about her here, beyond the sex. Egoyan should have made the couple younger and casted actors who hadn't already turned in the performances of their career.

 

You need to see Leonard, Part 6.

Land of the Lost is pretty awful. Shame that Anna Friel, once a gifted actress, schlepped in that nonsense.

 

It's very hard to gauge her performance and the film as a whole, when it was directed by a complete hack. Or, John Lee Hancock directed it like a hack would. It's hard for somebody to build a performance when every emotional beat is captured with a quick cut to a close-up.

My favorite scene is the one where Phil Fulmer shows up, and he says something to "Brad," the Clemson assistant. And since the audience is apparently comprised of idiots who couldn't recognize Clemson's colors, the assistant not only says he "drove all the way from Clemson" but adds as a capper to that scene "I'm heading back to South Carolina" so, um, we're clear where Clemson is. Or something.

I also appreciated how the high school was protrayed as a boob, which lends credence to the idea that Ole Miss hired the guy in an attempt to land Michael Oher, even though the audience is to believe Ole Miss did nothing improper. This idea is counterbalanced by a single line from Fulmer "I'm sure you'll be a coach in college soon," which, instead of lending some idea that the coach is qualified, makes it seems as though Fulmer is willing to bribe the guy.

Again - the movie is directed like an idiot's guide to life in general.

As far as Bullock...all that movie served to do for me is show that she takes orders like a good soldier and lacks the instincts when watching rushes to know what truly works (artistically) and what doesn't. She's unlike Julia Roberts, whom I think learned that stuff halfway through her career, and became a much better actor because of it. I'll her in Murder By Numbers anyday. In the wake of her marriage to Jesse James, that performance makes more sense. It remains her best, I think.

 

Iron Man 2

I don't watch these kinds of comic-book-come-to-life movies. I didn't see the first Iron Man and don't know the whole back story. As for this one, it wasn't bad, but Downey seemed bored. Rourke was pretty decent as the bad Russian, as was Sam Rockwell as the smarmy seller of high-tech arms to the government. Scarlett looked delicious. Gwyneth sucked. Cheadle was miscast and didn't do much. Sam Jackson seemed out of place, too.

It was mindless entertainment for 2 hours. But it reinforced why I don't watch these kinds of movies.

 

Agree on Cheadle being miscast. Too bad Howard screwed himself out of the sequel — he was pretty solid as Rhoady. I think the plot point of Rhody taking the second suit lacked the depth of betrayal that it would have had if Howard were still in the role. I mean, in the first flick, we saw they were brothers. Just didn't get that feeling of closeness with Cheadle.

For the life of me, though, I don't know who else they should have cast.

 

Funny you say Sam Jackson looked out of place. In the Ultimate universe, Iron Man, Avengers etc, Sam Jackson was the model for Nick Fury.

 

Daybreakers.

OK, I'm not saying this is a great movie, but it's a lot better than I thought it would be. I was entertained. I would put it up against the Blade movies. This new release had an A-list cast ... for 1990: Ethan Hawke, Sam Neill, Willem Dafoe. If you like vampire flicks with a sprinkling of sci-fi, check it out.

 

Watched Bend It Like Beckham this afternoon, because it was on and because I like Parminder Nagra. Didn't realize Kiera Knightley and Jonathan Ryhs Myers were in it too. It was OK. Soccerized version of Footloose. Futloose ...

 

Saw Robin Hood yesterday. Don't understand all the hate. I thought it was pretty watchable although the battle scenes all look like a video game on speed. It's perfectly set up for a sequel, as usual. Oh, and Russell Crowe on a horse.

 

Saw Old Dogs on DVD. A dumb movie that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Low expectations helped a lot.