Last movie you watched......

Some of Spielberg's obvious exaggerations for effect/excesses, of which the opening scene was a classic example. Nice cartoon white-guy moroooons.

 

The Iron Lady.

Thought I would really like it but I couldn't get into it at all.

 

Django. Some enjoyable scenes but the gratuitous violence, weak plot and uneven pace earn it downers from me. The violence probably wouldn't have bothered me before Newtown. Most of the audience seemed to enjoy it and I'm sure most 20-somethings would also.

On another note, to the parents who brought your preschool-aged son to the 11:05 showing, shame on you!

 

I love Tarantino. Unabashedly and unashamedly. Got his Blu-ray box set for Christmas. I find his use of violence glorious.

That said, yeah, my reaction to violence in movies and television right now is different than it was a few days ago, and I'm sure that's the same for a lot of people. There's a scene in "That's My Boy" with Adam Sandler where someone fires a shotgun into a bus full of people, played for laughs. I cringed.

 

"Bound." Rowr.

 

Silver Linings Playbook. It's a romantic comedy about a bipolar guy and a slutty widow. I liked it.

 

"This is 40."

I enjoyed. It definitely ran too long, but Rudd and Mann were pretty good in their respective roles. I wasn't doubled over laughing at any of the one liners, but I enjoyed some meaty giggles. The movie was a little more heartfelt than I expected, and that was a pleasant surprise. Several scenes were pretty realistic, too. Raw, even. Uncomfortably so.

And Albert Brooks is a pretty damn good actor.

 

"The Dark Knight Rises."

I didn't like it very much at all. Understand that I'm not the audience. I mostly dislike action films. For the most part, things like plot and characterization are merely excuses to string one set piece after another together. Which is fine, I suppose, as far as it goes. And there are some fun sequences here. But Christopher Nolan, with an assist from fawning critics and fan bois, takes himself so, so seriously, that this almost feels like farce at times. I knew I wasn't going to like it early on, when there's a scene where the bad guys take over the Gotham version of Wall Street, and there's one on-the-nose line about the banking industry after another. There may be clunkier directors in Hollywood than Nolan, but not many. Immediately, I recalled a lot of the interminable exposition in "Inception." This was a different kind of clunky, but almost more cloying, because it clearly indicated that Nolan felt like he was making this movie about something bigger. And he's not good enough and the film's not good enough to carry that.

Besides all that: Too long (nearly three hours). Too overstuffed with plot, characters, and action. By the time rocks start falling on police officers' heads somewhere in the loooooooong middle of the film, all the drama had long been drained out. Also: I go to a Batman movie to watch Batman do his thing. Not to watch him sit in an underground prison for most of the film.

This trilogy confirms what I would have already suspected: It's pretty much impossible to do a comic book/superhero film as a serious work of art. At least you can't do it and please the core fan base. Just a big swing and a miss here. I stopped caring about anyone and anything in the movie, oh, within the first 20 minutes.

Does anyone actually sit on the edge of their seat when Bane is doing some dastardly deed in a series of dastardly deeds? It just all seems so wretchedly plotted and contrived to me. It's hard to imagine really getting into it.

 

This is 40... I thought it was well-done, but pretty depressing. I couldn't relate to it, which, trust me, is a good thing... I liked the ending a lot and the scenes with Melissa McCarthy were by far the funniest in the movie.

 

You don't like action movies, but you wanted more action?

 

Not exactly.

The problem was that when Batman was in a hole for 90 minutes, the rest of the action wasn't any different from your standard-issue Michael Bay popcorn movie. It was utterly tedious. You know he's going to get out of the hole. It was just a waste of 90 minutes.

 

I have a friend in the movie biz who sees everything, I mean everything.

His movie of this year is Zero Dark Thirty, which is next on my list.

Just saw Silver Linings Playbook and was disappointed. I really wanted to love it.

Argo is my Best Pic so far, but I have a lot of work to do.