Last movie you watched......

80 percent should be a B, not a B+.

 

The Watch.
Hated it.
Totally unfunny.
Vince Vaughn amps up his schtick of playing Vince Vaughn and it was annoying.

 

Tanner Hall was on TV tonight. "Eh" way to end last night of vacation. Rooney Mara was solid, but she's been solid in everything she's done since The Winning Season (save the Nightmare remake, but that might be because I dislike horror remakes). Tom Everett Scott was also decent in it.

 

Just saw "The Paperboy," an awful, unredeemable movie that tried to shock-and-awe for the hell of it. Choppy direction, a ridiculous plot and a rare misfire from John Cusack, who tried and failed to channel Robert De Niro in "Cape Fear." FWIW, Nicole Kidman was great, even if years of botox has paralyzed her forehead.

 

Saw The Iceman last night. It's always ambitious asking an audience to empathize with a mob contract killer and Ariel Vromen almost succeeds. Michael Shannon is great in a difficult role but one that suits him perfectly -- cold, blank-faced contract killer by day and loving husband and father by night. The absurd duality can be amusing at times and leads to some excellent bits of dialogue and writing, I thought. Winona Ryder has the ability to pull off her "stupid wife" role (shocker, right?) and there's an appearance by the ubiquitous James Franco. Ray Liotta was Ray Liotta, which is fine by me. I like him. Sorry, but I couldn't believe David Schwimmer as a flunky gangster, especially with the cheesy mustache. The cinematography is compelling if predictable -- very dark, noirish feel to it. It's not a particularly long movie but it moves kind of slowly and get's a little out of hand in the middle while trying to squeeze in a good sampling of Kulkinski's 100-plus contract hits. A couple of flashbacks -- the final one pretty powerful -- help add perspective but, overall, the story and character development (aside from Kuklinski) were lacking.

 

Yeah that was free on Amazon a while back and I gave it a whirl... would like to get those couple of hours back.

 

Watched Silver Linings Playbook last week; great all-around movie. Now one of my all-time favorites.

 

I like Cusack, but he's made a lot of clunckers:

2012 'The Raven'
2010 'Hot Tub Time Machine'
2009 '2012'
2001 'Serendipity'
1994 'The Road to Wellville'


I also notice he's made a sh*t-ton of movies I've never seen.

 

I like Serendipity

 

And "Hot Tub Time Machine" was funny. Not an all-time great movie or anything, but an enjoyable 90 minutes or so. Plus, that's a great title.

 

Saw Ironman 3. It wasn't as great as I was led to believe and I was led to believe that while not as good as 1 it was close. It wasn't. Its about half way between. What they did with the Mandarin doesn't make sense on a bunch of levels.



SPOILER:














unless there are rings out there that have meaning, they are ignoring the canon. And the rings were foreshadowed in Ironman 1, see Obidiah playing with his. And the terrorist flag.

Tony Stark's house blew up with his display suits. BFD, what about the STark Building in NYC? No suits there? No plane to come get him and take him there? Shield can't manage a single agent to help out the President? Captain America doesn't do presidential guard duty in this emergency?

As a story of Tony Stark losing himself and finding himself it was very good, especially with the kid. As a Super Hero movie, it was better than Thor 1 not as good as Captain America 1.

Looking forward to Cap'n America 2 and THor 2.

 

Daydream Nation. Typical "teenage student looking for self" fare, but Kat Dennings and Josh Lucas are decent in their parts.