The person who cut the trailor should be fired: it completely misrepresented the movie.
Pretty good, but definitely a movie that requires you to suspend your disbelief. One of those very “real” feeling movies with just a little sci fi thingy thrown in to make it all work (similar to the way the book “Time Traveler’s Wife” works).
Denzel was good (when isn’t he).
Category Archives: Flicks
Plane: All the King’s Men
OK. Sean Penn overemoting a bit, no? Jude Law was good; surprised to find his character was the narrator. Funny to see he and Kate Winslet together again so soon after seeing The Holiday.
Not bad, but not anything special either.
Cable: Underworld Evolution
OK I only caught the last who knows how long of this (hour?), but I turned the TV on right in the middle of a wordless, very sexy, very NUDE (nuder than most!) sex scene between Scott Speedman and Kate Beckinsale. Woah. For a minute, I thought maybe it was post midnight and the TV had accidentally been left on Cinemax; it’s always so disconcerting to come home to that!
I’ll have to try to watch it from the beginning sometime; I know neither of them are “Great Films” but I did enjoy the first Underworld. Vampires, leather, gloom: sometimes it’s just what you’re looking for in a flick.
Big Screen: The Painted Veil.
Serene and slow…and very, very sad.
The emotions run the gamut during this one: from mean and horrible to tender and distressed. You can know someone for a long time…without knowing them. Can’t you?
We both liked it.
Best of…2006
Best CDs: I already posted an extensive list of my favorite tunes from 2006. My top 3 albums were Gnarls Barkley “St. Elsewhere”, Gomez “How We Operate” and Golden Smog “Another Fine Day.”
Best Gigs: I saw a lot of great shows in 2006, including Lollapalooza. Trying (desperately) to narrow it down, I’d say the two tied for “funnest” were Gnarls Barkley and Beck (hello, puppets!). The best was Joan Baez. And runner-up was The Raconteurs on December 30. Sadly I did not keep a list just by 2006, but you can see a (supposedly) comprehensive list of what I’ve seen live here.
Best Books: [Limiting myself MOSTLY to books published and read this year, as opposed to all the books I read this year.] The best NON fiction books I read this year were “Guests of the Ayatollah” by Mark Bowden and “The Year of Magical Thinking” by Joan Didion. The best novels I read were “Black Swan Green” by David Mitchell, “Sharp Objects” by Gillian Flynn and “Towing Jehovah” by James Morrow [that one was not pub this year]. The best short stories I read were “In Persuasian Nation” by George Saunders and “When the Messenger Is Hot” by Elizabeth Crane (not from this year either). The best poetry was “Strong Is Your Hold” by Galway Kinnell. You can view the entire list of what I read here and you can read my last mini-reviews here (reviews will be posted to Snip from now on).
Best Films: By far, the best film I saw this year was “The Departed”. For drama, I also highly recommend “Inside Man” “The Queen” and I personally loved “Marie Antoinette”. For a smaller film “Come Early Morning” was very well done. For comedy “Scoop” and “Clerks 2” were both quite funny, in their own ways. “Casino Royale” was the Best Bond, perhaps ever. And “The Prestige” was a good movie about just how horrifically awful human beings can be. So you’d have to keep that in mind, should you choose to see it. There were other movies I liked also.
I’m pretty good at not going to movies I can tell I’m not going to like, in my old age. I’d have to say “Last Kiss” (yuck) and “Match Point” (“Scoop” is so much better!) were my least favorite movies in the theater this year and “The DaVinci Code” was about how I expected: not good, but not as bad as I had heard. Average. Middling.
For Keanu lovers like myself, there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with “The Lakehouse.” You can see the whole list of what I saw here or you can view Snip by category “Flicks”; although I oddly forgot to write up a LOT of the concerts I saw, I pretty consistently reported back on movies.
And I’ve already seen my first movie of 2007 although I haven’t written it up yet. Soon! 🙂
Cable: Without Limits
I missed the first 45 minutes or so as I was busy putting pictures of my ass up on the Internet (I know, I wish I was joking too).
One of (several) Prefontaine movies. Wow, I loved this. Billy Crudup is yummy even with the scary ’70s hair and the Prefontaine ego, and look at those muscles. Was it this way in real life: were all the other runners so much skinnier than Pre and more “the normal skinny shape for long distance runners” or is that just how it looks in this film? Donald Sutherland is great, although so emaciated you can almost see his bones coming through his skin. Now who is…oooo it’s Jeremy Sisto playing one of the other runners! I never liked him until I started watching Kidnapped this year, but now I am a fan.
Oh and creepy “Ethan” from “Lost” plays “Bob” (which is always said in a very creepy tone), Pre’s sometimes roommate.
Loved it. Totally cried at the end! Poor Mary! Despite lack of first 45 minutes. Maybe someday…
Big Screen: The Good Shepherd.
OK. Better than The Good German. But not great, not what it’s trying to be.
Felt this was a very PHYSICAL acting role on Matt Damon’s part, similar to what Heath Ledger did in Brokeback. It wasn’t just in the way he talked, but in the way he walked with his shoulders hunched, the way he stared, the way he always seemed to have one eye looking over his shoulder. You constantly felt the burdens he was under.
Robert DeNiro was great, think he may have underused himself here. Alec Baldwin continues in his string of recent very welldone supporting roles. Angelina did a good job decaying of unhappiness. William Hurt was just as icky and creepy as you can imagine, and honestly he might need to do a “good guy” role sometime again soon or I might not be able to watch him on screen much more!
Movie covers a LOT of ground, about a 25- to 30-year time period, with flashbacks and jumping back to present. I liked the transitions / B&W slowly into color. Thought there were a couple of twists done wrong / i.e., when there’s a big “reveal” of a bad guy: it has to be someone you care about. Otherwise it’s thrown away.
Didn’t love it. But did make you ponder some things. Like how the fucko rich boys in skull&bones have fucked the shit out of our country and aren’t they still continuing to do so. But that’s really a different topic isn’t it?
Long and slow. A lot to take in.
Big Screen: The Good German.
A nice try, but some problems, probably in the script, that make it unsatisfying in the end. Clooney’s character is a reporter, so you’re thinking he’ll DETECT what’s going on and be the one who figures things out. Uh, No, not so much. Everything that happens seems to take his character by surprise which was a) not really believable and b) made the story not work so well.
Plus, honestly, could little tiny Tobey Maguire, using ONLY ONE ARM, beat the crap out of George Clooney? In what world? (Clooney gets the crap beaten out of him a lot in this flick.)
Cate Blanchett was good. Beau Bridges was good (haven’t seen him in anything in ages, but he’s also brilliant in “The Fabulous Baker Boys”).
In contrast to Goodnight and Good Luck, where you may remember black & white film was used to its fullest crispest shimmeriest goodness, in this movie, it’s used to look like old news reel. Hence super contrasty / too dark in some scenes / washed out in others. Went with the mood of the flick, but seemed like a WASTE to me. And something that will make MORONS talk about how B&W is bad, when this is just a bad example of it. Eh, what can you do.
Cable: Hostage
Icky movie where lots of icky things happen. Bruce Willis is good in it, but why not watch a movie where he’s good and the icky things are less icky? 16 Blocks, for example.
Big Screen: The Holiday.
Total chick flick. But harmless and cute. Nothing wrong with spending a couple hours watching an (oddly tan?) Jude Law.
Third storyline (old dude next door) kind of thrown in arbitrarily.
But enjoyable.