DVD: Die Hard Marathon

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#1 / Die Hard / The original: Awesome. Just as fun now as it was then. An intelligent crook, surrounded by dufus henchman. An enterprising hero. Great one liners. Great byplay with the LA cop. Lots of fun.

#2 Die Harder: Eh. Pretty much sucks. The double double-cross at the end was lame. The many many references to “why does this keep happening to me/us?” wink wink were lame. The newscaster on the plane? Moron. But it does have one redeeming moment: when Bruce Willis kills the dude by stabbing him in the eye with a huge icicle!

#3 Die Hard: With a Vengeance: Enjoyable, although not great (it’s no #1). Liked that they introduced a new character not connected to either the cops or the crime. Some discontinuity with him being back in NY considering in #2 he has moved to LA and become a cop there / #3 acts like #2 never happened (I guess we can’t blame it for that…). Liked that they figure out it’s subterfuge but a little “same old thing again” on the crime / McClane should have figured it out faster!

#4 Live Free or Die Hard: Years later, an update to the franchise! Entertaining! I liked that they updated it to a very modern-day crime, rather than just a rehash of the same type of terrorism (as really both #s 2 and 3 were — unlike other movies I could name from 2007 that took an “old story” and just did the same old thing with it). Liked the byplay with the kid from the apple commercials. Sort of predictable substituting the presence of the daughter instead of the mother, but fine. But things that made it less enjoyable were: a) too many explosions for no reason (rewatch #1, where the explosions are more integral to the plot!); b) if the Gabriel dude is such an amazing hacker, why would he have all these underlings doing his hacking for him now? seems like he would want to be doing it himself, and the actor seemed too young for the role (since he was meant to be the contemporary of the head FBI dude); c) McClane seems a bit dumbed down from #1 certainly and perhaps #3 as well.

Gold Medal: #1
Silver: #4
Bronze: #3
Not even an honorable mention, but for the icicle: #2.

Cable: Trust the Man

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One of those movies with a bunch of recognizable actors that disappeared from theaters very fast so you know it must’ve been disappointing. I am normally a huge Billy Crudup fan but I hated the goatee action here. Frankly Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character was the only one I didn’t want to give a good shaking to. And the ending is bizarrely happy and “everything falling into place” after the extremely negative tones of the rest of it. Occasional laughs or relationship insights, but for the most part not very good. Not horrible, but not really enjoyable either.

I’m missing TV something fierce.

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No I’m not so thrilled with having nothing to watch and therefore spending more time reading/pondering/being a deep person or what have you. I already do plenty of reading even when I am watching TV every night!!! Jackhats.

Anyway, while I am missing it severely I suddenly felt motivated to post to the TV blog. So there you go.

Playing at a Theater Near You?

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Movies I Might Try to See This Weekend

  • There Will Be Blood (Looks intense, no? I am not DDL’s biggest fan but it appears a lock on many awards.)
  • The Golden Compass (My dad loved the books and still enjoyed the movie. Jen liked both. I’m still willing to give the movie a chance, despite my irrational love for the books and my fear of what other people have been saying.)

Movies I Would See But Are Not “On My List”

  • National Treasure 2 (I KNOW it’s not a good movie. but the first one was enjoyable despite that, and despite me hating Nicolas Cage. Remember, I’m a low class viewer of mainstream blockbusters and proud of it. )
  • The Great Debaters (Eh. Subject matter doesn’t thrill me. But you can’t go wrong with two hours of Denzel.)
  • Enchanted (Eh. No need to email me, I KNOW EVERYONE IS ALL GA-GA for it. I just don’t know if I can take that much sugar.)

Movies I Will NOT See Unless You Pay Me (and more than the price of the ticket)

  • The Bucket List (middle-aged males patting each other on the back? (I’m being generous there, no?) It’s “Cocoon” all over again. And WHO CARES!)
  • PS I Love You (I’m sorry Gerard Butler and “Denny”, but not even for the two of you.)

À la Super Eggplant, currently, I am…

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Making: Shower gifts. Hats. Dreams.

Reading: “Tree of Smoke” by Denis Johnson (because a) of fridaysixpm’s comments about it (scroll down to 11/15, I can’t seem to link directly) and b) I did some intensive studying of Vietnam history in several different courses in college. a million years ago and c) oh yeah it just won a big prize) and “The Oxford Book of English Short Stories” edited by A.S. Byatt (because it’s our challenge book for January). The first is big and thick and sprawling and very much a boy book in the particular way that I mean that (and here is where I thought I would link to a review of a W.E.B. Griffin book I read in 2006, “Semper Fi” but which apparently I never wrote up. Although I distinctly remember doing so. Let’s just say there is a limited female point of view in books about war, or soldiers, or armies, or Vietnam, because historically very few females have gone to war. I’m not being sexist, I’m being realistic.). The second is an odd mix; some really good stories and some bizarre, or boring, or “after school special” “lessons”-type ones.

Watching: The Sarah Connor Chronicles which started last night and continues tonight in a two-night premiere. I love it which means most everyone else probably hated it and thought it was lame and twisted the story and left out important stuff and blah blah blah. Girls kicking ass = Good. Summer Glau = Good. Lena Heady = Good. Also glad to see new episodes of a few things in the past week (Gossip Girl, 30 Rock, FNL, NUMB3RS, Brothers & Sisters) but continuing to mourn the lack of fresh TV. As it goes, so goes my life.

Listening: Really still listening to stuff bought in December. Sea Wolf, Lupe Fiasco, the Avett Brothers. And the soundtrack to Juno. Listening to that a lot. This has not really been a music-buying month for me so far, but I think that’s generally the January norm.

Wrapping It Up: Best Movies 2007

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1. Grindhouse
2. Juno (and here and here as well)
3. A Mighty Heart (Knocked down a notch by Juno, but really great and I wish more people would have seen it.)
4. No Country for Old Men
5. American Gangster
6. Control
7. Blackout
8. In the Valley of Elah
9. The Bourne Ultimatum
10. Gone Baby Gone (In retrospect, and in comparison to others, this movie moved further up the list than I originally felt)
But there were lots of other movies I enjoyed as well, and you can read more about that here.

Duff’s Favorite Movies 2007

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I went to 57 movies in the theater in 2007 (full list here). (Technically more if you count the ones I went to twice, which I don’t.) I’d say that’s higher than recent years but certainly not my BEST year.

The BEST movies I saw in 2007 were:
1. Grindhouse
2. Juno
3. A Mighty Heart
4. No Country for Old Men
5. American Gangster
6. Control
7. Blackout
8. In the Valley of Elah
9. The Bourne Ultimatum
10. Gone Baby Gone

If I were to add to that list, the movies I ENJOYED the most in 2007, I’d have to add:

  • Music & Lyrics
  • Hot Fuzz
  • Sweeney Todd
  • JUMP!

If I were to add a foreign films category, I’d have to add:

  • The Lives of Others
  • Pan’s Labyrinth
  • La Vie en Rose

I saw a bunch of bio pics this year, some done traditionally (“La Vie en Rose” – Edith Piaf; “Control” – Ian Curtis) as well as less traditional ones (“The Last King of Scotland” – Idi Amin [not REALLY a bio pic but feels like one]; “I’m Not There” – Bob Dylan). I saw 7 not-likely-to-see-these-elsewhere flicks at the Chicago Film Festival and some ’70s flicks on the big screen thanks to the Chicago Humanities Festival.

I saw great performances in movies that I didn’t love (George Clooney in “Michael Clayton”; Claire Danes in “Evening”; my boyfriend Joaquin Phoenix in “We Own the Night”; Will Smith in “I Am Legend”) and great performances in movies I thought were good but just didn’t beat out others on the lists above (Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Charlie Wilson’s War”; Casey Affleck in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” [as well as in aforementioned “Gone Baby Gone”; Casey Affleck was really a standout performer for me this year!]; Viggo Mortenson in “Eastern Promises”). I saw sweet movies that weren’t great but were still enjoyable (“Dan in Real Life”; “Catch and Release”; “Stardust”). I went to sequels (“28 Weeks Later”; “Pirates 3”; “Oceans 13”). I really liked a couple documentaries ([the aforementioned] JUMP! and Helvetica) and it was good to see Alien-like sci fi return to the theaters (“Sunshine”) as well as Westerns, dang I’ve missed those (“3:10 to Yuma”; aforementioned “Assassination of…”).

I did NOT like some movies that were highly praised by others:

  • Margot at the Wedding (worst movie of the year)
  • The Lookout
  • Knocked Up
  • The Walker (second worst of the year)

And thought some were OK, but didn’t live up to the hype:

  • Waitress
  • Once
  • Transformers

There are reviews up on Snip, you can search by name or sort by “watchin”.

And 2008 has started off quite nicely with “Atonement” being a movie that would have been very high on my 2007 list had I seen it before the end of the year.

DVD: We Are Marshall

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Kinda sappy but sweet, and Matthew Fox is pretty great in this. Some nice byplay between him and M. McConaughey. Not sure why it had such a mediocre box office performance/viewership; it’s not the greatest flick but certainly a decent effort.

I guess these would be the reasons I liked it and perhaps the same reasons you wouldn’t.

a) Sports, specifically football
b) Underdogs
c) Nostalgia
d) The classic hard knocks “rising from the ashes” story.
e) The classic “I want nothing to do with you” evolving into “Wow we’re teammates and/or roommates and we can actually get along” story.
f) Matthew Fox.
g) Students vs. the administration.
h) David Strathairn.