Damn, I got behind...
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
This comedic breakup picture started off a bit slow. I wasn't expecting much, just another raunch fest from the Aptow gang, and starting off with some male nudity seemed to set the tone. However, the laughs started coming, and Mila Kunis was more charming and pretty than she ever was on
That '70s Show. Jason Segal (
How I Met Your Mother) is the overly sensitive guy that Kristen Bell's TV show star breaks up with. Russell Brand is also good as the British rocker you want to hate for fucking your ex, but is ultimately too charming and level-headed to resist. Plus: filmed on location in Hawai`i! I love Hawai`i. And musical puppetry.
Recommended.
À bout de souffle (
Breathless)
Watching older movies, I am often astounded more people do not know just how good some of these classics are. Then there are movies like
Breathless. Jean-Luc Godard's classic "a guy, a girl, and a gun". There were elements I enjoyed: Paris, the revolutionary jump-cuts, the final scene on the street. However, this film really only works in a historical context, and mostly seems dated and stilted. I was never drawn in. No matter how pretty Jean Seberg is.
Recommended only for film historians.
Key Largo
A John Huston classic, and another Bogart/Bacall. Bogie is an ex-WWII soldier come to pay his respects to the family of a fallen comrade, including his widow (Bacall). The family owns a hotel in Key Largo, and has seemingly been taken over by some out of town gangsters. Bogie is reluctant to get involved, but with a hurricane approaching, and because he's Bogie, of course he does. Not as witty as the last Bogie/Bacall movie I watched (this was also the last time they were together on-screen), I enjoyed this one more because it didn't ape
Casablanca so much. Claire Trevor was great as the alcoholic gangster's mistress.
Recommended.
Collateral
I meant to see this one back when Jamie Foxx was proving he could act with this film and
Ray, and before Tom Cruise went batshit insane on Oprah. Maybe it was Cruise that relegated this one to the back of my to-see list, but I shouldn't have. Cruise is perfect as a sociopathic hit man, and Foxx is believable as a cab driver that has yet to take a risk in life. Maybe Michael Mann's
Miami Vice movie is worth seeing? I'll put it on the list. I still hate digital video though.
Recommended.
Laura
When watching classic movies, you'll get a few that are so dammed good you want to weep the next time you head to the multiplex, knowing what you're going to see won't be as good. Laura is one of those - Otto Preminger's film of a dead woman (Gene Tierney) and the men (Clifton Webb, Vincent Price) who are in love with her, including the detective (Dana Andrews) trying to solve her murder. I won't say anything more about the plot, just go see this one when you can. One of old Hollywood's best.
Highly Recommended.
Quantum of Solace
No, it's not as good as
Casino Royale. Others in this thread have discussed this movie enough about its problems, though I'd add I was entertained despite its faults. Bond misses Eva Green, and so do we.
Recommended.
Infamous
Capote was perhaps my favorite movie of 2005, so I hadn't bothered with this film. Basically the same story about the same writer writing the same book... zzzz. I will say Toby Jones was perhaps a better Truman Capote, though only in mannerism, not in acting. There's a difference. This one was actually quite funny at times, playing up Capote's flamboyant homosexuality for laughs. The second half of the film turns darker as we meet the killers (including Daniel Craig as Perry Smith!) and begins to resemble the other film. This one was good, but unfortunately came out too close to the other superior film.
Recommended.
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Not as entertaining as the first. Something was off, though Georgie Henley as Lucy is a very good child actor.
No Recommendation.
Orfanato, El (
The Orphanage)
Produced by Guillermo del Toro, I found this one similar to
El Espinazo del diablo (
The Devil's Backbone), including being set in an orphanage. A woman (Belén Rueda) moves back to her early childhood home, an orphanage where she was raised, intending to open it as a home for children with special needs. Her husband (Fernando Cayo) is a doctor and with them is their adopted son (Roger Prêncep) who does not know he is adopted, nor that the pills he takes are because he has HIV (secrets kill, people!). A creepy old woman appears briefly and then her son begins to insist there are invisible friends of his in the house. After the son disappears she becomes desperate to find him, starting to believe that his invisible friends in the house are in fact real. At times creepy as hell (one children's game played near the end sent shivers down my spine) and quite affecting, I prefer this type of horror film to the gorefests that pass for scary movies today.
Recommended.