What's Playing at My House

Keeping Mum

Oh my word. This is one of the best comedies I've seen in months and months.

I will say, the movies I have seen lately fall more into the "Horton Hears a Who" genre. So that explains some things. [Mini-review: Brilliant animation. Otherwise a snore and not deserving of its great reviews. I'll take the Incredibles 10 times over first.]

Keeping Mum brings out the firepower: Dame Maggie Smith. Rowan Atkinson. Kristin Scott Thomas. Even Patrick Swayze, whom I normally wouldn't count as "firepower." But he's damn funny. In a really creepy way.

 

Short plot summary, no spoilers: Rowan Atkinson is a vicar in a little community, married to Kristin Scott Thomas. They've grown bored with each other and she's sleeping with Patrick Swayze, her golf instructor. They hire Maggie Smith as a housekeeper and she quickly gets the family back in shape, albeit through some creative means.

If you liked State and Main, or Fargo, or Rushmore, you'll love this. Me? I'm buying the DVD asap.

Somebody remind me if I forget again

I do not now, nor have I ever, liked a Woody Allen movie. It apparently doesn't matter how many times I watch them, thinking, "Oh, now I'll get it." I have tried for almost 20 years now, and I've never, ever liked one. I've seen several W.A. movies multiple times, and they don't get better with repetition.

Feel free to castigate me in public, or behind my back, for failing to appreciate one of the great American artists. I hate him. He's a whiner and a wimp and I can't think of any Woody Allen characters I like.

That's all.

Lethal Weapon

OK, I just figured out what happened.

Yesterday, I went to Target with the express purpose of buying a cheap movie. It had to be cheap, but it also had to be one I'd want to see again and again. Y'all, they have a lot of movies at Target. I know I read the titles of at least several hundred, and I only looked at Drama, Comedy and New Releases. But it took me to the last section before I found something I wanted to buy. [Don't you hate that kind of mood? When you want to buy something, and there's nothing that you can agree with yourself on?]

They had a DVD for $10 that included all 4 Lethal Weapon movies. Now, I don't think I've seen Lethal Weapon 4 -- I could be wrong, we'll know soon -- and of the 3 I know I've seen, I have always liked LW2 the best. But I figured, hey, $10 for 4 movies, not a bad deal.

Even though LW2 is my favorite, I started at the beginning last night. And was almost immediately freaked out. LW was so much more violent and edgy than I remembered. I was so disturbed by the first half-hour of the movie that I almost stopped it. But then the plot really kicked into gear and I was sucked in.

Just now, I figured out what the deal was. I was checking the case to determine the year the movie was released [1987], and I noticed that the first 3 movies on this DVD are labeled as "Director's Cut." And all 3 of them are not rated.

Well doh. It had a bunch of scenes not in the theatrical release -- which also explains why parts of it didn't feel particularly familiar. I knew it had been a long time since I'd seen it, but I have seen it since '87. Come to find out, I'd never seen this version.

I think they were on to something when they made the final edits for the theatrical release. I'm a little wary of watching LW2 and LW3 off this set, but at least I've now been forewarned. And hopefully LW4 will make it all worthwhile....it's the theatrical release.

The Pursuit of Happyness

I enjoyed this 2006 movie starring Will Smith. It's an adaptation of the real-life story of Chris Gardner, today a successful stockbroker in Chicago, who was frequently homeless while he trained as a stockbroker in the early 80s in San Francisco.

Frankly I had to forward through a lot of the sad parts. That was a new one on me....something so sad I couldn't watch it. There are a number of scenes where Gardner and his son spend the night in a homeless shelter, struggle to scrape up enough money for food, etc. I couldn't watch them. I am turning into a big wimp in my old age.

The film does hit you over the head a bit much with the message. But it's a great movie and you'll find yourself cheering for Gardner all the way through.

Enemy of the State

Man, I love this movie. Love. It.

I've seen it a ton of times, but it's always exciting. I love this part in particular:

[Gene Hackman & Will Smith are racing away from Hackman's warehouse in a car, as the bad guys chase them. In background, warehouse explodes.]

Smith: What is happening??

Hackman: I blew up the building.

Smith: Why?!?!

Hackman: Because you made a phone call!!

So funny.

I've had a run of bad choices lately on Netflix. Hopefully will return shortly with better movies and reviews.

The Virgin Suicides

First: I love Sofia Coppola.

I had long avoided this movie, because of my well-publicized inability to watch hard movies about children. While this movie -- not a spoiler -- obviously revolves around the suicides of five sisters, its focus is much more on the effects their lives had on a group of boys their age. And on the feeling of the age.

Also, this: Kirsten Dunst, she's amazing.

Each of the five of the girls in this movie is less a person than she is the sense of a teenage girl. Coppola perfectly captures the egotism teenagers have. The characters -- the boys in the group, and the five sisters -- each see the world revolving around themselves. They bump into the other characters, they act as catalysts, but the central action to each character is what happens to that character.

I'm not really doing a good job of explaining what happens, but I'll just say this: You should see this movie. It's great film, and it's fun to watch. Except for that whole suicide thing. That part sucks.

War of the Worlds

I can sum up my thoughts on Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds in just a few sentences.

• Can we all agree that Dakota Fanning, while clearly talented, is the creepiest child actress ever?

• Here's a movie formula for you: Nonstop action + little plot + too much dark lighting = One annoying movie.

• Seriously, the problem here is, it's all shoot 'em up, and you get little to no reason to care about anyone who dies. And only slightly more reason to care about those who live. You will run out of adrenaline before the movie is half done.

• It is now hard for me to watch Tom Cruise without thinking of the media firestorm over his religion. Do we really all care that much? Do we all realize how few Scientologists there are in this world? Do you really think he's more of a threat to your daily life than say, poisonous spiders? I didn't think so.

• To sum up: I've seen better out of much lesser directors than Spielberg. I'm hoping for more the next time out.

Random notes

This is mostly about TV, but it still feels more appropriate here than at Fixin' Supper.

* Y'all, John Oliver on the Daily Show is about the funniest person ever.

* Close second: Assif Mandvi.

* I've been trying to get into Burn Notice, the new USA summer series. I'm not having a lot of luck....it's not as X-Files as I want it to be....but I haven't been able to summon the effort to remove it from my Tivo, either.

* I can confess to still being addicted to Dead Zone and Psych, however, despite the fact that neither is ever going to win an award of any kind. You know, I think my problem with Burn Notice is the same as what I like in these: It's too obviously ironic. Enough already.

* I haven't watched a lot of movies lately, which is fairly unusual for me.

* However, I can unrecommend The Longest Yard. I tried, but I couldn't get into the whole gratuitosity [made-up word I think, maybe it's the next ginormous] of it.

* Who puts movies like that on my Netflix, anyway?

* I also have War of the Worlds sitting on top of my TV. This, too, may have been an ill-considered decision.

* On the other hand, if you go to Target right now, you,too, can get Steel Magnolias for $5.50 plus 9.25% sales tax in Davidson County. [Put me on record as hating the sales tax.]

Schindler's List, The Pianist, Sophie Scholl—The Final Days

I returned The Pianist and Sophie Scholl to Netflix a couple weeks ago, but I've had trouble sitting down to write this post.

The Pianist arrived first, and I watched it pretty soon thereafter. I was not far into the movie before I started mentally comparing it to Schindler's List.

Schindler's List is both one of my all-time favorite movies, and one I have only seen once. I bought the DVD as soon as it was available, but it's sat wrapped on the shelf here ever since. If you've ever seen the movie, you know why. It's incredibly hard to watch. But just better-than-words cinema, and great work on one of the toughest subjects.

The Pianist's cinematography will catch your eye immediately. It's not black and white, but throughout the movie, the colors are muted, almost blurred. The movie has both a dream quality -- nightmare I guess -- and feels removed thanks to this effect. It takes you through the Polish ghetto and Nazi occupation through the eyes of  Władysław Szpilman, the Polish musician who barely escaped being shipped to a death camp and instead spent the war years hiding in bombed-out Warsaw, often at the brink of starvation or death from various illnesses. He survived through the kindness of acquaintances, and a German army officer.

I think you need to see movies like this in the theater. You wouldn't say this movie is slow, but you have to allow yourself to be pulled in. And of course, you don't want to be pulled in. But it's good for you. Like Brussels sprouts. If you have a choice between this and the stupid comedy flavor of the day, I hope you'll choose Brussels sprouts.

It was interesting to watch Sophie Scholl immediately following The Pianist. I think I'd first read about Sophie Scholl went it was nominated for an Oscar, and I added it to my Netflix list then. This is really a fabulous movie. While I enjoyed both Sophie Scholl and The Pianist, I can unequivocally say that Sophie Scholl is more relevant to your life today. The cinematography is also a big player in this movie, but it's a little different than in The Pianist. I'm not sure exactly how to describe it, except to say that it feels flat -- in a good way -- and at the same time, I felt like it emphasizes the immediacy of the action and dialogue. Now you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, so you'll just have to see it for yourself.

Sophie Scholl is about a young woman, her brother and friends who are working to resist the Nazis in Munich at the university. They formed the White Rose group, writing and distributing leaflets anonymously.

The film is fairly accurate to real events, including several accounts of Scholl's courage under interrogation and at their trial, right up to the moment of her execution. You only hope you would be half so brave.

If you only see one of these three, it has to be Schindler's List. Sophie Scholl now runs a close second to me. The Pianist is a very good movie, more than worth watching, but I feel like it's more a snapshot in time, one man's extraordinary experience, as opposed to the other two, which I believe tell greater truths about the Holocaust.

An Inconvenient Truth

Fabulous and riveting. You must watch it now. What took me so long?? Al Gore is an evangelist.