Enjoyed this movie. Maybe because wee just went through the whole birthing process, I as a spectator. It's about a sixteen year old named Juno who gets pregnant. What I like most is her personality. I struggled for a bit to understand what I liked about it. It wasn't that it was irreverent, although that was a component of it. In the end I concluded that it was just genuine. She took things at face value, had fun with them and moved on. Made for an interesting movie.
Took the laptop to the den for some light work and a movie. The Flying Scotsman is about Graeme Obree's cycling career. He broke the one hour world record. A good true story. But a fairly lame movie. The director wasn't very good at creating the build-up on the sports side of things. And the characters weren't very good either. But it was about cycling so I felt some level of interest... while I worked. Bonus: Meriweather Pippin from Lord of the Rings is in it. Lead role is one of the guys from Trainspotting... not that guy that went to Star Wars... or that older guy who fights a lot... that other guy. Yeah, I'm good with names.
Thanks to Grandma Mimi and Grandpa Papa (Carol and Mark, if you will) we headed to the movies tonight to see Syriana. Syriana attempts to iconify the main players in the world geopolitical struggle for oil into a few well-painted characters. They do a good job. The movie is stark, with atmospheric background tones. At the end you don't feel entertained so much as you feel educated.
This past weekend when I was sick and hopped-up on cold medicine I watched all three extended DVDs of The Lord of the Rings with the projector. Great picture. Great movies. Long.
This week I've been watching through the appendices... behind the scenes. It's inspirational to see Peter Jackson building his masterpiece... implementing his dream. The attention to detail. The brilliant people he brought on board. The great work they did. Quite amazing.
ESPN original production about Roger Bannister, the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. Great story. I've read about it a number of times. By applying a scientific approach to training Bannister broke the four minute barrier. If you're a runner you'll appreciate this movie. Even if you aren't, you may enjoy it... they didn't hit the running training theory too hard and played up the drama as much as they could. A little love story in there too. One thing they didn't capture very well was the international media attention that was given the rivalry between Bannister and two other runners who were also trying to break the four minute barrier.
The current world record is 3min43sec. Better training methodologies. Better nutrition. Better recovery therapies. Oh, and non-Europeans.
There is an asymptotic progression of the world record in the mile. There are human limits. The world record will continue to drop, but each time it will be longer between drops. Each time the probability of the genetic freak plus training history plus luck beating the last record is smaller.
Some have theorized that the asymptote will rest somewhere around 3min25sec. A guess, of course.
Friday night movie with Heather. Ava was taken care of by grandBall.
Bill Murry has the deadpan thing down. A director can use it to great effect, or just rely on it. The director of Broken Flowers did the later. There were a number of opportunities to take the deadpan movie to something deeper. But it never went there.
Laura Linney and Topher Grace. Romantic drama. Entertaining with one massive beef.
The premise is that Laura Linney's character meets a college student with the same name as one of her high school boyfriends. She's now 38 years old and that guy is dead.
The director left ambiguous for a while the question of whether or not Topher was her long lost love's son. And this was fine, because she and Topher were still getting to know each other.
So the director had one of two directions to go with it. He could show that Topher was the son of her long lost love or that he wasn't. If he was then you get into this whole complications-of-love plot. If he wasn't then you get into this whole mystical magical is-he-reincarnated plot.
Or the director could have left it interpretive and allowed the audience to guess. Which appears to be what the director chose.
The problem with this choice was that in making it the director torpedoed the characters themselves. He made them seem completely retarded. After many dates, sex and drama, Laura Linney's character never asked Topher's character about his father. As the movie went on it became increasingly difficult to suspend disbelief. Anybody in their right mind would have asked the basic "what about your dad?" question rather quickly.
And it would have been simple to correct. At one point early in the movie Topher calls home and says "Hi Mom." By simply changing that to "Hi Dad" the director chooses one path and gets on with it. Or the director could have allowed Topher to say something about a dead father. Or.. or.. or...
Aside from this one majorly distracting plot flub, it was a good movie. The first scene where Laura Linney and Topher "have love" (as Marty's boys would put it) was particularly well done... erotic and passionate, yet loving and clean.
The HBO Original Movie about Franklin Delanoe Roosevelt's time spent in the rural Georgia town of Warm Springs. Always inspirational to see stories like this. Pretty well done piece. Entertaining. Good acting. Educational. A character study, not a plot piece.
While watching it I noted that I, in my den, am more connected than he was while in high political office at any given time. Cell phone, CNN, internet. Interesting thought. So I took advantage of my connectedness and TiVo-paused every now and then to check some facts.
Heather and I settled in to watch What's Eating Gilbert Grape? We've seen it before but it's been a number of years. Character study flick with Johnny Depp and Leonardo DiCaprio, who does an amazing job portraying a mentally challenged kid. His mannerisms are well done and consistent throughout the movie. Enjoyed it.
Good romantic comedy. Focuses on two rather different guys and watches them have a blowout week in Napa Valley. Kind of reminds me of the way that Dominic and I travel together... I'm the socially ackward loner and he's the ladies man on the move. Some funny parallels there. Good grownup film. No special effects or big background music. A character development flick. Very good.
The sequel to Meet the Parents. Good movie but not as funny as the first. Most of the humor was the same as the first movie... kind of left you with a been-there-done-that feel. Entertaining though.
Heather, Julie and I caught the late show at 9:55PM.
Small, possibly independent, film directed by Salma Hayek. Border town. Miracle (blood on the Christ statue) that has Earthly roots(cut boy hiding in rafters of church). Media circus ensues. Some people know the truth and try to find the boy to conceal the secret. Others don't. A small boy looking for his father. Some quasi-romance. The real miracle at the end. Decent movie. Worth a rental. Salma says it's about that sense of lost "home" that we all experience as we grow up. Sounds like indy-film mumbo-jumbo to me.
Jo, Jesse, Heather and I went to see An Unfortunate Series of Events today. Good flick. Amazing production design. The sets and effects were rich. Characters were interesting. Good plot. Worth seeing.
It's a Brad-Pitt-and-other-hot-guy-fest. Heather loved it. I found it very entertaining and somewhat historically intriquing. I always enjoy imagining what life was like "way back then"... and I always come to the conclusion that the real issues are the exact same ones we have these days... despite the Internet, power dishwashers and vibrating butt plugs.
This movie was funny and dorky. About a dork in high school. I think the main character did an excellent job of encasing himself in his own little geek world. Entertaining.
The classic Al Pacino policeman-against-the-system movie. Integrity pays off. The Serpico character demonstrates integrity. But I was most intrigued by Serpico's ability to not fall for false integrity... other police officers acting like they were helping. Serpico didn't fall for it and maintained his integrity. Good movie. I hadn't seen it before.
Not the best action movie out there. It seems that the plot had a ton to offer. And Denzel is always excellent. But the timing of the plot delivery and the basic dialog was lacking. It just kind of fizzled.
I think Dominic mentioned that it was a good movie a while back. So I rented and watched on the big screen. Pretty good. Kept the plot going. I did have some issue with the plot resolution. Bourne never seemed to have a clear goal and at the end it was impossible to determine whether he accomplished much of anything beyond getting his ass kicked and shot at. Still, good flick. Could have used a sexier female action lead. We had the female power lead, but her character was all business. Bourne should have picked up a new hottie.
Interesting sci-fi thriller with Will Smith and some hot chick. I enjoyed the movie a lot. Watched it with the projector in massive screen format. Premise of the movie is that robots who live by three rules that are supposed to protect humans use logic to determine that the best thing to do for humanity is conquer it so that it doesn't kill itself. A bunch of "what is life?" questions ensue. Interesting.
SufferFest 08 Day 4
