The Big Lebowski

I watched this movie last night and almost didn't post about it because I didn't think I had anything to say. It was mildly funny; I don't know that I ever laughed out loud, but I'm sure I cracked a grin at least a time or two, although I think I rolled my eyes more frequently. I bet Hud was right when he said it would have been funnier if I had been drunk. This movie contains a number of quotable quotes, except for the fact that every single one drops at least 3 F-bombs which renders them useless in polite company. I mean, "Shut up, Donnie" just doesn't have the same zing. Anyway, the level and type of comedy is reminiscent of Raising Arizona (not surprising, as they are both movies by the Coen brothers) but with poor language and naked ladies.

Thought you would enjoy knowing that in Greece, this movie was released as O megalos Lebowski.

The Golden Compass

I had been warned that this movie was evil, but after I read the book I saw no problem with it. So I exposed my children to the evil tonight by watching this with them. I guess whoever thought this movie was evil was the same person from netflix who labeled it as "mind-bending," because I don't think either descriptor applies.

The movie was very well done and relatively faithful to the book. I would even say that it was more engaging than the book, because I actually found the book a bit dull. Even so, it was easy to not pay attention to this movie. In fact, before the movie was even half over, my youngest had fallen asleep, my middle child was going on safari with the Lion King DVD, and my oldest was playing a computer game. After the movie ended, the 6-year-old put in a request for future movie night movies: she only wants to see ones with animated characters instead of real people.

One interesting thing that I noticed is that the movie ended a few huge plot points before the book. But I was actually kind of glad about this, because it was time for my kids to go to bed anyway. I have to get up at an unholy hour in the morning.

10,000 B.C.

This movie seemed a little dull to me, even with the really scary ostriches. Of course, it was somewhat better than I expected; I had been worried that 12,010 years ago maybe the cave dwellers hadn't learned English yet, and that the entire movie would be in Early Troglodytese with subtitles. Or, worse yet, that all communication would occur with grunts and clicks. Happily, I was wrong about this.

What I did have trouble with, though, was telling one dirt-streaked, dreadlocked caveman from another. There were a few that stood out in contrast to the others (Shaggy Headed Young Boy, Old Mother, and Blue Eyed Girl) but I really had trouble keeping the others straight. Not that I minded the effort in trying to distinguish one set of perfectly honed biceps, delts and pecs from another.

I also must add that I can't call the entire movie dull. I found that for perhaps the final 20 minutes of the movie I had to sit still and actually watch without simultaneously doing any household chores. This made me wonder . . . if I had done that throughout the whole movie (you know, sat still and paid attention), would I have found the entire thing more interesting? I didn't bother testing the theory. I really don't think I missed much in the first hour and 25 minutes. Anyway, speaking of the ending, I was pretty pissed when Blue Eyed Girl died. All that effort for nothing? But I also immediately had more respect for the movie. Which dissipated as soon as Blue Eyed Girl came back to life. (Shut up. I warned you. I spoil.)

Am I the only one who was just sure it was Emperor Palpatine under that golden veil?

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

I'm a nerd, and I have read this book. The series is one of my son's favorites. In fact, I'm pretty sure that before he discovered this book (ahem! I discovered it for him) he hated to read. Now he at least loves to read about Greg Heffley, and he has also been enjoying my old Calvin and Hobbes books. But I digress.

Of course we marked this movie on the calendar as soon as we heard it was coming out, but as this is 1) a book adaptation and 2) made for kids, I was afraid it might suck. I was sure there would be enough bathroom humor and gross-outs to keep my ten-year-old rolling in the aisles (and there was . . . except, of course, I managed to keep him from literally rolling on the floor because you know how sticky those movie theater floors can get). But I am happy to report that I actually enjoyed the movie. It was much cuter than I expected. My literary amnesia keeps me from telling you how faithful the movie is to the book (c'mon, it's been more than a year since I read it) but it has all the right characters and features the Cheese Touch, so I'm guessing it follows the book pretty well. Now, I will say that if you don't have kids to bring with you, you will probably want to skip this one. It's not great date-night material. At least wait until it comes out on DVD. But I think any kid above the age of 3 will love it, especially if they've read the books.

Little Ashes

I've seen Robert Pattinson kissing a dude. I may never think of him the same way again.

I was a little disappointed that this movie didn't touch on Dalí's art much. We get to see a few of his paintings (very few), hear him call himself a genius several times, and watch him coat himself in black paint, but that was about it as far as the art went.

She's Having a Baby

This is a very, very 80s movie. And I'm sorry to say it's not John Hughes' best work. I think the silly treatment that worked so well in his teen movies doesn't fit this more grown-up fare.

The title of the movie is a bit misleading. Sure, pregnancy came up during the movie, but it was just, like, during the last five seconds or something. This movie was more about the trials of adjusting to the early years of a marriage when the husband is still mostly just a selfish child and hasn't really decided to fully commit yet. And the actual baby-having scene was so shamelessly manipulative that it made me mad. It was like the scene in Fried Green Tomatoes where you think they're having the little boy's funeral, and you start to cry, and then you realize they're just having a funeral for the boy's arm, and you stop crying and get mad instead. But I didn't cry during this movie, so there.

The best part of the movie was the "Famous People of the 80s Give Baby Name Suggestions" bit during the credits, especially since one of the suggestions was "Buford" (but you'd have to know my husband to know why I like this).

Remember Me

Just in case it is not clear enough that I don't make a big effort to avoid spoilers in my posts, you need to know that I don't think I have anything at all to say about this movie that isn't a huge spoiler. Unless it's the small fact that Emilie de Ravin's mouth flaps open too far when she talks, and that's kind of annoying to watch. Or that I was hoping this movie would have an awesome soundtrack, but the only times I even noticed the music, I wasn't blown away. Or (taking a deep breath and hoping my mom never reads this) that what I'd been looking forward to the most was watching Robert Pattinson have sex. Or that this is an excellent movie with a talented group of actors, not one weak link evident, but I don't plan to or want to see this movie again, and I probably won't buy it when it comes out on DVD. Beyond this, we go off the edges of the medieval map (you know, the "Here Be Dragons" thing, except with spoilers).

If anyone had told me ahead of time that Robert Pattinson dies in this movie I wouldn't have been near as excited about seeing it. Here's what I knew going in: Robert Pattinson and Emilie de Ravin are in a relationship that starts after her dad arrests him for fighting. I knew Pattinson's character had a brother who died, de Ravin also had her own family tragedy to contend with, 9/11 was involved somehow, and the end was heart-wrenching. I took these puzzle pieces and put them together the wrong way; I assumed Pattinson's brother died in 9/11, perhaps de Ravin's relative too, and I really thought the entire movie took place after 9/11. I was wrong about all of that. If you've seen the movie you know the right way to put the pieces together; if you haven't, all you need to know is that 9/11 is the end of the movie. I think it's really unfair to throw people into that tragedy with no warning. I couldn't help but think of my high school friend Greg whose older brother died on 9/11, and what if Greg goes to this movie having no idea about how it ends? How horrible that would be, to have to relive that in the movie theater with no prior warning.

I have to say that I think everyone over-reacted to Caroline's haircutting debacle. Maybe this was purposeful, made to contrast with the true tragedy of 9/11, but even if it hadn't been immediately followed by 9/11 it would have seemed rather trivial. Yes, the girls were mean to Caroline, but to have family members and visitors hugging and whispering, "How's she doing?" as if someone had died was a little bit of overkill. Plus, I'm sure somewhere in New York City they could have found a hair remedy that didn't make Caroline look like a little old lady.

I don't know if this will be a common viewing perception, or even if this was the intended result, but once 9/11 happened, it was no longer about Tyler and his family for me. All of a sudden they were pretty much insignificant. It became much bigger than their little dysfunctional family with their petty squabbles. I didn't actually cry in the movie theater, but I did have to tilt my head back so that the tears would run down the back of my throat instead of down my cheeks.

By the way, it's not just the ending that's heart-wrenching. The beginning is pretty heart-wrenching too.

Knowing

This is a movie with multiple personality disorder. For the first hour, it is the puzzling mystery that I expected, all perfectly sane and normal, even while slightly worrisome. The next half hour upped the creep factor until it nearly became a horror movie, mainly based on sneaking around in the old rickety abandoned trailer where the crazy lady was found dead years ago, and not made any more comforting by the weird albino trench-coat-wearing guys stalking the children. I was officially creeped out and more than once found myself turning around to make sure I was still alone.

Then came the last half hour, with a logic-defying leap that reminded me of the episode of Friends where Joey is acting in a play as a guy named Victor who has been perfectly ordinary until the spaceship comes down to take him to Blargon 7. All of a sudden the movie has lost its grip on reality and is just plain surreal, with Adam and Eve--I mean, Caleb and Abby--running through a field of alien wheat towards what can only be the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, unless maybe it was the Na'vi Tree of Souls . . . yeah, it's weird. But definitely not boring.

2012

This is a really, really long movie. I'm pretty sure it's at least twice as long as it needed to be. What it boils down to is an elaborate version of that old game of ethics, Lifeboat, and that shouldn't take dang near three hours to play.

I need to start with the "escape from Pasadena in a limo" scene, which was so far-fetched that, rather than biting my nails through it, I was laughing. It wasn't so much disbelief at the destruction, but disbelief at the continual narrow escapes through constant peril. Evidently this was the only family to make it out of California alive. It was especially fun to see the limo catching some air. But it was kind of annoying to see these people survive so many desperately dangerous situations time and again. It's not like they were smarter, stronger, or faster than everyone else; they were just very, very lucky. And of course their luck didn't end after they made it out of California--the ultimate example being the emergence of Jackson with a gasping breath from what everyone assumed was his watery grave. Yeah, that's one of those spoilers I warned you about. But right before that moment I literally thought, Oh, come on, they've spent the entire movie priming us for the idea that Jackson will never die. He can't have come this far only to die now. (So he obliged me and reappeared).

I was really disappointed that they didn't play R.E.M.'s song "It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" at all during this movie, not even during the credits. Of course the credits would have been the wrong place for it, as the movie ended on a note of hope and triumph, not doom and despair. (Yup, kind of another spoiler). But would it have killed them to put the song on the radio when Jackson was driving his kids to Yellowstone? Maybe they did and I just missed it.

Layer Cake

This might have been another Guy Ritchie film (and, in fact, this director--Matthew Vaughn--produced several of Ritchie's films). It's yet another British gangsta movie, of course, but a serious one, unlike the somewhat whimsical Snatch or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which both had some good laughs.

I like Vaughn's transitions. (I don't know film-making-speak, so that's the best I can do). Two notable examples: first, zooming in on Craig's intense blue eyes as he sat in his apartment trying to figure out what he should do, and zooming out to see he's wearing a ski mask and has a plan; or, going from his drug-and-alcohol-induced frenzy to a straightened-out man in a suit with the swing of a mirrored medicine cabinet door. I also noticed the interesting camera angle when Craig's character was discussing guns with Gene and the scene was shot up through the glass tabletop. But . . . should great filmmaking draw attention to itself?

They obviously didn't consult me when putting together the soundtrack. Not that there was anything wrong with it; it was just not my kind of music. I was not impressed.

Daniel Craig sure has some nice arms. Cool apartment, too, with its unique fire-shaped sculpture in the fireplace.

Inkheart

Yes, this is our second movie of the day. Friday night is always movie night at our house (though most of the time we watch movies that only a kid could like, so I don't bother blogging about them--honestly, I usually don't even watch them). I'd had netflix ship us Inkheart before I decided to go see the Percy Jackson movie, and I didn't want to hang onto Inkheart until next Friday, so I figured tonight we'd have a double feature of sorts.

I read this book several years ago and I loved it. (Unfortuntely, by the way, in my opinion the sequel came nowhere near to measuring up, so even though I bought the third book as soon as it came out, I still haven't read it.) It's been so long since I read Inkheart that I really can't tell you how faithful this movie was to the book, but from what I recall, it captures all the main points. The movie isn't bad, but I definitely remember being much more absorbed by the book. Not surprising; it almost always works that way.

Eliza Bennett (the girl who plays Meggie) looks surprisingly like a young Laura Dern. It's also kind of funny to see Horace Slughorn in this movie.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

I read this book a couple of weeks ago and have been considering since then whether I wanted to make a trip to the theater to see it. Well, I figured I'd give the kids a treat after school today and we all went to see it together.

It was scarier than I expected it to be! I think I was a little more sensitive to this because I had my three-year-old with me. It's not like I wet my pants or anything. Anyway, I think the movie actually improved on the book in some cases; for instance, I liked the pearl-hunt idea as opposed to the pearls just being handed to Percy. And for once, I can't remember anything that I was really, really hoping to see onscreen that they left out of the movie. But there were a LOT of differences between the book and the movie. Obviously those in charge of making this movie didn't feel the same sort of obligation that those making the Harry Potter movies feel in being faithful to the book.

It will be interesting to see what Logan Lerman (the boy who played Percy) does in the next few years. That is, if he doesn't get stuck in a Percy Jackson time warp, as has happened with Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame. The reason I wonder is because I think Lerman looks like a younger (and cuter!) Zac Efron. Or maybe it's just the hair.

The Time Traveler's Wife

I came to this movie intentionally planning to try to view it as its own separate entity, even though I have read the book (and it was one of my favorites of the last year, by the way). I wanted to determine whether the movie was a good one on its own merit, because I knew it wouldn't measure up to the book but I thought it might be decent anyway.

I didn't like the movie's hint that Henry's time traveling was the cause of his mother's death. Unless I'm totally forgetting that part of the book (it has been six months since I read it), the accident wasn't Henry's fault. He did time-travel just at the point of impact, but his fading away did not distract his mother in her driving. And speaking of the fading away, I don't remember it being so gradual in the book. There were, of course, other differences between the book and the movie (some of which I actually liked. I'm glad Henry didn't lose his feet, and I didn't mind not seeing Henry's 15-year-old-self with himself doing whatever it was they did to each other in their bedroom), but I'm not going to bother listing every difference. I feel like the movie had all the most important points, anyway. It didn't really capture the essence of the book, and turned it into a sappy chick flick, but it was a pretty good sappy chick flick. Better than I expected, anyway!

The Hangover

This movie is funny enough, although it's not a laugh riot, nor is it especially clever. I might have laughed harder if I had watched this at about 2 a.m. (which I think is one reason why I liked Raising Arizona so much the first time I saw it) or if I was still in college (which I think is the other reason why I liked Raising Arizona so much the first time I saw it). I kind of lost interest once the mystery of Doug's whereabouts was revealed by the formerly nude Asian man. I was also really disappointed in the soundtrack--not my kind of music.

I just wish they had explained why there was a chicken in their hotel room the next morning.

Dead Poets Society

I'm just like you--aghast at the inexcusable fact that I'd never seen this movie before. It came out while I was in high school, and I'm pretty certain that every other person in my graduating class saw it. I don't know how I missed it.

I kind of thought this might turn out a lot like the book A Separate Peace by John Knowles (which, incidentally, was one of the only two assigned reading books I recall really enjoying in high school. The other one was Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, in case you felt like you needed to know.) As I'm sure you know, though, there wasn't much similarity between the two, other than both stories being about a group of boarding school chums, one of whom dies.

I only wish there were more such inspired and inspiring teachers as Mr. Keating as portrayed by Robin Williams in this movie. Or if only every person could experience at least one such teacher during their education. I think I even learned from Mr. Keating. My favorite lesson of his was about how we should constantly remind ourselves to look at things in a different way. It is only my preference for crawling into bed that keeps me from climbing onto my desk right now.