Abre los ojos (Open Your Eyes)

I have had this movie out from Netflix since last MAY. I can't remember when I started watching it (July? August?) but I do know I watched about half of it, then never got around to watching the rest until tonight.

That's not to say it's a bad movie. It's just that it is SO similar to the American remake (Vanilla Sky), and there's really nothing that marks it as superior. This Spanish version was done first, but not (in my eyes) done better.

Very interesting to see Penelope Cruz play the character of Sofia in both the original and the remake. I love her for being so pretty!

Vanilla Sky (rewatch)

I first watched this movie several years ago (can't remember exactly when) and, as time passed, I felt like I hardly remembered much beyond the fact that it was really good. I watched it again this past June and jotted down a few notes about it, but then never got around to making it into an official blog post.

Tonight I've just finished watching the Spanish original version, so I figured it was about time I posted what I wrote last June. Of course in the past four months I've not thought of anything to add; if anything, I've forgotten more than I remember. But here's what I wrote when it was fresh on my mind:

This movie was better the first time around, because as I watched it I found I actually remembered more than I'd thought. So the surprise of WTF was going on was dampened quite a bit. But I still enjoyed the re-watch. On the other hand, I'm thinking two watchings is about enough for this movie. Or maybe I should limit myself to watching it once a decade, anyway.

Notice the soundtrack when you watch this one! It's pretty decent.

I might add a little synopsis for you now: Pretty rich boy David Aames (Tom Cruise) has had everything in life handed to him on a platter, including Sofia (Penelope Cruz), the beautiful woman his best friend has just met. But when the golden boy's face is disfigured in a horrifying car wreck, his formerly charmed life crumbles. Or does it?

Black Swan

WOW, this was a good movie. I mean, it's always fun to watch a ballerina go insane, right? And Natalie Portman does it to perfection.

I've always thought Portman was beautiful (though maybe not so much in this movie poster), but I've never been as impressed with her acting as in this film. Those Star Wars prequels didn't quite do her justice. In fact, it wasn't just her acting--I don't think any of the other films she's been in have been as good as this one. Closer was pretty good, but this one's better.

The Jacket

OK, so . . . I've seen this movie before. I didn't realize it until I was about 30 minutes into it, but yep, been there done that.

This time it's actually fine by me, though, because it's a pretty good movie. It's kind of like one part The Butterfly Effect and two parts The Time Traveler's Wife mixed in with, oh, I don't know, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and a faint whiff of The Fugitive. Not a bad combination.

Man, Adrien Brody has a big schnozz. It's almost as big as that of my ex-brother-in-law, which could quite possibly be used as an umbrella for Rhode Island. And once again Keira Knightley's huge chin got on my nerves. It's a good thing those two didn't have a baby, because it would have had a nutcracker for a face.

If for nothing else, watch this movie just to see the most recent James Bond play a very convincing crazy man. You will be amazed.

Caché (Hidden)

I am stalking Bride of the Screen God's movies. I'd not heard of this one until I read her review of it about a month ago. I think what made me decide to watch it was her mention of the "WTF ending." It was kind of like a challenge--would I be able to figure out what was going on?

Apparently, the answer to that question is . . . no. I was still sitting there waiting for an explanation when all of a sudden the credits were rolling. I think I have figured out who sent the tapes--my guess is that it was two of the characters in collusion with one another, neither of whom was Majid; the two in question are shown having a conversation in the very last scene--but I'm distinctly uncertain. My explanation is mere hypothesis. Even if I'm right about the "who," I'm not sure I understand the "why," especially for one of the two.

It's funny, because although there were many long moments where nothing much happened in the movie, every bit was imbued with suspense. Nothing was happening, but I felt continually sure something was about to, and this kept me on the edge of my seat. There was one unexpected Holy Crap moment, tempered by disbelief (would it really go that quickly?) but the rest of the film was surprisingly devoid of startling events.

I'd never noticed it before, but it's funny how much Angry Juliette Binoche looks like my sister when she flips out. Not like I'd mistake one for the other, but their mannerisms are very similar. You wouldn't want to experience it.

Shutter Island

Now, this is my kind of movie. I think I would have to call my favorite genre "psychological thriller." Even the ones that suck (Final Analysis, anyone?) are pretty great. Throw together some thrills, chills, twists and a few crazy people, and you've got yourself a good flick.

I just wish they had been a bit more ambiguous with the ending. I mean, normally ambiguity makes me want to tear out my hair, but in this case I think I would have preferred to be left wondering.

Wondering what, you ask? Well, of course, the big question. Is he or isn't he? If you've watched it, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, what's wrong with you? Go watch the dang movie!

When you're finished, come back and discuss this statement with me: Mark Ruffalo is too This Century. Seeing him supposedly in 1954 is somehow anachronistic.

For the record, the only thing I can think of that would be creepier than a mystery in a mental institution is . . . a mystery in an abandoned mental institution. Like maybe this one. That looks like a place from my nightmares. 

I'm Not Scared

I read the book by the same name earlier this year, and finally got around to following my usual compulsion to watch the movie adaptation of every book I've read. This movie is in Italian with English subtitles, and it followed the book incredibly closely. This is not completely surprising as the book's author helped write the screenplay.

I was quite impressed by the acting done by all the children. What that means is that I was never distracted from the story by unrealistic or overblown portrayals. I was even more impressed when I discovered, by way of wikipedia, that the children were "local citizens with no filming or acting experience." It was pretty obvious that none of them had ever been on a Disney Channel TV show, anyway.

This movie strangely reminded me of an Italian Stand By Me (albeit with a very different soundtrack). That story didn't come to mind at all as I read the book, which is, I guess, why I found it strange that the movie made me think of it. More about the soundtrack: it was a string quartet, very beautifully done, and often very reminiscent of Pachelbel's Canon in D.

The ending of the film was slightly less ambiguous than the end of the book, but just barely.

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.

Changeling

The first thing I noticed about this movie was how much Angelina Jolie looks like my friend Colette. I'd never noticed it before, but I think if Colette would dye her hair and run around in a cloche she would be a dead ringer for Christine Collins.

The second thing I noticed was how different the actual movie was from the movie I thought this would be. One big thing that threw me off was the title. To me, a changeling is a fat and brainless (or at least airheaded) baby that malicious fairies put in your cradle when they steal your real child. I thought the child they returned to the mother would look exactly like the real one, but the mother would know it wasn't him because of his behavior. I also didn't think she would figure it out right away--I thought it would be a gradual realization that this was not her son. I guess I must have missed the part on the movie poster about this being "a true story," but I expected some sort of weird supernatural element that I didn't find.

The third thing I noticed was that the movie lost momentum and slowed to a crawl after about an hour and 20 minutes--just after the boy dug up the bones. I remember looking at the time and thinking, "there's AN HOUR left??" but then thirty minutes later it got interesting again, since we were led to believe that Walter wasn't dead.

It was annoyingly frustrating that Christine never got closure, after several close calls. I was slightly mollified by the text at the end which more or less told us that Walter was never found, but I sure had been hoping for a happy ending. If I had believed the idea that it was a true story, the bittersweet ending would have been somewhat easier to swallow. During the movie I was thinking the story seemed really realistic but I didn't let myself believe it; after all, when I read "The Bridges of Madison County," that seemed really realistic too. It was mostly just little things (like the radio preacher's weird name. If this had been a made-up story, I don't think they would have made up such a weird name).

When I saw that the Burn Notice guy was in the movie, I was glad, because I like him in his TV show. Too bad it didn't take long to decide he should stick with TV. His accent was so horrible that it was distracting. Also annoying, though slightly less so: while some characters in the movie looked convincingly like people from the 1920s, there were a few (like the whore in the asylum) who for some reason looked like they belonged smack dab in this century. It could have been worse, though. I saw in the trivia section on imdb.com that Hilary Swank and Reese Witherspoon both wanted the lead in this movie. My friend Colette could have done a better job looking the part than they could have!

Overall this was a decent movie and not a waste of time. Angelina Jolie has been in more hokey movies than good ones (Taking Lives? Tomb Raider? Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, for Pete's sake?) but she picked a good one here. I guess you can't go wrong with Clint Eastwood.

Sphere

I thought this was another movie I'd seen bits and pieces of throughout the years. In my mind, it was Event Horizon under the sea (rather than in outer space) with Sharon Stone. I was looking forward to seeing how much it differed from my expectations.

As it turns out, I don't think I'd ever seen any of it before. It almost reminded me more of The Matrix (without the matrix) than Event Horizon. It was a pretty good sci-fi-slash-psychological-thriller flick.

I really can't put my finger on why, but I loved finding out that the space ship they found at the bottom of the ocean was actually an American ship rather than an alien one as previously suspected. I think what I mainly liked about that was the fact that I didn't guess it or see it coming.

Event Horizon

A horror movie in outer space. This is one of those movies I've seen bits and pieces of throughout the years but had never watched the entire thing from start to finish (until tonight). Good solid entertainment! No more, no less. No deep thoughts, but it sure kept my attention. One thing I never picked up on in all the snippets I'd seen in the past was that the ship had literally been to Hell and back. Interesting idea.

I didn't get the eyeball thing. Why did Sam Neill's ex-wife (or whoever she was) keep showing up without her eyeballs? (Other than "because it was really creepy"). The closest thing to an explanation given is when Neill says something along the lines of, "Where we're going we don't need eyeballs," although perhaps his actual phrasing was slightly less corny.

Everyone was hallucinating about dead people they used to know, right? Except for Mama Bear, who was seeing her son who she left behind in a wheelchair on Earth with her ex. I took this to mean that her son had died after she left, although I suppose that's up for debate.

Big plot hole: When Justin was in the airlock, he was in pretty bad shape after just over 30 seconds of decompression; however, after Weir shot out a window, Miller survived what seemed to be several minutes of the same type of situation without any visible effects. That's fine with me, though. The movie still managed to keep me riveted and hanging on the edge of my seat (figuratively, since I was standing up washing dishes and such throughout most of the movie) even if it wasn't especially realistic--or perhaps because it wasn't.

Secret Window

This movie was so-so. It had a few twists and turns that surprised me, so at least it wasn't completely straightforward, but it really seemed to get more and more predictable as it went on. 

One big thing that surprised me was that, before I started watching it, I was expecting a sort of re-hashing of another of Stephen King's novel-to-movie translations, Misery. Mainly, I was expecting the novelist in this movie to be the good guy through and through, so I was surprised that he turned out to be the crazy one.

I have found that, as gripping as Stephen King's novels can be to read, they don't survive the leap to screen particularly well. So many of the movies made from his books seem rather corny (hah, I guess that's a pun for this one... a steaming bowl of corn...) and false, perhaps even melodramatic. There are a few notable exceptions, done with more subtlety; The Shining was one of the good ones. He also had a few that were kind of a departure for King, containing a tension common to most of his work but with a very different subject matter (The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile). Most of his other movies I've seen (like this movie, and Pet Sematary) were just somewhat overdone. 

The creepiest part of this movie was during one of Mort's first naps when he dreams, without sound, that something is shaking the door to his cabin while a weird glowing blue light shines in from the outside. Too bad the rest of the movie couldn't maintain near the amount of tension found in that brief scene. The fact that there was no sound to that scene was definitely a plus. The wrong music or sound effects would have completely negated the scary factor. 

At least I got my ironing done while watching this movie, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

Not Watching Tonight: Stir of Echoes

The first night I tried to watch this movie, Hud was at work (as usual) and the kids were asleep, so I might as well have been home alone. I thought I was going to watch this movie while I picked up the house, folded laundry and washed dishes, but I couldn't even make it through the menu clip because it was too creepy. I thought maybe I could mostly just listen to the movie and not look if it got too scary, but even the sound was freaking me out (and I was catching glimpses of the TV reflected in the windows and the door to the microwave when I didn't want to). For a while it remained to be seen whether I would be able to convince Hud to watch this movie with me or whether I would just return it to netflix unwatched. What I was certain about was the fact that I would not be watching the movie that night, nor any other night that I was effectively alone. Especially after midnight! That's OK, I needed to just go to bed anyway.

Last night I managed to convince Hud to stay up with me and watch it. He'd seen it before and really didn't care about it but I guess he must love me because he agreed to watch it again anyway. My characterization of the movie? Utterly forgettable. My reason? Turns out I'd seen it before too, and had completely forgotten this. Even as I watched, parts of it seemed vaguely familiar, but overall it was like my "literary amnesia" except I suppose in this case it's "cinematic amnesia". 

It was creepy, and I was glad to have Hud there with me, but I hope that from now on I can remember that I've already seen this movie, so that I won't bother watching it again.

The Gift

This movie was fine, as far as murder mysteries with "things that go bump in the night" go. I had to clench my jaw a few times to keep from biting off my tongue in fear because I knew something was about to jump out at me. But it wasn't one of those movies that gets so scary that I start thinking something is sneaking up behind me in real life. I remember watching a movie once (could it have been White Noise? I'm not sure) that got me so rattled that I had to call Hud at work in order to feel a link with reality. This one never got that bad. 

Suspense thrillers may be my favorite kind of movie--especially those with unforeseen plot twists that keep me guessing throughout the whole thing. This movie was somewhat disappointing in its lack of twists and in how obvious the killer's identity was from the moment the main character, Annie (Cate Blanchett), went to his house. We did get a nice little montage of all of the possible murder suspects right before the final confirmation of the real one that sort of briefly caused me to doubt my certainty (fulfilling its intended purpose, I'm sure). But I can not think of a single thing that was revealed in this movie that surprised me. By the time the characters figured out each "surprising revelation", I already knew. Oh, except for the blue diamond. I didn't know what the heck Buddy was talking about until they actually showed the blue diamond. But I did already understand its significance. 

OK, so I will admit that I didn't guess the killer right from the beginning. In fact I probably at some point or another suspected every single character in the movie except for Annie and her kids. So to say that I guessed who the killer was, out of the many I suspected, is kind of cheating. It was bound to be one of the many.