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December 21, 2008
Seven Pounds
Last night I decided to go to the movies. Since I drove to the West Side to do errands, I ended up at the Century City mall. Note to self: that AMC is overpriced ($12 a ticket! Junior Mints that are pre-melted and stuck to the box!) and has a crappy selection of films. I begrudgingly bought a ticket to Seven Pounds; really wasn't planning on seeing the film but felt like less of a loser taking myself to a random movie I assumed wasn't depressing rather than spending the night alone at home.
My review was going to be simple: don't go to this movie alone. But after reading some highly amusing reviews, I've altered my review: don't go to this movie.
I thought it was just me and my knowledge of the IRS that got in the way of me being deeply immersed in the film. But no. It was the film that got in the way. I would like to see Rosario Dawson and Will Smith together in another movie. As soon as Smith gets over his Jesus fixation.
A.O. Scott's review in the NYT. (Thanks for the Jesus tip.)
Wesley Morris' review in the Boston Globe, featuring the amusing observation:
How, if Ben is so suicidally depressed, does he still get his hair to have that perfect S-Curl sheen? (That's not easy to do when you want to live.)
Amy Biancolli in the Houston Chronicle makes the important point that the final scene of the movie is super creepy.
Posted by cj at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2008
Cadillac Records
It says something about the caliber of the singing that I thought the actors in Cadillac Records were lip-syncing to original recordings. Though I give them credit for doing a fine job in the pipes department, someone either at the theatre or in the editing room did a terrible job syncing their lips to the audio track.
The individual performances were engaging and entertaining. Eamonn Walker scared me with his Howlin' Wolf glares; Jeffrey Wright frustrated me with his acquiescent Muddy Waters; I followed Columbus Short down Little Walter's spiraling addiction, and Beyonce was convincing as Etta James (though in fairness I've never seen the real James).
But the movie lacked an emotional core. That's understandable, since emotional resonance rests on truthfulness and re-writing the history of brothers' business acumen into a One White Man Show leaves little room to suck a viewer into the beating heart of a story.
My feeling about the movie is best described as follows:
[W]e're never given much insight into who Chess really is, what makes him tick or why we should care about him. --Michael O'Sullivan, WaPo
The film glosses over the blatant exploitation of black talent by Jews (at the time deemed second-class whites by US cultural norms), but since it has So Much History To Tell (or rewrite), I can't fault it for being kind to my people.
My memory is that Muley Willis and his uneasy relationship with his estranged father in Adam Langer's Crossing California gives better insight into Chicago's ethnic divisions and connections than this film.
Nevertheless, Cadillac Records is enjoyable and worth the ticket price.
Rotten Tomatoes Top Critic's round-up
"Got Their Musical Mojo Working, by A.O. Scott in the NYT
Ebert's review
Peter Travers' mini-review in Rolling Stone
"Muddying the waters," by Ty Bur in the Boston Globe
Posted by cj at 03:31 PM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2008
A Good Year....yes my life has gotten that boring
In my defense, I had an intense week with very little sleep, too much activism, and staying late at work every night. That's really all I've got to explain why I watched A Good Year last night / this morning. (Yes, I fell asleep watching it; yes I understood it was an awful movie before deciding to watch the second half this morning.)
Here's an accurate description of the film's primary problem:
Crowe never connects with this character, and his internal journey from putz to prince never attains any emotional resonance. --Gary Thompson, Philadelphia Daily News via Rotten TomatoesI felt like he was trying harder to maintain his London accent than he was trying to connect with the character. Still, I have to give this to the film: it's rare to watch a RomCom from the male perspective, with long camera views peaking up a woman's skirt and ogling a married woman dancing. It comforts me to see these touches of realism in a film genre known more for its gauzy faux reality of beautiful, skinny people having trouble finding a date.
While I never need to see the movie again, it was more entertaining than watching a Grey's Anatomy rerun. So there's that, right?
Posted by cj at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)