Greg’s been out of town so I’ve been doing my ‘one movie each night’ thing. Since it’s been forever since I wrote up reviews I’ll do some short ones here…(ok now that I’ve written them, turns out this is kind of long)
Sunday: The Nines
Gosh, I don’t really know what to say about this. I got this movie several months ago. I don’t even recall why I got it. I think I saw a preview for it during another one I rented. At any rate, I pulled it off the shelf and threw it in not knowing anything about it. I’d even forgotten who was in it (Ryan Reynolds, by the way). So I started watching, not knowing if it would be scary, funny, drama, sci-fi, etc. It’s not often that I get to experience a film that way.
It started out weird and sort of funny, the tone was kind of hard to read. Then it got damn scary. Then it got more like a drama. Very strange. I don’t know how much I want to say because it’s one of those films where you don’t know what’s going on until the end. And if you’re dumb like me, not even then.
I will say that it’s made me think about it several times since viewing including once at 3am. So it stuck with me. I will watch it again with Greg and see if he understands it any better than I did. My money’s on yes.
The basic premise is that it’s told in three parts. Each part seemingly a different story about different people (but played by the same actors) and it sort of explains itself and/or connects the dots at the end.
::shudder:: I’m still trying to wrap my brain around it. It’s very well done and fun to watch and Ryan Reynolds, aside from being very nice to look at, is a very good actor. Don’t think about the stupid films he’s done. Mark my words, he’ll be A-List very soon.
[More about The Nines]
Monday: Roger Dodger
This was an interesting film. Or at least it had a promising premise. 30-something businessman (Campbell Scott—swoon!) thinks he’s quite the player until his co-worker (boss?) decides she no longer wants to sleep with him. He gets all weird and stalkery. His 16-year old nephew comes to town and asks for advice on women. So Uncle takes him out on the town for a night of drinking and debauchery.
You know the idea is that the kid really has more game than the uncle because he’s honest and women prefer that to stupid pick up lines. So you expect that they’ll both learn something. And I guess they do.
But I didn’t see a very big turnaround in the uncle’s behavior. I guess he fine tuned his “lines” a little, but still. I don’t know. Maybe I didn’t get it.
However, the actors were very good. I had not seen the kid, Jesse Eisenberg, before. He reminded me a lot of Michael Cerra. The writing was good, snappy dialog and a good tone to the film. It was fun, too to see Morena Baccarin (yeah, I had to look up her name). She plays Inara on Firefly, a show with which I have just recently become obsessed. She had a very small part in this, but man, is she gorgeous or what?
[More about Roger Dodger]
Tuesday: The Squid and the Whale
All I could think of watching this was, ‘OK what the fck? Am I supposed to give a rat’s ass about anyone in this movie?’
It’s about a family that’s going through a divorce. The parents are both writers and they have two sons; one teenager and one that’s maybe twelve or so. I felt bad for the boys (especially the younger one), but most everyone else in the film was pretty annoying. I didn’t really care what happened to them. And this is sad and strange for me because the mother was played by Laura Linney and I adore her. So she’s a very good actor because I couldn’t stand to watch her character, she made me dislike her that much.
The parents were just pompous assholes who believed they were better than everyone else because they are smart (they’re writers). The youngest boy just wants to be normal, down to earth and the dad calls him a philistine. After dad explains what this means, the kid then says, “Then I want to be a philistine!” They let the kids swear like sailors (which is actually pretty funny) and give them way too much freedom. I think this is the kind of parent I would have been if I’d had a kid ten years ago. Good thing I didn’t!
It was well written, well acted (the older boy in this one is the same one that was in Roger Dodger, and he’s good here too), and the direction is good. I just didn’t like the characters and didn’t care about them at all.
I do get the feeling we aren’t supposed to like them. So if that’s true, bravo! However I disliked them so much that I didn’t even want to finish watching the movie. But I did, dammit. I persevered!
[more about The Sqid and the Whale]
Wednesday: Two Days in Paris
I chose this one because I really loved Before Sunrise and Before Sunset. I thought they’d be similar because they take place in Europe and because Julie Delpy was involved. She wrote and directed this one. I guess the reason I liked the others was that they were really Ethan Hawke’s movies, not hers.
This is another one where I didn’t like the people. The story was that this couple is on vacation and they go to her hometown, Paris for two days before their last leg of their trip home. They run into a bunch of her friends (many ex boyfriends) and he gets jealous. But she does absolutely nothing to calm his fears; in fact she makes things worse. Not to mention the fact that she’s apparently slept with most of the population of the city.
Her character narrated it, so it’s like it’s told from her point of view, but she sure showed herself in a bad light. I’m not saying the character is Julie Delpy, I’m saying the character of Marion was telling the story and I would think generally when someone tells a story they try and make themselves look good.
I found this interesting: When she’s with her family they were all speaking French (I don’t believe her parents knew English enough to converse in it) and her American boyfriend only understands teensy pieces of French. Sometimes they are talking about him, but sometimes they’re just fighting over something stupid like over feeding the cat. But he always, or at least often, thinks it’s about him. Firstly, I know the feeling. I do the same thing. It’s not ego, it’s paranoia. Secondly, she really made no effort to explain to him what they were discussing, which only fed his paranoia and gave her more control.
Every time he tried to talk to her about what was bothering him, she laughed him off and said it was no big deal. She was a crazy drama queen and while he was a smart ass, I ended up liking him more. Strange since she wrote the screenplay and it was supposedly based on them (the guy that played her BF was her real BF at the time, Adam Goldberg…I heard they broke up after the film. No shock.)
So it was OK, but I was actually kind of relived when it was over. It was kind of like being at a party and watching the host couple fight all night. Kind of stressful.
[more about Two Days in Paris]
So of the 4 I saw, The Nines was my favorite. Mostly because it made me think. It made me want to see it again.
Jody’s coming over tonight…not sure what we’ll watch yet. I’m leaning toward Definitely, Maybe which I just got from NetFlix yesterday. Of course we may just open a bottle (or 3) of wine and chat.
Posted under Art House/International, Drama, Movie Reviews, Mystery/Suspense
This post was written by Amy on June 26, 2008