You Were Never Lovelier (1942)

  This is a very pretty, inoffensive musical, one of two Astaire made with Hayworth.  The other one, You'll Never Get Rich, I own so you'll probably see a review of that one when I get to Y's.  On the last season of Mystery Science Theater 3000, in case you were wondering.

Robert Davis (Astaire) is a famous New York dancer in Argentina to play the ponies.  He runs out of cash so he goes to the biggest club owner (Adolphe Menjou) to ask for a job.  Unfortunately, it turns out that he's a huge asshole and he flat refuses to see Rob.  Undaunted, Rob talks to his friend Xavier Cugat, the bandleader, and scores a debut at Menjou's oldest daughter's wedding.

In Shakespearean fashion, Daddy has decreed that his four daughters will get married in order of age, which is crushing for the two youngest, since ice cold Maria (Hayworth), the next in line, keeps steadfastly refusing to fall in love.  Rob even tries his luck with her at the reception and gets shut down.  He complains unwittingly to her father, who becomes concerned that there might be a problem with his dear girl.

This is where it veers sharply into Weird territory.  See, Daddy has a plan.  He will manufacture a 'secret admirer' for Maria to fall in love with and then supply some poor sap after a suitable time.  So he spends weeks sending her love notes and orchids and, sure enough, she gets curious about her mysterious benefactor.  Then he goes on a business trip and completely forgets to continue the orchid delivery.  So he comes home, realizes that Maria is depressed, and freaks, frantically ringing for a bellhop to get some orchids and deliver them.  Rob intercepts the request and decides he'll deliver the flowers in the hopes of currying favor with the big boss.  Maria, waiting by the window, sees him drop them off and recognizes him from the wedding.  You can see where this is going.

Daddy is horrified when he finds out, since the last thing he wanted was for Maria to end up with some worthless dancer with a gambling problem.  So he comes up with a cunning plan for Rob to break up with his daughter in exchange for a contract in his club.

It's a musical so you can probably fill in the blanks from this point.  Hayworth's evening gowns are stunning, of course, even though her expressions are a little on the mugging side.  Astaire fell a little flat for me this time, because his character was supposed to be kind of dumb and unsure and I hate seeing him act like that.  Adolphe Menjou really stole the show here, despite the creepy aspect of writing love notes to his own daughter.  His interactions with his secretary (and his wife's third cousin), Fernando, were hilarious.

If you're a Hayworth fan, it's worth it.  If you're an Astaire fan, it's not really.

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

  I borrowed this one from my neighbor, Kim.  Traded her Burlesque for a couple of days.  It's a classic film, an iconic role for Audrey Hepburn, and has been referenced bajillions of times, to the point where even if you have never seen this movie, like me, you would still recognize bits from it.  

I can't say that I particularly liked the film, but I feel better for having seen it.  It's just not my bag. 

Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) is a wannabe gold-digger struggling to make it in New York.  She falls about a centimeter shy of outright prostitution and lands squarely in the begging category, relying mostly on the change from when men give her money for powder rooms and cabfare to survive.  Her only steady source of income comes from visiting an imprisoned mobster and giving his lawyer a weekly "weather report".  She lives in a walk-up with her unnamed cat, constantly harassing her landlord (Mickey Rooney, in a stupefyingly racist portrayal of a Japanese man) and throwing wild parties.

Paul Varjak (George "Hannibal from the original A-Team" Peppard) is a struggling writer/kept man who moves in one floor up.  Recognizing each other as twin lost souls, they strike up a friendship.  Then Holly's husband, Doc, shows up.  Doc (Buddy "The Beverly Hillbillies" Ebsen) tells Paul that Holly's real name is Lula Mae and he wants her to come home. 

This is where I started to wonder if Holly was the free-spirited nymph fleeing the stifling strictures of rural life for a blaze of glory in the big city she liked to think she was, or if she was just a pathological liar looking for her next meal ticket.  It really could have gone either way.

Sympathy for the character is maintained, however, mostly due to Hepburn's ability to emote.  Which, I suppose, would make it frustrating for everyone hoping that this would be the catalyst she needs to realize she's in love with Paul.  Even though she keeps calling him "Fred", after her slow brother who joined the Army.  I found that creepy.

Then Holly meets a rich Brazilian.    Surprising no one, she immediately tosses Paul aside in order to latch on to Senor Moneybags, covering her apartment in travel posters and learning Portugese.  On her last night before flying down to meet her hottie, she and Paul go out for dinner to say good-bye.  They come home to find that Mickey Rooney let the cops into her apartment and they both get arrested, surprising everyone.  Remember the mob boss' weather reports?  Yeah, I didn't either til then.

Maybe it's the confidence that comes from having a wardrobe filled with nothing but Givenchy creations, but Holly is unfazed by her indictment and only mildly annoyed that Juan the Brazilian has tastefully rescinded his invitation to tour the pampas.  She dumps the cat out of the car and tells Paul she's going to Brazil anyway.  This is the last straw.  Paul loses his mind and goes all Third Act from Moulin Rouge on her before storming off into the rain.

I was kind of surprised this movie had a happy ending (she chases him down and they find the cat and live happily ever after).  Like I said, it could have gone the other way pretty easily.  Blake Edwards directed, however, and he did so love a happy ending no matter how improbable.

I'll say I liked it, but it's really just for the costumes.

Sunset (1988)

I wasn't especially looking forward to this movie, based on the sleeve which said it was a "Western spoof/murder mystery" with Wyatt Earp (James Garner) teaming up with an actor who is going to play him in a movie (Bruce Willis).  That sounds like a disaster.

The movie wasn't as horrible as I was envisioning, thank God.  I was picturing some abomination like Hudson Hawk but it was a lot more like a generic buddy cop movie.  James Garner acted circles around Bruce Willis but that's to be expected.  I'm pretty sure Willis only took the part so he could geek out about being on-set with a legend.

Malcolm McDowell is in this as well, playing the head of the movie studio.  I'm not sure how much of his character was based on Charlie Chaplin, hopefully not a lot.  His accent comes and goes, which I found annoying considering that his character's sister (Jennifer Edwards) had a straight American accent. 

The plot is pretty weak, considering that you know who the villains are immediately, but it's a fun movie nonetheless and it marks the big screen debut of Dermot Mulroney if that interests you.

Bathory (2008)

  This one has been in my Saved queue for over a year with no release date.  That is bullshit.  So I'm not going to say precisely how I got to see it.  Maybe it's easier to find in other countries.  It's worth checking out.

I was supposed to have been watching a Russian sci-fi movie called Stalker but the disc was cracked and wouldn't play past the halfway mark.  Now it's going back to the bottom of the queue.

I heard about this movie last year.  Film School Rejects was doing a Movie World Cup and this was the submission for Slovakia.  Countess Bathory was one of my favorite historical figures so into the list it went even though the movie didn't make it far at all (got beat by LotR:  Return of the King).

The whole movie is in English, which I think is cheating, but whatever.  I know there are a lot of you out there who dislike reading a movie.  The costumes and sets are gorgeous and overall, the production is amazing.

There aren't a lot of special effects so it never devolves into campy creature-feature schlock.  I thought everyone involved with the movie did a great job, especially Anna Friel as the title character. 

Countess Bathory was the wealthiest landowner in 16th century Hungary, which was at war with the Ottoman Empire and also had some internal struggles between the Protestant Hungarian nobles and the Catholic Hapsburgs.  While her husband, Ferenc, is off fighting, Erzsebet is home seeing to the health and disposition of the serfs and running 17 castles.  As a present, her husband sends her a captured Milanese painter as a spoil of war.  His name is Caravaggio.  She and the painter strike up a friendship, sparking rumors of an affair.

The gossip only grows worse from there, fueled by a greedy neighboring landowner named Thurzo who has always wanted a piece of the Countess.  After being shut out completely, Thurzo starts building a case of withcraft against her, alleging that she bathes in the blood of virgins to retain her youth and beauty. 

The results of this smear campaign are pretty much the only reason anyone now remembers her at all.  Whether or not she actually killed people is moot at this point.

The movie paints a very sympathetic picture of a strong-willed, intelligent woman, nonetheless with a violent temper, who is being railroaded out of her money and property.  An interesting take on the legend, to be sure.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

  Wow, I seriously hate all the posters I could find for this movie.  They're either too Saving Private Ryan-ish or too look-at-me-I-have-Photoshop.  Ugh.  This one still has the original release date of May 6th on it.  Whatever.

Anyway, Captain America.  Another solid hit from Marvel.  Even though I knew better, I still watched the movie looking for similarities between it and Thor or Iron Man.  Marvel is doing a great job of getting different directors for each film, though, and keeping the styles separate.  It makes them all watchable on their own even though they remain in canon.

So, this one starts with finding a plane frozen in a glacier and the signature shield on board.  Then it cuts to old-timey WWII days.  Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) has a laundry list of medical ailments but keeps attempting to enlist so he can serve his country.  Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci) recognizes the value of such stupi- I mean loyalty and accepts him into the Army's science division.  He has a serum that will turn 90 lb weakling Rogers into the perfect specimen of Captain America.

The first experiment of the serum worked, mostly, on Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving), the head of the Nazi's deep science department, codenamed HYDRA.  The side effects were a bit more than anyone bargained for, however, transforming Schmidt into Red Skull.  Which is awesome.  Schmidt believes the key to world domination lies in old Norse mythology of a weapon from the gods.

No, not Mjolnir.

There is also a throwaway line about Hitler searching fruitlessly for treasures in the desert, which I thought tied in nicely with Raiders of the Lost Ark but I have no idea if that was the intended effect.  I hope it was.

Anyway, he has the Cosmic Cube and starts seriously laying waste to Europe.  Cap, meanwhile, is being pimped out to the war effort as a bond salesman, until he learns that his buddy Bucky's (Sebastian Stan) unit has been captured by Red Skull.  Then it is on for some ass kicking.

Fans of the comics know how this is going to end but for those of you who aren't, I won't spoil it.

Because of the nature of the timeline and how Cap has to join the Avengers and whatnot,  I felt that the movie ended on kind of a sad note.  That being said, you almost don't notice because Tommy Lee Jones is so freaking awesome.  He steals every scene he is in.  Honestly, Chris Evans gets out-acted by pretty much everyone which is a little disappointing but Captain America is supposed to be a relatively straight role.  There's not a lot of room for interesting character flaws.

Also, stay tuned through the interminable credits for a one minute teaser for The Avengers, coming out next summer.  It doesn't tell you anything you didn't already know but it does show them all together for the first time.

The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976)

  This movie made no sense whatsoever.  None.  My only thought watching it was "What is this?  I don't even...  Is that David Bowie's wang?!"  

And yes, yes, it was.

This cannot be unseen.

Bowie is an alien from a planet that has no water.  He patents some technology, starts some companies, and raises a shit-ton of money to build a spaceship so he can go back to his planet.

That is what it says on the back of the Netflix sleeve.

The only way you can tell how much time is passing is by the aging make-up.  Normally, that wouldn't be such a big deal but it seems like characters age 20 or 30 years in the space of a single conversation.  Not to mention the bizarre "capture" sequence when, right on the cusp of going home, Bowie gets ganked by his chauffeur and experimented on by random fucking doctors for no apparent reason since nobody knows he's an alien except for his girlfriend and one of the scientists he has building his spaceship (played by Rip Torn, which makes his involvement in the Men in Black franchise make total sense now.  Also, they were spot-on with the aging.)  So one of the two had to have ratted him out but the movie just kind of ignores this.

I don't know.  This movie was bizarre and full of Do Not Want.  I can only assume Bowie was paid in cocaine and Beefeaters.

Public Enemies (2009)

  Not sure why they felt the need to make the title information look like it's spilling from his junk, but whatevs. 

It's hard for me to like movies based on historical events because it feels like cheating when you already know how the movie is going to end.  Still, this is a decent film, although the ham-handed attempts to add a romantic angle fall completely flat for me.

John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) is a serial bank robber in the Great Depression.  He and his gang routinely elude capture and become such national figures that J. Edgar Hoover (Billy Crudup, playing far against type) assigns a special task force of the Bureau of Investigation to hunt them down, led by Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). 

In the movie, Purvis is fresh from the killing of Pretty Boy Floyd (Channing Tatum, who gets shot before he can suck too much) but in real life, Floyd was shot three months later.  It is a nice set-up to show Purvis' dedication, however, so I'm not mad at them about that.

Dillinger has a sweetheart named Billie (Marion Cotillard) and she is completely superflous.  Which is not to say anything negative against the actress.  I've liked her in a lot of things.  However, she only exists in this film in order for Dillinger to draw comparisons against when he is watching Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama, what would be his final movie-watching experience.

She's not even the Woman in Red who tipped off the cops to Dillinger's whereabouts.  That would have been interesting, in that whole Samson-betrayed-by-Delilah kind of way.  That was just a Romanian madam trying not to get deported.  Accurate, yes, but hardly poetic.  It shouldn't have even been necessary, since he was being hunted by The Goddamn Batman.

I thought more could have been made out of the interaction between Purvis and Dillinger and not just because of the slashfic possibilities of a Bale/Depp sandwich.  Overall, it's a solid film but definitely just a rental.

King of Hearts (1966)

Oh, yeah, that's a naked man ass on my blog.  Cuz that's how I roll, that's why.

That, and because this is a movie about crazy people.

It's World War I in Europe.  The Germans are retreating from France but they're not exactly doing it graciously.  They bury a bunch of explosives in the middle of the town of Marville and rig the clock tower to trigger it at midnight when the town should be occupied by the incoming Scots.  A member of the Resistance gets half a coded message out to the Allies before getting shot, so they decide to send in a scout who speaks French to disarm the bomb.

Charles Plumpick is not an ordnance specialist.  He's in charge of the communications pigeons.  Still, they send him anyway.

The regular townspeople have gotten the word about the imminent destruction of their hamlet and have collectively gotten the hell out of Dodge.  All that's left is a contingent of Germans, with a cameo from a young cow-lick-bedecked overenthusiastic young soldier named Adolph, and the inhabitants of the local nuthouse.

You see where this is going. 

Plumpick runs around, trying to avoid the Germans, and manages to unlock the asylum and then knock himself out.  When he comes to, the inhabitants have taken over the village and declared him their king. 

Maybe because this was made back in '66, but it seems like the only thing these people are suffering from is joie de vivre.  There's a lot of free love going on in here and not a great deal of paranoid schizophrenia is what I'm saying.  That's the only detractor I found and even then, I shook myself out of trying to diagnose the characters.  "They're not meant to be representative of actual mental illnesses, Lucy, let it go."

It is an incredibly cute film (once you get past the whole crazy-people-aren't-really-crazy thing).  There are a couple of poignant moments regarding the inherent absurdity of war that help balance out all the zany sweetness.  Another genuine oddity is that it is a Franco-Italian joint production starring a Scotsman with dialogue in English, French and German.

It's only available on Streaming right now on Netflix but it's well worth picking up if you have a few minutes.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)

This isn't a terrible movie.  It's even a fairly good musical, from what I understand. 

I'm not a huge fan of slapstick.  I recognize that Steve Martin's performance is humorous but the only times I laughed were the more subtle moments, like when the two Australian sailors in the bar offer to help him get rid of Michael Caine.  There's this momentary flash across his eyes that I found brilliant.

The movie is about a high-class con man (Michael Caine) working the French Riviera whose territory is intruded upon by a decidedly lower-rent grifter named Freddy (Steve Martin).  Freddy figures out pretty quickly that he is at the threshold of a brand new world here and harasses/blackmails Lawrence into giving him a Pygmalion-style makeover.  If Eliza Doolittle had been a compulsive liar, you'd have this movie.

Lawrence is still trying to get Freddy off his turf and the pair come up with a bet:  whoever can scam $50K from Janet Colgate, the American Soap Queen (Glenne Headly), first wins and the loser has to leave town.  Schemes and counter-schemes abound as the two con artists try and out-maneuver each other.  I found it to be fairly predictable, but that may just be because it has been copied so often by later films.

Also, Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine) is in this movie as the butler, Arthur, and it's a complete waste.  He only had 5 lines and almost zero plot involvement.  A damn shame.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010, 2011)

Nominated for:  Best Art Direction and Best Visual Effects (Part One)
Nominated for:  Best Art Direction, Best Make-up and Best Visual Effects (Part Two)  

  I'm just going to go ahead and review both halves together since I saw them pretty much back-to-back.  

So, it opens up with Bill Nighy giving a speech and all the kids very dramatically contemplating their lives and saying good-bye to loved ones in preparation for the coming battle with the Big Bad himself. 

Harry, Hermione, and Ron are looking for the rest of the objects that hold bits of Voldemort's soul which are called horcruxes.  They get chased all over London after Ron's brother's wedding gets crashed and end up on an extended camping trip after breaking into the Ministry of Magic and stealing a locket horcrux from Dolores Umbridge. 

They camp for 90% of the rest of the first half.  It is very boring. 

Ron gets hurt and, in the finest tradition of fantasy plots, they give the weakest member the medallion made of pure evil.  He subsequently becomes convinced that Harry and Hermione are hooking up behind his back (which, let's face it, everyone knows they'd make a better couple) and storms off, leaving them alone to find something that will smash the locket. 

Harry almost gets eaten by an old lady and Hermione gets a copy of Dumbledore's unauthorized biography. 

During watch one night, Harry sees a deer made of blue light and follows it to a frozen pond.  At the bottom is a sword that can destroy the locket so Harry joins the Polar Bear Club but can't find the hole in the ice to get out again.  Things look bleak but Ron pulls his head out of his ass and saves him.  Then they destroy the horcrux. 

After that, stuff starts to blur together for me.  There's a neat little animated sequence narrated by Rhys Ifans about the titular Deathly Hallows, which are three objects that were given to wizards by Death.  Then the kids get captured and end up in Bellatrix's basement.  They rescue John Hurt (who, to be honest, I had completely forgotten was in this series) and a banking goblin.  The goblin bargains for the sword in exchange for sneaking the kids into Bellatrix's safe deposit vault where the fifth horcrux is.  Then he abandons them to die and they escape by releasing the guard dragon.  Which I'm sure caused some sort of ecological crisis. 

But now they're back where they started, with a horcrux and no means of disposing of it.  Meanwhile, Voldemort has gotten ahold of the Elder Wand, one of the Hallows and massed an army to destroy Hogwarts.  Dumbledore's brother gives them shit about not really knowing what the hell they're fighting for but then shows them a secret passage into Hogwarts.

That's all the exposition.

Jesus.

Most of the second half is one gigantic battle scene that's actually pretty nifty to watch so I'm not going to spoil too much of it.  I will say that I kept laughing at inappropriate times but there were a couple of scenes where I couldn't help it.

**SPOILERS FROM A FOUR YEAR OLD BOOK**

1)  Snape's dead memories.  Where he accuses Dumbledore of raising Harry "like a pig to the slaughter", all I could think of was Harry Plopper from The Simpsons Movie. That's some funny shit.

2)  Harry dies and shows up on the set of Minority Report.  Under a bench is the curled-up form of the bit of Voldemort's soul that had been in him this whole time (surprise!) that is now dead.  It straight-up looked like a whole barbecued chicken with Ralph Fiennes' face.  Hi. Lari. Ous.  That one I laughed so hard I worried about retribution from angry Harry Potter fans.

**END SPOILERS**

I've never been a huge fan of this series, finding it tolerable at best.  Part Two is probably the best film of the lot but Part One is too boring for words.  Probably the most positive thing I could say about it is that it's over.  For good.

Or until Rowling loses the copyrights and they make 3000 unnecessary sequels and spin-offs.  I'll most likely be dead by then (it's +75 years from the death of the author in England, I think) so even that will be someone else's problem.

Oh!  And whoever nominated the first half for an Oscar for Art Direction deserves to be shot.  That was some murky shit.  Visual Effects, maybe, but not Art Direction.

Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love (1995)

  In case you couldn't tell, this was the Christy pick for July.  

I wanted to like it.  I really did.  I wanted it to be sexy, almost borderline porn.  It's not.

But it's not for lack of trying.  There are so many smoldering glances I'm a little surprised the film didn't melt.  Both the main female characters get naked, and not just topless, but the full merkin.  Plus, Kama Sutra is part of the freakin' name.

Still, it falls flat for me.

Maya (Indira Varma) is the lower caste companion to Tara, a princess.  Tara has a typical spoiled attitude and treats Maya like shit to cover the fact that she actually feels jealous because the poor girl is prettier and more talented.  Then Tara marries a neighboring king (Naveen Andrews).  During the pre-wedding celebrations, Maya ends up sleeping with Tara's man a couple of hours before the wedding.  Tara goes off with her new husband and no one is the wiser, except for Tara's creepy-ass hunchback brother Bikky.  He keeps his mouth shut until Maya turns down his marriage proposal.  Then he tells everybody and gets her thrown out to wander the countryside.

She ends up staying at a temple and meets a local sculptor named Jai.  Jai takes her to his friend who runs a courtesan school.  Maya and Jai date until Jai freaks out and dumps her because she inspires his work too much.  Probably confounded by how stupid that reasoning is, Maya decides to become a courtesan and ends up getting picked up by the same king that married her friend.  Who also happens to be Jai's half-brother, since his mother was a courtesan in the old king's harem.  Tara isn't exactly pleased to see her, even less so when her mother-in-law gleefully informs her that EVERYONE knows the king fucked Maya before the wedding.

I suppose the "love story" portion of the plot comes in here because the king is obsessed with Maya and hates his wife, his wife is obsessed with him and hates Maya, Maya is obsessed with the sculptor and hates the king, and the sculptor is obsessed with Maya and hates the king.

I don't know. 

Indira Varma I recognized from the second season of Human Target which was cancelled because it was on FOX.  She did a good job there and I can't fault her here in her debut.  She's undeniably pretty and she has a easy way of showing a combination of naivety and mischief that works well in this role as a sexual ingenue.  My only problem is that her character had a tendency to whine like a saw-blade, which I found obnoxious.  I've never seen the chick that plays Tara in anything else so I have no idea if she's a good actress or not. 

Naveen Andrews survived (almost) 6 seasons of Lost playing an Iraqi so I know he can act.  My problem with him was that he was so made-up it didn't look natural.  He needed a few years on a desert island to weather him up a bit. 

The costumes, jewelry, and cinematography were gorgeous but, for sex appeal, you'd be better off watching Cinemax.

Source Code (2011)

I really thought I would like this movie.  It got good reviews from what I remember.  I was trying not to get burned out by reading a lot about it, to save some enthusiasm for actually seeing it.

If I had known it was just going to be Quantum Leap meets Groundhog Day I wouldn't have bothered.

CPT Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) wakes up on a train and finds himself talking to a woman he's never met but who apparently knows him, except she keeps calling him Sean.  Then their train blows up.

CPT Colter Stevens wakes up in a capsule and finds himself talking to a woman he's never met but who apparently knows him.  This time, it's an Air Force Captain (Vera Farmiga) who tells him that the train isn't real, it's a program called Source Code and they have sent his consciousness into a loop where he occupies the final 8 minutes of Sean Fentress' life aboard this doomed train.  They need him to go through these eight minutes again and again until he figures out who set the bomb before they can destroy downtown Chicago.  How is this possible?  Why only eight minutes?  Why that one particular guy?

QUANTUM!!!

So, Colter/Sean goes back again and again, trying to alter events in this closed timeloop so he can save the woman across from him (Michelle Monaghan) from a fiery death.  He is also trying to find a way to call his dad and figure out what exactly happened to him that caused him to end up in a capsule instead of flying a helicopter in Afghanistan, which is the last thing he actually remembers.

The mystery of the mad bomber is actually ridiculously easy to solve.  Rob (that's New Boyfriend for the record) and I got it on our first pass.  There are a couple of decent red herrings but ignore them and go with your first instinct. 

I thought the love story was ridiculously contrived and that Colter Stevens was actually kind of a dick.  The guy he's Scott-Bakula-ing, Fentress, had laid down a ton of groundwork with the chick, Christine, but was apparently too shy to seal the deal.  Then he dies in a horrible explosion, filled with regrets for the missed opportunity, while a doppleganger swoops in on this loop of the last eight minutes of his life and macks on his woman.  There's some identity theft on an epic scale.

And in case you think I'm being hyperbolic with the whole Quantum Leap comparison, check the credits for a cameo voice.

The Blind Side (2009)

  I wasn't sure if I was going to like this movie, despite the Oscar win, and the fact that my mom recommended it.  Every once in a while she knocks one out of the park but mostly the nicest thing I can say is that they were okay.

This one was better than I thought it would be, though.  For one, it was a lot funnier.  Usually, when Sandra Bullock does comedy it's the stupid slapstick kind but she's better than that.  She seems like a naturally funny woman so even when she does a drama she can imbue the character with a lot of humor. Plus I was kind of surprised how good Tim McGraw was in this.  Granted, he just had to be easy-going and tolerant of Sandra Bullock's character but he's not an actor by trade and I had a hard time remembering that he was actually a singer.

Anyway, this is about a guy named Michael Oher (pronounced like oar) who grew up in the projects and  managed to get sponsored into a private Christian school in Memphis due to his athletic abilities.  That's all well and good but not really enough since he owns one change of clothes and is effectively homeless.   Enter Leigh Anne Tuohy, an interior decorator whose husband owns 85 Taco Bells.  She takes Michael into her household and raises him alongside her other two children.

This is based on a true story which I probably would have already known if I cared at all about football.  Oher grows up to play for the Baltimore Ravens.  I don't know if that's a good team or not but it's a professional one which means he's probably a millionaire by now.  Rags to Riches.  Can't beat it.

Moon (2009)

  This movie made me sad.  Which is not to say that it's a bad movie.  Far from it.  

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) works a 3 yr mission on the far side of the moon, mining helium-3 to supply energy to Earth.  He has a wife and baby at home and is counting the days until his return.  Except that things start going wrong.  Sam has nightmares and a unsettling feeling that he is not alone.  Even his adorable and ever-so-slightly-creepy robot companion, GERTY, can't help him.

Now I have seen a fair number of science fiction films and generally, dramas set in space fall into one of three categories.

A:  evil robots (2001:  A Space Odyssey, WALL-E)

B:  aliens (Alien, Pitch Black)

C:  corporate conspiracies (Aliens)

Considering that Kevin Spacey was the voice of the robot, I would have put money on A.  But that's because I'm one of those horrible people who tries to figure out the twist before the plot is even laid out.

***SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER***
It's not A.
***END SPOILER***

The ending of the movie made me feel the same way I did when I saw Gattaca, that sort-of-happy-but-at-a-really-high-cost bittersweet kind of feeling.  Which is not bad for a film that basically only stars one guy.  I like Sam Rockwell in pretty much everything, though, even Charlie's Angels so I'm a little biased.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (2008)

  Blech.  This was one of those stupid hipster teen movies where incredibly hot chicks fall inexplicably in love with skinny douchey whiners who play bass.  Subtract everything that was cool from Scott Pilgrim and you'll have this movie.

Norah (Kat Dennings) is an uptown girl obsessed with ridiculously obscure bands.  She is usually accompanied by her friend Caroline, whose coping mechanism is to get blind drunk.  To be fair, if I was being dragged all over the five buroughs to listen to one miserable garage band after another, I'd probably be an alcoholic too.  Since Norah attends an upscale girls academy, there is the obligatory Snotty Bitch.  Her name is Tris and her one joy in life is feeding off the suffering of hipster boys.  One in particular keeps sending her mix CDs in an effort to win her love.  Norah intercepts these tokens before they hit the bottom of the trash bin since the music "speaks to her" or some such shit.

At one of the underground shows, Tris confronts Norah with the fact that she will die alone so Norah retaliates by grabbing the first frail kid she can find.  It just so happens to be Tris' most recent victim and the creator of all those sublime mixes, Michael Cera. 

I have to pause for a moment and scrub my eyes with a Brillo pad to get that image out.

His two gay bandmates (who might be the only likable characters in the movie) decide that it is fate and push the two together.  They take charge of the passed out Caroline and promptly lose her after a run to Gray's Papaya.  I wish I could say wacky hijinks ensue, but they really don't.  It's just bored kids tooling over NYC in shitty cars searching for a drunk girl and the next underground show.

The two main characters may share the same names as The Charles' but there is nowhere near the level of charm or charisma.

Hot Fuzz (2007)

  Ah, man, I didn't think having a boyfriend would be so exhausting.  Granted, I am a little out of practice.  It's super-fun, though.  I had forgotten about that.

This is actually what we saw on Independence Day this year.  New Boyfriend and I went to his buddy's house for barbecued ribs, beer (for them, cider for me), and apple pie.  We fought off our resulting food coma with some sweet Hot Fuzz action.

I remember seeing this for the first time and thinking that it wasn't as good as Shaun of the Dead.  I was prepared to dismiss it completely, but subsequent viewings (this would make three) have convinced me of its merits.  Some movies are like that.  You have to give them a chance to win you over.

For the 5 of you who have never seen this movie, Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is a supercop who is transferred out of London's Metropolitan Police to the sleepy town of Sandford and partnered with Danny, a constable who has memorized every action movie ever made with no practical experience.  Far from relaxing in the country, Angel discovers "accidents" in this tiny village aren't exactly all that they appear.

Pretty much every decent British actor that isn't currently in an American film is in this movie, including Paddy Considine, who is a complete 180 from his role in Dead Man's Shoes.  I'm waiting to show that one to New Boyfriend.  Seriously, if you're a fan of British stuff at all, you'll recognize half of these people from Doctor Who or Torchwood or any number of other British films.

Ninja (2009)

  Wow.  This was a terrible B-film.  I'm sure it was trying to capitalize on association with Ninja Assassin, which was an awesome movie, but it's not even close to being the same thing.

White Guy (Scott Adkins) is raised by the sensei of the last remaining Ninja dojo in Japan.  Of course, the sensei has a hot daughter who is totally in love with White Guy and, of course, there is also another student who is White Guy's physical equal but is angry because White Guy is white.  Sensei banishes Angry Guy who immediately decides to start working for some lame-ass wannabe Illuminati group as an assassin-for-hire.  All he really wants is the box full of ancient ninja gear that has been passed down from the dojo leaders.  Sensei sends White Guy, Hot Daughter and two more unnamed cast members to New York with the box to keep it safe, which works as well as it usually does in the movies.

The plot is lame, the martial arts are meh compared to some of the crazy shit you can find nowadays, and the actors sound dubbed even though it's filmed almost completely in English.  If you're a glutton for punishment, go ahead and knock yourself out.  Sane people:  there are better ways to spend your time.

Secondhand Lions (2003)

Happy Independence Day!  Here's a totally unrelated movie!

    This movie surprised me.  I was expecting another sappy crapfest like the last one my mother recommended but this was really outstanding.  Much more Big Fish than August Rush.

Walter (Haley Joel Osment) is sent to live with his crazy great-uncles in rural Texas by his gold-digging mother (Kyra Sedgewick).  The old coots are reputed to have a vast quantity of cash buried somewhere on the property, leading to various relatives attempting to ingratiate themselves.  The uncles (Robert Duvall and Michael Caine) are incredibly eccentric, amusing themselves by shooting at the salesmen that constantly beleaguer them.  They take a liking to the boy after seeing that he discomfits their other relatives and take him under their insane wings.  He discovers an old picture of a beautiful woman and is spun the tale of Uncle Hub's (Duvall) great love, an Arabian princess.  Many battles were fought,  and a great tragedy occurred.

It's an insanely cute film.  Caine and Duvall play crochety very well.  Caine struggles a bit to hide his accent but the overall effect isn't ruined since they were supposed to have been shanghai'd into the French Foreign Legion.  The flashback scenes are played for laughs, being mostly pantomimed while Caine voices over.  Emmanuelle Vaugier plays the princess and Elliott from Leverage plays the young Uncle Hub.  Haley Joel Osment seemed to be bridging those awkward teenaged years pretty well.  I want him to come back and start being in stuff again.  Someone needs to kill Channing Tatum and replace him with Haley Joel.

August Rush (2007)

  Ugh.  What a sap-fest.

It may not come as a surprise to you, Internet readers, but I didn't like this movie.  My mother recommendeed it to me back in probably 2009 and I just now got around to watching it.  It took me three days to get through the whole thing because it was so saccharine. 

It's Oliver Twist with instruments. 

Freddie Highmore is the hopeful orphan who thinks that if he plays enough music his parents will hear him.  Except they have no idea he's alive (mother was delivered of him after being hit by a car) or even exists (father last saw mother after one-night-stand).  Robin Williams does a decent turn as the Fagin-esque character pushing a gang of runaways into busking, but there's really no reason to watch this film.

In the words of Dorothy Parker:  Tonstant Weader fwowed up.

The Thin Man (1934)

  You know how sometimes you're just having a rotten day and the only thing that makes it better is curling up to watch one of your favorite movies?  Happened to me yesterday.  This isn't one of those blogs where I whine and moan about my personal problems...much...so I'm not going on a diatribe about why I was unhappy.  I just was.

So New Boyfriend made me dinner (he cooks!) and then we settled in to watch one of my all-time favorite films. 

I love everything about this movie.  I love the costumes, the sets, the lighting, the play between the two leads, the story, the dialogue, everything.

Nick Charles (William Powell) gave up being a private detective when he married Nora (Myrna Loy), an extremely wealthy heiress.  On holiday in New York, however, the daughter of a family friend (Maureen O'Sullivan) informs him that her father, Clyde Wynant, has gone missing and no one can find him.  Try as he might to stay out of it, Nick is constantly drawn in to the investigation, especially after Wynant's long-time girlfriend, Julia, gets shot.

The story itself is limited by the technology of the time and some of the facial shots were never meant to be seen in hi-def, but the interaction between Nick and Nora carry the film over all the flaws.  This movie spawned four sequels over the 30s and 40s, most of which are still eminently watchable, just because of Nick and Nora.

Original Sin (2001)

  You get a bonus because I get a four-day weekend!  Namaste, bitches!

This movie is really only notable for the sex scenes.  God love Angelina Jolie for being so dedicated to her craft. 

It's a steamy, fucked up little romance between a Cuban coffee grower (Banderas) and his mail-order American wife who may not be all that she claims to be (Jolie).  Thomas Jane is in it as her persecutor/partner-in-crime and absolutely everything is menacing and dirty.

After you've seen it the first time, the story really doesn't do a lot to hold you but both stars are (arguably) at their hottest and hadn't yet been reduced to voicing cartoon cats. 

Have I mentioned this movie is viciously sexy?  Yeah, don't get it hoping for some Reformation-era bodice-ripping love story.  It's more of the 'sell-everything-you-own, rob, steal, and murder in order to feed your obsession' kind of love story.

I don't know about the rest of you, but that's my favorite kind.