Cordelia ,'Potential'
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
We just saw Blood Diamond.
It was an odd mixture of typical action movie running-unhurt-through-hails-of-bullets stuff, beautifully true little moments of reality, and earnest political speechifying which is almost Sorkinian in its preachiness. Hounsou and DiCaprio are both incredibly good. Hearing DiCaprio's Afrikaaner accent in the preview was laughable, but in the context of the film it worked. I forgot it was him after a few minutes and he disappeared completely into the character.
Hmm. I can get Hounsou and dragons, I can get Hounsou and earnestness.
So far dragons win--is there shirtlessness we can use to break the tie?
I saw INLAND EMPIRE yesterday, and it comes exactly as "advertised": 3 hours of Laura Dern wandering around in stream-of-unconsciousness David Lynch weirdness. Definitely the most out there thing he's done since ERASERHEAD (seriously - LOST HIGHWAY and MULLHOLAND DRIVE look positively coherent by comparison). Not quite sure what I think still, but it's an experience. Also, the end credit sequence is the single most joyous thing I've seen in a David Lynch movie (not that there's a lot of competition).
However, if Lynch has truly abandoned film for video, he really, REALLY needs to think about moving up to high-def.
Why isn't degree of shirtlessness part of the ratings system? How do those movie people expect us to make informed choices without that knowledge?
Oh, there is plenty of shirtlessness for both DiCaprio and Hounsou. Some of it involving glistening with sweat.
DH and I are on our way to see Eragon right now. I have no idea why -- I think it's mostly out of spite that the studio made sure to schedule all the press screenings too last minute for anyone to actually attend. And partially we want to get the most use out of our AMC pass before it expires at the end of the year. And the theatre's in the same direction as the party we're going to later.
I just watched Beyond Borders and I can't believe this is bothering me--when she first leaves to stalk Clive Owen's character, has she already had a child? I thought she was newly-wed when he stormed the party, and that she left soon after her inspiration.
I've been skimming reviews (because I want people to agree with me that it was awful), and they seem to think she left a kid behind. It's not a big point, just one I read differently.
Aaaaaaaand, Eragon kind of sucked, but in an entertaining way. I don't think I'd recommend anyone paying $10 to see it, but if you've ever been a 15 year old boy reading Anne McCaffrey and thought "This would be SO AWESOME if it were about ME!" then this is the movie for you.
It's also fun to play the "identify the movie this shot was lifted from" game. Peter Jackson and George Lucas should be getting their royalty checks in the mail any day now...
I sort of want to see it just to play that game. Because, in theory, Star Wars meets Lord of the Rings should be awesome, right?
I'm pretty sure Blood Diamond beats out Eragon in the shirtless department. I have already read a review of Eragon that bemoaned the film for it's lack of shirtlessness.
I know everybody is saying the film sucked. I know it's A New Hope with dragons. Still the more I hear about it the more I think I'd love it. Is the acting horrible or is it just the writing that sucks?