Took some PTO today to spend it with my dad, and we decided to go see Appaloosa. When it was released, I thought, "Now, that's a movie to see with my John Wayne-loving dad!" and he did like the film a lot. I warned him ahead of time that I'd read that the film was more of a character study than a shoot-em-up action flick, and it was definitely that.
Both Ed Harris and Viggo were the usual great acting selves, and Jeremy Irons was quite good as the smarmy bad guy. Even Zellwinger didn't annoy me overly much, although I still want to have a plastic surgeon open her eyes up from the constant squint she has. The characters were interesting enough--RZ's Ally was nicely complex, Harris's Virgil was a wonderful older lawman a bit confuzzled by this woman and in a close friendship with Viggo's Everett, who was loyal, intelligent, and a keen eye with an eight-guage shotgun.
As one review I read said of Viggo, "Someone get this man another Western to star in ASAP!"
I'm confused, my mum wanted to go see Appaloosa two weeks ago, but Fandango said it had been released on Sept. 19th and was only in limited theatres, so I assumed that we'd missed it. Was it only in limited theatres to start and is now finally hitting it's mainstream release?
So we went to see
Body of Lies
instead.
I think I liked it.
Leo looks quite fine with dark hair (I think I prefer him with black-brown hair, it's such a break from the blonde kid I still see him as-- or saw him as, as this movie definitely opened my eyes to what a fine man he's turned into), and the character torture was delightfully constant. Hani stole the spotlight, even though Mark Strong was forgettable in
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day. Not so here.
But I'm just confused about Russell Crowe and his character. I didn't get the character: his apparent intelligence and then complete idiocy --except to be a caricature of dumb government. And why Rusty would choose to take a role that had no depth? And no reason for existence other than to serve as a plot device. I hope I missed something there. Maybe Ridley and Rusty are just getting soft in their old age.
a lot of films, especially independants, will open in limited release first and then go wide if they generate enough interest.
And
Appaloosa
was one of them?
We're expecting huge numbers this weekend for
High School Musical 3.
This has aroused my curiosity for the franchise. Is the first one worth renting?
I thought it was acceptable for a made-for-TV movie. Not sure that it merits the media outpouring it's received, but then again I'm not a 13-year-old. I haven't seen the second one.
The second one is not as good as the first. The first one, like Ailleann said, is decent. And it has one really good song.
Abby liked the first one and she's completely the target audience. But she likes it mostly for Ashley Tisdale.
Apparently it's a big tourist thing, to go to East High in Salt Lake, where the thing is filmed.
