11:38 am - Mon 1.05.2009
My Holiday Movie Orgy

My holiday orgy of movie-going - my "Xmas present to myself" (A present totaling $78.50) - ended on Saturday, with a $4 matinee of the independent film Wendy and Lucy.

(Of course, I'll be seeing movies in the future. But probably not more than once a week - As the movies warrant...and as my finances permit.)

I don't typically "review" movies in here, because 1) I don't really know how, and 2) I know a lot of my readers, and know that, no matter how much I "talk up" a given movie, they won't like it, because our tastes in movies just differ.

So why bother?

But I just saw nine movies in a relatively short amount of time, and I've got all kinds of "movie stuff" in my head with no outlet, so here goes...

1) Milk

I enjoyed Milk a great deal. I thought Sean Penn was great in the title role (Nice to see him play someone with a sense of humor), and I thought the acting was very solid all-around (With particular high marks for James Franco - I'm really starting to like him - and Josh Brolin).

And while I'm no expert on 70s-era San Francisco or the history of the Gay civil-rights movement, the details felt right.

It was impossible to watch the movie without thinking about the recent Prop 8 vote here in California, and wonder what Milk would have done with recent events (I only wish the movie had come out before the vote instead of after. Though I don't know if it would have done any good).

Clearly, progress has been made towards equal rights for everyone in the years since the events depicted in Milk. But just as clearly - especially in light of recent events - there's still a long way to go.

2) Frost/Nixon

I was a little put off by this movie, after the fact, when I read how they juggled the chronology of the actual events; I "get" having to compress events and combine "characters" and the like in films based on historical events (You've only got a certain amount of time to tell the story, after all, and most of the time only so much money to tell it with), but I don't like when authors/playwrights "change history", in effect, to make reality "sexier".

But that said, I enjoyed the movie. And while I was watching, I was definitely sucked into the "David vs. Goliath" match-up the film creates (Micheal Sheen's callow party-boy "Frost" going up against Langella's smart, crafty "Nixon").

And it's a much funnier movie than I would have expected going in.

Michael Sheen does a great job as "Frost", but Frank Langella's "Nixon" is the reason to see the movie - It's a fascinating, full-bodied portrait of maybe one of the most complicated figures of our time (Though I found myself wondering afterward if Langella's inherent power and movie star charisma made "Nixon" the character "larger" and more sympathetic than Nixon the man ever was).

3) The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

Frankly, I went into this movie not expecting to like it - the reviews I'd read beforehand were quite mixed, and I thought I'd probably object to what some of the critics were objecting to as well.

But I really didn't - I didn't even have a problem with the length of the movie, which some people found too long.

The movie looks great, the age effects are amazing (going in both directions), and I enjoyed the leads a great deal (Brad Pitt really does do his best work whenever he isn't playing a conventional "Leading Man". And Cate Blanchett can pretty much do anything).

I think the problem some people have with the movie is that they want it to do more than it does, to make more of a "statement", perhaps - To me, at it's heart, it's just a story of star-crossed lovers, who only have a limited time together because one of them is aging in reverse.

And for me, that was enough of a "hook" (I found the last part of the movie, in particular, tremendously affecting).

This is one of the movies I saw this season that I would be comfortable saying, to all of you, "Go see this. I think you'll like it".

4) Slumdog Millionaire

This is another movie I'd be quite comfortable telling you all to go see - a modern fairy tale that, for my money, is really "The Feel Good Movie Of The Year" (Although, to be warned, if you haven't seen it, there's some pretty serious "feeling bad" to be done along the way - our hero's journey is a rough one, to say the least).

A lot of critics have described the film as a "fable" or "fairy tale", sometimes as a pejorative, because of chance meetings and coincidences that are unlikely-bordering-on-impossible.

But while I don't want it to be the only thing movies do - giving us "only in the movies" moments, and happy endings where the hero gets the girl and wins out over impossible odds - I think there's still room for such movies, and there's clearly an audience that hungers for them.

Like me (I just want them to be good, is all).

5) Gran Torino

There are only a few movies I can think of, off the top of my head, that I enjoyed watching in the theater, but that faded for me over time, where I actually liked them less the more I thought about them.

Forrest Gump was one. American Beauty was another.

Gran Torino may be the third.

It's a fairly clunky script, and one of the questions I had afterwards was "Would this film work as well as it did if there'd been some unknown old character actor in the role instead of Clint Eastwood?" - It's next to impossible to watch the movie without thinking of Eastwood's character as a geriatric "Dirty Harry" (And I guess the other question is "Does it matter if that's the case?").

I enjoyed the movie as I was watching it, but even as I was watching it, I found myself saying things like "Oh yeah, like he'd get to threateningly reach into his jacket in front of a bunch of gang members without getting shot...", the kind of thing that suggested the movie wasn't entirely selling me.

And I don't want to spoil the ending, but I don't think it works, based on something that's said earlier in the movie.

(And wow - I could happily live the rest of my life without hearing Eastwood sing; his song over the end credits is really painful.)

Long story short, if you like vintage Eastwood, you'll probably like it. And if not, probably not.

6) The Wrestler

This movie has a couple things in common with Gran Torino - a sometimes "clunky" script (They should have cut the subplot with Evan Rachel Wood as the estranged daughter, cause it really doesn't work), a lead performance that's impossible to separate from the history of the actor playing it (But unlike Gran Torino, where you think of Eastwood's history of tough guy characters, in The Wrestler, you think of the parallels between the rise-and-fall of the movie's title character and Mickey Rourke's real-life "rise and fall"), and exposure to a group of people you might not know much about going in (In Gran Torino, it's the Hmong family that live next door to Eastwood's racist character; in The Wrestler, it's the fraternity of wrestlers our hero is most at home with).

I don't know where Mickey Rourke ends and the character begins in The Wrestler, but it's a great piece of work. Whatever he's done to himself in the past 20 years or so - and his face has been battered almost beyond recognition - he can still act.

Marisa Tomei also does a great job - I've always liked her, and this is another reason why.

(And if I may just be a guy for a second? Ms T. looks amazing; if I looked that good in my 40's, I'd have it put in every contract - "role must include extensive nudity").

This isn't a "big" movie at all, and there's not much plot - The title character used to be big in the 80s, is now battered and down on his luck, and is trying for a comeback, while trying to connect, outside of the ring, to Marisa's Tomei's stripper, and to his estranged daughter(It's really more of a "character study" than anything) - And that being the case, it won't be to all tastes.

But I'd say that if you're a really big fan of acting, you need to check it out (I'd be shocked if both the leads aren't in the running come Oscar time).

7) Let The Right One In

Of all the movies on my list, this is the one I think I'd have the hardest time getting people to see - a Swedish vampire movie (I can hear the objections: "I don't like horror movies", "I don't like reading subtitles", "I don't like Swedes") - but I thought it was one of the best, most interesting movies I saw over the past few weeks.

While watching this movie, I realized that, not only did I not know where it was going to go, I didn't know where I wanted it to go...and I thought that was pretty cool.

And while I'm not an expert on horror movies in general, or vampire movies in particular, I thought the movie had a very original slant on the subject (And forget about genre - this was just a really good movie).

8) Wendy and Lucy

This was easily the "smallest" movie on the list - a homeless woman going cross country with her dog "Lucy", hoping to get a job in Alaska, has her car breakdown in a small town, then loses her dog - and while I did enjoy it (Michelle Williams does a great job in the lead), even I found myself saying "That's it?" at movie's end.

One thing I found thought-provoking, as both actor and audience-member, was the difference between how "real people" respond to crises, and how it's often depicted on film (Particularly in regards to women); In the movie, "Wendy" has clearly had some hard luck that's brought her to the position she's in, and has more hard luck during the time the story takes place.

But there's not a lot of showy breaking-down, or screaming and yelling, like in a Hollywood movie, in this movie, which felt real to me - I think for most people, "keeping it together" during a crisis (Or a series of crises, in this case), particularly in front of other people, is very important.

So while part of me would want to say "See this movie" (for Michelle Williams, and to just support independent cinema), I once again feel like this one won't be for "everyone" (But then again, does everything have to be for everyone?). It was actually a little too "small" even for me.

9) Rachel Getting Married

I liked this movie a lot, but once again, "your mileage may vary" - great, career-changing work by Anne Hathaway (As "Kym", the addicted sister of the title character, being let out of rehab for the weekend to attend the wedding), a great cast in general, and a wedding reception way more fun than any wedding reception I've ever attended (If I ever get married, I'm going to hire Jonathan Demme as my wedding planner).

I would say this about the movie - If you don't know anything about it, and were just going on the title, and the fact that it stars Anne Hathaway, you might think it's a frothy romantic comedy.

It's really not.

I didn't find it as depressing as some people, apparently - I think that's a very simple reading of the movie - but it's pretty heavy at times; this is a family with some "issues", to say the least.

And those were "Xmas present to myself" movies.

And at this point, I could go on...but I think this entry is long enough (And then some).

Hopefully, before too long, my entries won't be about the movies I've seen, but the movies I'm in.

Wouldn't that be sweet...?

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