I enjoyed it, as mentioned it's been a while since I went to the cinema. I was really surprised at how good the 3D effects were. Jannet and Dani do go to the cinema quite often but it's normally to see Disney type films which I could probably just about sit through in English, but certainly can't in Spanish.
Well, no need to see the Clooney movie now that I know how it ends. I liked Invictus a lot but remember seeing TraceyUK would have preferred it to be more factually accurate. Saw that In Love With My Ex or whatever it was called. Only to see what Meryl Streep was up to, still great, but the role was week for her skills. Confirmed my belief that Alec Baldwin is an idiot on screen as well as off and pretty disgusting physically. Can you tell I don't like him. Really liked Avatar. Saw that SJP / HG thing. The popcorn was really good. Not much out there this week. Hope we have some new stuff by the weekend. Can't wait for Shutter Island.
Lovely Bones: young girl playing lead was such a good little actress, and so engaging, you hate to say it, t e d i o u s....
I think that Meryl Streep movie is called "It's Complicated" in English. Some of my friends really liked it, others thought it was dumb. I cannot stand Alec Baldwin either, except sort of in 30 Rock, because then I get to laugh at what a schmuck he is. In most roles he makes my skin crawl. I'm looking forward to Alice in Wonderland coming out. I like Tim Burton movies, especially when Johnny Depp is in them being weird. [Anyone seen Sleepy Hollow? Depp's character in that is just wonderful, especially when he sees the spider and jumps on the chair like a little girl. I thought Sleepy Hollow was a comedy, I laughed all the way through it.] Sorry for the spoiler on the Clooney movie...but look at it this way...I saved you $55 pesos. So no one has chimed in with any comments on the Lovely Bones?! <<Warning - Spoiler>> It was recommended to me by several friends, people who usually have similar taste to mine movie-wise. I was warned it would be a tear-jerker. Instead I felt it was trite and largely uninteresting. I nearly walked out. The halfway to heaven scenes bugged me no end, the fakeness and the lack of logic of that nether world bothered me. And I didn't feel that the girl playing the murder victim was a good enough actress to pull off what she was doing. The scenes that took place in the real world were better than the fake-world ones, but something about them was still weak and unbelievable. Even the murderer dude didn't make sense, he's a serial killer but he doesn't follow a pattern? He kills all kinds of women of all different ages in all kinds of ways? From all the crime shows I've seen I understand that that's not how it works, they have patterns of types of victims and/or murder methods. But I did like it when he bounced down the cliff, even if it did look fake when he landed. Susan Sarandon is a dynamite actress but her character didn't have a purpose (other than to blow smoke rings), and didn't feel like a real person to me. And for Pete's sake WHO told Mark Wahlberg that he should take up acting? The guy is just a WUSS, a total WUSS! The final scene where all the murder victims gather in that halfway to heaven place and they are all happy with their flowy dresses just made me want to hurl. I didn't catch why our murder victim was finally happy, after being sad before (well, sometimes, when she wasn't dancing). To me this movie didn't make much sense, I understood what it was trying to do, but it didn't do it for me, it was a weak effort imho.
That's largely how it struck us, as well, RG. Slow paced, it seemed not to have had much to say, by the time it was over. The story is told from the young girl's perspective, and therefore reflects no more than an young girl's understanding/sophistication regarding the events depicted, including an imagined version of the afterlife, unless I missed something. The problem for me was that, on some level, the movie was engaging, so that I left the theater feeling more dissatisfied than if the movie had been simply bad. Perhaps the fact that the movie deals with an extremely tragic event, and an extremely tragic pattern of events that is often repeated in the U.S., makes it uncomfortable for me to simply say, "It's a lousy movie". Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 32: my wife wondered how it got that high a mark. She must have been feeling some of the same ill ease I felt in saying what she thought because, before commenting in any way, she asked me for "one word" to describe the movie, "tedious" came to mind. As I said earlier, I thought the acting of the young star was good, at times very good. It was this, perhaps, that accounted for why the movie engaged me at all. The fact that the movie tells you what will happen, right at the beginning, probably makes it that much harder to sustain any drama, afterwards.
re the lovely Bones- I read the book and it did not move me at all- I wanted it to but it just didn't float my boat. Thanks for the warning re film, I now won't bother. Tracey x
In general, we're movie appreciators, not movie critics: we can, and do, enjoy a wide range of movies. My reaction to "Bones" is just that, my reaction: those who saw it and liked it are perhaps more sensitively tuned. Because people's tastes in movies are so varied, I sort of gave up recommending movies to people, even to people I knew well. I made an exception for "Invictus" because I wanted people to see it, thinking it was a piece of history people should be aware of, and I was willing to "take the heat" from those who saw it, and didn't like it. So far, I haven't had to, those who've reported seeing it, having liked it.
Love Without a Ladder: Not risking recommending it, I will say my wife and I very much enjoyed this Clooney movie for it's adult themes; its realistic glimpse into the lives of those who must be traveling, constantly, as part of their job; and, its look at a unique job type, a professional "firer", who goes company to company on contract, carrying out this difficult task. Among the themes developed were the pain of job loss in which each actor for the part of the unemployed was selected by mass audition from among people who'd been fired since the economic collapse of 2008!; the very special life and, therefore, life orientation, developed by those who must fly all the time and live their lives in hotels in order to perform their jobs (including how skillful they become at going through airport security, how obsessed they get with tracking and taking advantage of frequent flyer miles, and the way how good they are at these things becomes a matter of competition and pride among them), how their work disrupts man/woman relationships while- at the same time- creating opportunities for more, as well as that more ordinary theme of not looking for a relationship but finding one anyway, only to discover, after you began to care, that you were being "played", causing you to regret even more that you ever allowed yourself to stumble into it! Not mentioned, to this point, are two more themes the movie developed which were the seeming simplicity of a job that, when better understood, reveals itself to require a high level of sophistication and insight, and the failure- at times- of the young/inexperienced to appreciate this very thing. There may have been more, in what for us was a highly adult and sufficiently complex movie. _______________________ T.J., she only objected to their subtitution of the poem "Invictus," for the poem "The man in the Arena," which she said was the one Mandela actually liked and used. Both are good poems, and fit the occasion: the producers may have felt that, as a title, "Invictus" had a better ring to it! Here they are- Invictus Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. The Man in the Arena It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Hurt Locker Looks like one of the films in serious contention for the best picture award, this year, is one I haven't even seen, "Hurt Locker". Was this film even shown in Cancun, or did I just miss it? Has anyone who posts here seen it? Tomorrow night is Oscar Night, for those who are interested.
Hurt Locker was released in Mexico 12-Feb-2010 under the title Zona de Miedo. I have not noticed that it's played in Cancun yet.
