Revolutionary Road

Jamie and I saw Revolutionary Road. Don’t worry, there are no spoilers in this post, and if there were, it’s not like I’d warn you.

The premise of the movie is simple: The year is 1950-something. A young couple moves to suburbia and experiences social awkwardness, outrageous fights, crying fits, and 3-hump-sex-scenes.

That’s right. 3-hump sex scenes: the 1950’s version of a 1-minute-man.

Okay, Okay. It’s a very serious drama. Won awards and everything. Yes. I’ll get to that in a second. The sex scenes need to be addressed! Revolutionary Road almost has as many sex scenes as Marley & Me, except there are no tasteful pan outs or scene cuts. The entirety of each sex scene consists of three thrusts.

Every time.

And after the third thrust the man was always completely worn out. I guess endurance was invented in the 1960’s…

It was a running joke throughout the movie. Hilarium.

Ahem, aside from the 3-thrusts, Revolutionary Road is excellent. A central theme of the movie is frustrated ambition – CUE THE BLAKE QUOTE!

“Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.” – William Blake

Oh yes I did! I have a BA in English Literature. The only useful part of an English major is the ability to smack Blake quotes into blog posts. (And that makes the $34k/year tuition totally worth it.)

And not to ruin the movie for anyone… but I think the screen writer had my Blake quote mind… just sayin’…

On the drive home I told Jamie that I’m glad I moved to Minneapolis. If I stayed in Miami my life would be a fashionable, (and humid) version of Revolutionary Road.

Yes. I’d be the only guy in Miami wondering “If I only I had moved to Minneapolis!!! WOE IS ME!”

I settled for undergrad, and I’m so grateful that I did not make that same mistake for law school.

Well, I’m still going to do some handwringing, but I’d rather worry about loans (for a great school) than trying to market a tier 3 JD.
Ahem. And now back to a very neglected boyfriend… (he actually asked if I was going to start blogging when we got home…I don’t think Blake can help me with this one…)

Filed under: drama, must see , movie review, Revolutionary Road

Rachel Getting Married

We watched Rachel Getting Married last night – Anne Hathaway plays a junkie gets out of rehab a few days before her sister’s wedding.

The cast?

• Anne Hathaway as the Junkie


Via MovieWeb

• The bitter sister (who’s getting married)
• cold mother
• effeminate annoying dad who is constantly screaming with gitty, gitty glee
• dad’s new wife
• sister’s fiancé (who looks like Kanye West’s body double)


Via MovieWeb – Sister and Kanye West fiance…

• sister’s annoying friend
• fiance’s suave, junkie best friend

And, and and…

There’s screaming, drama, and drawn out, painfully awkward moments.

It’s a good movie, but there are several scenes at the end (about 20 minutes worth) that are just dancing at the wedding party, and could have been cut – otherwise it’s a good movie.

Filed under: drama, must see , Anne Hathaway, Kanye West, rachel getting married

The Changeling & House

Friday I went to Mall of America and saw The Changeling, which was amazing…

More at MovieWeb

The synopsis from Movieweb:

Los Angeles, 1928: On a Saturday morning in a working-class suburb, Christine said goodbye to her son, Walter, and left for work. When she came home, she discovered he had vanished. A fruitless search ensues, and months later, a boy claiming to be the nine-year-old is returned. Dazed by the swirl of cops, reporters and her conflicted emotions, Christine allows him to stay overnight. But in her heart, she knows he is not Walter.

As she pushes authorities to keep looking, she learns that in Prohibition-era L.A., women don’t challenge the system and live to tell their story. Slandered as delusional and unfit, Christine finds an ally in activist Reverend Briegleb (Malkovich), who helps her fight the city to look for her missing boy. Based on the actual incident that rocked California’s legal system, “Changeling” tells the shocking tale of a mother’s quest to find her son, and those who won’t stop until they silence her.

A bit of a tear jerker…but compelling (to use a movie review cliché)… I also saw another movie this weekend: “House.” My advice? Skip House and go see The Changeling even if you love horror movies. Actually…the Changeling has a horror element in it…

More at MovieWeb

House has every horror movie cliché you can think of. Seriously. There’s the creepy haunted house (of course), the 1800’s style ghost family with creepy son, leaking faucets, storms, random creaks, gross food, insects, “mysterious pasts”, demon worship, random masked killer, odd editing, shrill-tense music, flooded basements, non-reflecting mirrors… oh, and devil worship…(you thought I was kidding)

After the first 20 minutes I realized that the director was cheating – if you have to resort to a distorted montage then, erm. Fail.

And (of course) we have the stock characters: The blond bombshell, who is a country singer…. and her husband, who looks like he missed the audition for Coldplay…

Via MovieWeb

 The temptress. The Meat-head… who looks like someone from that other industry…

Via MovieWeb

The shady police officer. And the creepy kid ala Ricci as Wendy…

via MovieWeb

Apparently this House contains plenty of plum eye shadow…maybe there’s a drag queen hiding in the basement?

Filed under: crap, horror, must see, thriller , angelina jolie, horror, house, movie review, the changeling

Quarantine

I may be a law student, but horror movies still make me gleeful like a 13-year-old. (“WOAH! That was ballin’-outrageous!” WOO!”)

I just saw the movie “Quarantine.” It was so scary that I think it ate a little bit of my soul…

The movie is about a camera crew that is embedded with a fire rescue unit. They respond to an emergency call in an apartment building where a rabies-like virus is turning everyone into flesh eating zombies.

And they, of course, are quarantined in said building.

The result is sheer terror.

“Hm…something is amiss in this here yonder…”

The woman exiting the theater in front of me summed it up perfectly:

Random woman (on her cell): “Girl, this is the scariest movie I’ve seen in my 29 years. I started crying. Seriously. I’m not playing! I’m never going to go to sleep again!”

The movie is shot in the Cloverfield style… think Cloverfield meets 28 Days Later. This movie does everything right. We have 20 minutes of character development so we care, then an interesting cast of characters (that aren’t the typical stock characters), and then, well, horror.

And the movie exploits the audience’s anticipation of events. Half the time I was dreading something, “OH NO, THE MONSTER IS GONNA GET UP! OH NO MAM! AHHH!!” and the other half of the time the terror just happened without warning. The pacing was great. Bla, bla, blasay, blablabla… the point is: terror. AH!

Now, (perhaps appropriately) I’m at the Freighthouse Café reading Torts…

Filed under: horror, must see , horror movie, movie review, Quarantine, Quarantine movie

Sex and the City

I’ve never watched a full episode of Sex and the City, but I somehow found myself at the movie – and loved it!

The movie is a long episode of the show, which focuses on the love lives of four middle aged women who live in New York City:

• Carrie Bradsaw (Sarah Jessica Parker): a columnist for Vogue who is about to be married to the filthy rich Mr. Big (Chris Noth)
• Samantha: the 50-year-old seductress (or tramp, depending on your morals…) who is dating the smokin’ hot Jason Lewis.
• Charlotte: The sweet one who is overly concerned with her body. She has an adopted daughter and a gay-ish husband who can’t get it up.
• Miranda: A lawyer, who resembles Ann Coulter (or Alex McCord). Miranda and her husband haven’t slept together in six months. Miranda also hasn’t trimmed her nah-nah zone in about a half year’s time too.

Seriously. There is an extended joke about Miranda’s lawless public hair.

And about Charlotte’s bowel problems.

Toilet humor aside, the movie has a tightly braided plot designed to maximize costume changes (seriously, they are wearing someone new every 3 minutes…it’s better than an awards show!)

I thoroughly enjoyed the movie and didn’t feel lost because I don’t watch the show…although there are two marginal relationships (between the queeny designers, and Jennifer Hudson and her mute St. Louis boyfriend) that probably could have been cut. We are already following the four women…do we really need two more relationships to keep track of?

Hudson also plays the (stereotypical) role of big black nanny. She cleans up after Sarah Jessica Parker (as a “personal assistant”) while offering sassy “home grown” believe-in-yourself wisdom. She is rewarded for her loyalty with a purse.

Heh.

Filed under: must see , movie, review, sarah jessica parker, sex and the city

Kung Fu Panda

I broke a personal rule today: I went to a PG movie, and a cartoon no less.

I’ve always scorned the digital cartoons. Fuck Nemo. Fuck Cars.

Those are things that my female coworkers see. Bring on the horror movies. Give me a foreign film.

Well, I missed my art house film and ended up seeing Kung Fu Panda.

Kung Fu Panda

Kung Fu Panda

Kung Fu Panda

And, in a nasty case of foot-in-mouth disease, I was impressed.

This is the official description of the movie:
Enthusiastic, big and a little clumsy, Po is the biggest fan of Kung Fu around…which doesn’t exactly come in handy while working every day in his family’s noodle shop. Unexpectedly chosen to fulfill an ancient prophecy, Po’s dreams become reality when he joins the world of Kung Fu and studies alongside his idols, the legendary Furious Five — Tigress, Crane, Mantis, Viper and Monkey — under the leadership of their guru, Master Shifu. But before they know it, the vengeful and treacherous snow leopard Tai Lung is headed their way, and it’s up to Po to defend everyone from the oncoming threat. Can he turn his dreams of becoming a Kung Fu master into reality? Po puts his heart – and his girth – into the task, and the unlikely hero ultimately finds that his greatest weaknesses turn out to be his greatest strengths.

SO in normal-speak, This is the movie in five steps:

• Unlikely hero is chosen to save his friends.
• Big bad guy comes.
• Unlikely hero, after some self doubt, learns to believe himself.
• Big bad guy and unlikely hero fight.
• Credits.

 
Kung Fu panda succeeds where Iron Man failed miserably – both movies have extremely basic (some would say generic) plots, but Kung Fu panda is so visually stunning that it keeps the audience in the present. There’s simply too much to look at to mull over where the movie is going.

The action sequences are well done and the landscapes are beautiful.

I’ll even go so far to say that Kung Fu panda is the most impressively produced cartoon since Ghost in the Shell II.

MovieWeb – Movie Photos, Videos & More

Filed under: must see , angelina jolie, china, ghost in the shell, jack black, jackie chan, kung fu, kung fu panda, movie review, movies, panda