26 posts tagged “movies”

Ladder 49 (Widescreen Edition)

I avoid this movie like the plague. Tom wanted to watch it. Usually, I have an excuse and find something else to do but this was Couple Time and I just couldn't weasel out of it, lest I be doomed to watch Zorro. I'm better about it tonight than I was the first time I saw it. The first time I saw this movie was in the theatre and it brought back a bunch of memories. Remembering that worry, that fear, that sense of unknown, all the reasons why I stopped dating firefighters.

I'm married now to a former firefighter. I have the benefits of the personality without that stress. He travels a lot now but that's still worlds different than if he was at the department for that same block of time. And he's happy at what he's doing. He does miss the life. He even admits it. But he's also happy doing what he's doing now and he is very good at his job.

But tonight it was more obvious that this was just a movie, despite its moments of realism. I don't feel helpless like I used to feel. I'm no more helpful to anyone, mind you, but I don't feel defenseless. I know a thing or two about a thing or two, whereas growing up and even when I was dating, there was so much of it that was intimidating.

My photography isn't just all for me, it's also all for them. When I started the project, I didn't expect any benefits. I just wanted to do it. What I get out of this has been secondary for me. I feel an independence to enjoy it because I'm no longer defenseless with worry. Even while I can't help but to feel concern for the people I've met, it's comforting to know that I have my firefighter safe at home, with his helmet hanging on the wall.

I'm sorry this movie review hasn't been about the movie.

The scene that will always get to me is the final few frames, when after the funeral scene, they give a black & white flashback to the footage of Jack Morrison's first fire. Just thinking about that gets to me.

Semi-Pro (Single-Disc R-Rated Edition)

This was about on par with Blades of Glory and Walk Hard. I just wanted more from it.

Henry V

I love Kenneth Branagh and I love King Henry V. This is my single greatest favourite Shakespeare play and I adore Branagh's screenplay adaptation. The passion, ambition and triumph of this story is inspiring and breathtaking. I delight in the complex relationship dynamics of Henry V with the characters of his youth, memories warped by reality, the haunting Falstaff, the French princes, and the downtrodden King. Shakespeare never once misses an opportunity to dog the Irish in his work, but his choice to disguise it in the pint-sized commander whose achievement is due to his courage making him appear twice his own size. The infusion of subtle humour, and the melodramatic scene when Princess Katherine realises that her world expands while her family's world collapses that catches us just as off-guard as it caught her. The heartwarming flirtation of an awkward king wooing a princess' heart before her father returns to the room. Tooting the horn of national pride for the English is the French herald Mountjoy with his growing respect for the King and his quest for the French crown. It's a story of ambition taking all, and the youth empowered by wisdom and morality can move the world from its staunch patterns and traditions. It's historical fact that Henry V achieved what is performed in this play. It's historical fact that Henry V is the only British king to also be a king of France. It would be unfair to claim that bards don't embellish things a bit. Even so, this is still my single greatest favourite Shakespeare play and I think Branagh brought great justice to it in his screenplay adaptation and in his performance as King Harry.

I recommend this movie for even people who've sworn themselves off of Shakespeare. Even if you can't follow the vernacular, the passion would keep you in the story. You'll know what's going on.

That said, we'll move on...

Dane Cook - Vicious Circle

Laughed my ass off. There are some people who don't like Dane Cook to a point where they lose respect for people who find him funny. I'll happily stand in line to have one of those people lose respect for me and I can't say I'm a bit ashamed. I needed some big laughing stand-up and Dane Cook is the perfect fix.

Basil

We went grocery shopping today and in the spirit of the South Beach Diet, I potted some herbs to keep fresh for food and tea. I made a couple different choices, picking up thai basil and pineapple sage. I've already been impressed by the thai basil. I also got a mosquito plant and we'll see if it helps any throughout the Summer.

I also got an orchid for Bailey to keep in her room. I had to do a bit of learning to know how to pot the thing and take care of it, then teach her. She's in love with it. We'll see how this goes.

This weekend is scheduled for thrilling spring cleaning. Everybody looks forward to that, letmetellyou! Tommy's marker and crayon masterpieces come off the walls and everything gets put into tip top shape. That way, we have good reason to make it all a mess again by tie-dying t-shirts on Monday! They decided they wanted matching shirts and chose blue. This will make a fantastic group portrait.

My flights arrived today. I didn't do anything with them until this evening after everybody had gone to bed so I'll photograph them tomorrow when the dog isn't sleeping by the dartboard.

The kids watched Snow Buddies this evening and loved it. A whole movie full of little Indys! Michael is interested to watch Henry V and Hamlet with me. I'll be amazed if he lasts through it but I'm hoping my enthusiasm for it will keep him hanging on. Shakespeare went over my head until high school, and even then... Tom wants to watch these with me, despite him flaking when I rented Hamlet last year. I'll hold on to them for him to come home from this trip to watch them.

After those go back, the next round will include Dane Cook: Vicious Circles. I'm really in the mood for some stand-up and, even moreso, some Dane Cook. Until then, here's a clip, courtesy of Youtube:

300 (Widescreen Edition)

I expected two hours of graphic B.C. violence. I expected fantastic gruesome creatures and awesome fight scene with innovative weapons. I expected minimal plot to interfere with the bloodfest that this movie was advertised to be. I expected this to be very loosely based on the novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley which is even more loosely based on the actual Battle of Thermopylae with lots of Hollywood liberties taken.

I was a tad disappointed.

First of all, there's too much plot and it gets in the way. I wouldn't normally disagree with an infusion of plot but this was awful plot, horrible dialogue, and lots of holes in the story, creating unanswerable questions when a viewer doesn't want to think. They seemed to make an effort for historical accuracy but then have huge mistakes, which is confusing when they're already three steps from any hope of historical accuracy. Next, there's not enough fighting. It took way too long to get to a battlefield. Also, since when are grown Greek men completely hairless? I know they had to do something to make the six-pack make-up visible on all the soft-bellied actors but there was no man-scaping in 480BC! Of course, the villain, Xerxes, is huge, pierced and played femininely (because in Hollywood manlyman films, evil = man acting like woman). I was surprised Xerxes didn't get those snaps out when he was telling Leonidas that Sparta would be removed from history.

And what was up with the hunchback? This is what I mean about unanswered questions. They have a real lousey explanation for him and what he did, but his whole inclusion was a big "wtf."

Anyway, I appreciated the spectular violence that was there. I wanted campy, exaggerated, graphic ancient Greek violence and that's what they gave, complete with slow motion moments.

But if you want to know about Sparta, please read Herodotus.

Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story (Widescreen Edition)

Sometimes I don't want to admit that I watch movies like this, or that I giggle often throughout them, but then something happens in the movie that makes me want to tell others about it, to let them know it's worth watching. This movie has a priceless moment with Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Justin Long and Jason Schwartzman as The Beatles. So, please watch it for that scene, and I apologise in advance for every scene that comes before and after it.

Dan in Real Life

This movie was a lot more interesting, funny and upbeat than I was expecting it to be. The lead character, played of course by Steve Carell, is an advice columnist and thankfully, there is absolutely no focus on his job, other than an interesting twist that has more to do with the newspaper business than it does the people who write to him. Speaking of that, they could have done a little better to explain how he got that particular business twist after he botched his end of things. I supposed we're supposed to be too distracted by the whirlwind romance to notice.

I appreciated that this didn't turn into another tormented angsty woman-caught-in-the-middle cliche that we've seen in... well, in all of Julia Ormond's movies. Juliette Binoche plays the lead character, Marie, and while she's guilty of roles like Cathy in Wuthering Heights and Anna in Damaged, Marie's place in this twisted love triangle was a relief!

Dane Cook was in this movie, cementing his move to the big screen. After the ridiculous wholesale store comedy with Jessica Simpson and the made-for-DVD flop that Kevin Costner movies are always doomed to be, it's fantastic that this talented human being was able to niche himself in right.

I just have one question... if you want to sing a song to your girlfriend, wouldn't you choose a song you know the verses and bridge to? Maybe I'm just weird, but that would be my choice.

Well, adding another question, who on earth doesn't know the words to "Let My Love Open The Door" by Pete Townsend?!

Overall, I really enjoyed the movie and recommend it.

My Kid Could Paint That

Little Marla Olmstead is an artist. She paints heart-gripping abstracts and actually manages to sell them. And these abstracts? I like them. Visit her website: www.marlaolmstead.com to see her work and order prints.

The story goes that Marla Olmstead began painting when she was two. She, like many children, became fascinated with the colourful mess of painting that her father, Mark, was making and wanted to do it, too! Being a good dad, he gave her a brush, some paint and a piece of paper. Things progressed as they can and Marla was producing gorgeous works of art.

The 60 Minutes spot, which was included in this documentary, took the mother from being a reluctant bystander to someone in desperate need to prove her own worth. At no time did I think Lauren was ever dishonest and the very idea of her integrity ripped to shreds really tore her heart apart. Mark... well... as the documentary progressed and the controversy broke, I had my doubts about him. Did he paint for Marla Olmstead? No. I don't believe he ever did. Telling the kid to use more red isn't painting for them. You can't direct an abstract. But I think admitting this technicality, admitting that he might tell her to use the spatula instead of a brush or give her ideas on what to paint, would send the media spinning that they had some confession of fraud. I think it's likely that the dishonesty I sensed when watching him on the documentary was a matter of him just wanting to say, "I helped her by making a few suggestions. So what!" And, yeah, that's really "so what".

No artist produces in a vacuum. You can hardly expect a child to produce without influences. Why can't that influence be her father, instead of that art professor from college or that mentor from SoHo? She's a child. If she didn't have any influence and painted in a vacuum, then her abstracts really were nothing but meaningless blotches. I'm not willing to call the paintings meaningless blotches. I can respect her influences and I think it's wonderful that collectors find their own personal meanings in her artwork. That is what art is about, isn't it?

What the media seemed to be missing was that Marla Olmstead is not a child prodigy. She's a regular kid. They miss the importance of this fact so much that when it was highlighted on 60 Minutes that Marla isn't a child prodigy, it was regarded by the media and community as a bad thing. Regular kids can produce a lot of crap artwork. It's unrealistic to expect that everything this child would ever create would be worth $20,000. Her mother described the initial success as a fluke and, to some extent, I think there's a lot of truth to that. In the same vein, I think there's a lot of truth in any masterpiece being a fluke. Our skills can only take us so far and not everything is going to be the best of the best. We just keep at it, even if we, as professionally striving artists, produce nothing more than mud. Why would we be surprised that a child would occassionally behave like a child? The burden that Marla Olmstead's parents carry is that they have to keep it fun and make sure their daughter isn't scarred by the whole otherworldly experience of the art world. Professional adults know the score and we know that we have to continue to work at what we do, regardless of what we feel. Marla Olmstead has no such personal stock in her painting and her parents, especially her mother, have prioritised her happiness and comfort above everything else.

None of that changes that the pieces Marla Olmstead has created are beautiful and that the owners of those pieces have works of art with an origin unlike any other.

I'm glad that the Olmsteads did this documentary.

Underdog

Jason Lee will always be Banky to me.

License to Wed

It was cute but it would have been nice to have known exactly what Church this was supposed to be. It'd be the difference between cute-Hollywood implausible and absolutely impossible. Tom said he expected more. I have to agree.

Good Night, Good Luck.

ZZZzzzzzzz...