Movies

EW's Holiday Movie guide came out this past week and there are 15 movies coming out between now and New Years that I want to see (there are now 18 movies on the list, but I won't see Alexander or The Sea Inside, for which I've subbed The Woodsman, Spanglish, and Million Dollar Baby. And Life Aquatic. How did I skip Life Aquatic?). 15 movies is $153.75. That's more than I've spent on groceries for the past two months, because as I've mentioned, I eat like a scavenger and I'm wily, wily I tell you, about the free meals. They should call me Willa E. Coyote. No. No, really, they shouldn't.
So here's the plan, I'm going to make a list right now of all these films, and then come back when I've seen them and fill in the blank with up to three sentences about each. I will break this rule at will, but for now, it seems like a good amount. Because you can sum up everything in three sentences, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong, but 3 sentences are what I got, kids, and about all I can ask you to stomach.
Alfie: Jude Law's girlfriend is really hot. Watching this movie I was like, "Ohhhhh, that's how hot you have to be to snag Jude Law. That makes a lot of sense. It probably helps she's turning 23 in December" and that's all I thought.
Sideways: Keeping with the beauty theme, all due respect to Mr. Giamatti, but I'm pretty certain Virginia Madsen wouldn't sleep with your character anywhere but movieland: on top of being uga you're a depressed, know it all, sad sack. But, this movie surprised me. Going in with low expectations (because the reviewers loved it too much) I ended up liking it a bunch.
The Incredibles: omigod, so good. Soooo good. Holly Hunter has the best voice ever. Also, Mr. Incredible reminded me of the husband who was just on Wife-swap, who you thought was a misogynistic ass monkey for making his wife work 16 hour days, but was really the world's biggest sweetheart. Sigh.
Bridget Jones: This movie goes bad when Bridget ends up in a Thai prison staging an extravagant rendition of "Like A Virgin" with 50 Thai prisoners. It makes me laugh to think about Helen Fielding's state of mind when she came up with that plot twist [And then.... Bridget goes to jail in Thailand for drug smuggling! How great is that? How Funny is that? Well, not in an immediately obvious way. Just go with it for a little.]
Finding Neverland: I saw this at a free preview the Thursday night before it opened and they confiscated everyone's camera phones so they wouldn't, uh, videotape the entire movie? On their phone?
Kinsey: Chris O'Donnell calls his wife a "Prick Nibbler." A+.
Bad Education: Almovodar uses such pretty colors. And, supporting my theory that a place with palm trees can't suck, Spain has palm tress. But mostly with this one we're back to the beauty theme: Gael is pretty. This makes movie number four (Alfie, Closer, Ocean's 12) that's all about beautiful women.
Alexander (I don't want to see this, but inevitably I will): No, actually, I won't.
A Very Long Engagement: Made the mistake of reading the book the day before I saw the movie. Lost all ability to make judgments as I spent the entire moving thinking, "where's the snow? Where's the snowman? Why a lighthouse? Where'd all the letters go? Why isn't Celestin blond? Polio? Dead parents? huh?"
Closer: David Edelstein's is pretty dead-on in saying the film's exclusive focus on get-togethers and break-ups leaves you indifferent to any of the couplings. And he's probably right about Julia Roberts, who reigns herself in pretty magisterially. She may top Portman in terms of acting, but, strangely, Portman tops her in terms of being a goddamn, gen-u-ine movie star. The last shot of the movie, Portman parading down 42nd Street, turning heads left and right, was like the anointing of the future queen of celluloid
Ocean's 12: Slippery goodness. But everyone's getting old. Brad's got wrinkles and a mini-mullet in flashback scenes, Julia looks like a Picasso early on in the film, and Matt Damon was never really cute, but now you can tell. George looks good because he's always been old (or just 43, which surprised me). And of course the Zeta-Jones looks dope, rounding out the all-about-beauty films of the season.
The Woodsman: At first I had nothing to say about this movie. Then I realized that's because I got cowed by "taste" and "earnestness," who'd teamed up to produce a serious film I couldn't figure out how to criticize. It's the same thing that happened when I saw Spider: serious issue + intention to produce art + thoughtful direction + excellent acting = gaping hole in my critical faculties. Even though I can't critique it properly, I'm pretty sure it wasn't that good.
The Life Aquatic: I’m in the minority because I don’t really care all that much about The Royal Tenenbaums. And I kind of don’t understand Rushmore. Maybe if I watched them both about 20 more times I’d get it. Oh well. I liked Aquatic, more than the others, though it’s an inferior movie. An, I recognized Harold right away and it freaked me out, because he's so old. And short. Even though I've always thought of him as really lanky.
Million Dollar Baby: This movie has been haunting me. I'm on the brink of hating it, but only because I feel so manipulated and upset by it, which I think is probably a testament to how good it is. It is, like the haters say, both cliched and out of nowhere tragic. But I'm a big believer in the power of cliche and it pretty much nails tragedy, which is exactly the reason I'll never bring myself to watch it again it.
The Aviator: Was fine. I dunno why all the greens were blue (blue peas anyone?) and I dunno why critics were hating on Leo and his scungy-ass beard. I thought he held his own. But, the mom= craziness= citizen kane= lame, lame, lame unbelievable explanation for complex phenomenon.
Lemony Snicket:
The Sea Inside :I hate the trailer for this movie. Fucking HATE it. There needs to be a moratorium on the use of magic realism to promote anything slightly Latin America.
Spanglish: It's always fun to go to movies that critics in general have decided are either really great or really horrible. For some reason this movie rubbed people all the wrong way, coming off as an icy, misogynistic film masquerading as a feel good piece, but I don't know why. I totally enjoyed it. I found Tea Leoni to be kind of sympathetic even though she's a huge bitch and Adam Sandler to be 100% insufferable even though he's a nice guy.
Meet the Fockers:
Phantom of The Opera :
In Good Company:
The Assassination of Richard Nixon: