Six movies I saw this week
Rough week.
1. Idiocracy: Not especially entertaining or funny. Luke Wilson and SNL's Mia Farrow get frozen and wake up in the future where everyone is dumb. The future is dumb because smart people wait to have babies, but dumb people have lots of babies. The premise was amusing, and so were the first ten minutes of the movie. But there aren't many jokes beyond the whole mocking dumb people bit. I hoped for a lot from Mike Judge after Office Space, but the humor in this is more like King of the Hill, but without the endearing characters or funniness.
Trivia: Judge has been fighting with Fox to get this movie produced and released since before Office Space hit theatres. No trailers or TV commercials aired for the film, and it was only released in 125 theaters.
2. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead: I really liked it. These two guys, R&G, are bit parts in Hamlet. They only appear in a few scene of the play. This movie keeps an eye on them when they are not "onstage". They are pretty thoroughly confused, trying to figure out how to help Hamlet, eavesdropping on all the other scenes. I didn't really get into Hamlet in high school, but I enjoyed this film immensely and immediately wanted to see it again. The two are constantly sparing with words and you may fight as I did to keep up. But when they talk with Hamlet, and speak Shakespeare's lines, it's like switching from Easy to Expert on Guitar Hero.
Trivia: There's a scene where an acting troupe performs a puppet show during a play they put on for Hamlet and the Danish court. This is a puppet show in a play in a movie of a play about a play.
3. The Descent: On the box art, some lady is drenched in chunky blood and screaming at the sky. I was so pleased when this scene actually came to pass in the movie. I really enjoyed this one. It was gory and suspenseful. It actually gave me a nightmare. A handful of middle-age thrill-seekin ladies go caving and encounter all sorts of grisly cave-type deaths.
Trivia: Kind of a downer. A red double-decker bus destroyed by terrorists' bombs in London in 2005 had an ad for The Descent on the side, featuring the protagonist staring out a pool of blood with a dazzling movie review "Outright Terror Bold and Brilliant".
4. Syriana: Nice ensemble work here. Matt Damon is some sort of pissed-off financial advisor, George Clooney is some sort of burnt-out assassin, and various desert nations are the backdrop for intrigue. The end result is that the status quo is maintained. It's really a glimpse behind the curtain of the oil trade, how religion and terrorism and greed and poverty all combine to make the world we live in. I thought it was okay, if a little boring. A good movie to half-nap to. Best performance here is from Chris Cooper. Love that guy.
Trivia: George Clooney gained 35 pounds eating pasta for this role. Due to the weight gain, he suffered a spinal injury during a stunt and had surgery to repair it. He was laid up for weeks and couldn't do promotional work for Ocean's 12.
5. A Scanner Darkly: Much ado over the visual style. It's animated over the actor's performances, like the Charles Schwab commercials. I found it to be thoughtfully composed, visually. Philip K Dick's usual drug-fueled sci-fi gritty examination of human nature and oppressive police state. I liked Keanu Reeves here. I liked the execution of the sci-fi elements like the scrambler suits and the surveillance banks. The message about the war on drugs was sort of lost on me. I thought this was a good movie.
Trivia: Sreenwriter/director Linklater's interpolated rotoscoping technique, also used in his '01 film 'Waking World', takes 500 hours of work to produce 1 minute of animation.
6. Lady in the Water: Last week we tried to watch this movie but the DVD didn't work. I took this as divine intervention. Nevertheless, I ended up asking for a free replacement at the video store in an attempt to be more proactive. This time we stopped it ourselves, during one of the endless rounds of tactless exposition. With the TV off, Lisa and I lay in the dark room, our palms pressed to our eyes, and talked for twenty minutes about how bad it had been, like two people who escaped a ferocious storm in the woods cringing for shelter in a cave.
Trivia: 'Sixth Sense' writer/director M Night Shyamalan ditched Disney, producer of his four hits, to get this flick made the way he wanted.
1. Idiocracy: Not especially entertaining or funny. Luke Wilson and SNL's Mia Farrow get frozen and wake up in the future where everyone is dumb. The future is dumb because smart people wait to have babies, but dumb people have lots of babies. The premise was amusing, and so were the first ten minutes of the movie. But there aren't many jokes beyond the whole mocking dumb people bit. I hoped for a lot from Mike Judge after Office Space, but the humor in this is more like King of the Hill, but without the endearing characters or funniness.
Trivia: Judge has been fighting with Fox to get this movie produced and released since before Office Space hit theatres. No trailers or TV commercials aired for the film, and it was only released in 125 theaters.
2. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead: I really liked it. These two guys, R&G, are bit parts in Hamlet. They only appear in a few scene of the play. This movie keeps an eye on them when they are not "onstage". They are pretty thoroughly confused, trying to figure out how to help Hamlet, eavesdropping on all the other scenes. I didn't really get into Hamlet in high school, but I enjoyed this film immensely and immediately wanted to see it again. The two are constantly sparing with words and you may fight as I did to keep up. But when they talk with Hamlet, and speak Shakespeare's lines, it's like switching from Easy to Expert on Guitar Hero.
Trivia: There's a scene where an acting troupe performs a puppet show during a play they put on for Hamlet and the Danish court. This is a puppet show in a play in a movie of a play about a play.
3. The Descent: On the box art, some lady is drenched in chunky blood and screaming at the sky. I was so pleased when this scene actually came to pass in the movie. I really enjoyed this one. It was gory and suspenseful. It actually gave me a nightmare. A handful of middle-age thrill-seekin ladies go caving and encounter all sorts of grisly cave-type deaths.
Trivia: Kind of a downer. A red double-decker bus destroyed by terrorists' bombs in London in 2005 had an ad for The Descent on the side, featuring the protagonist staring out a pool of blood with a dazzling movie review "Outright Terror Bold and Brilliant".
4. Syriana: Nice ensemble work here. Matt Damon is some sort of pissed-off financial advisor, George Clooney is some sort of burnt-out assassin, and various desert nations are the backdrop for intrigue. The end result is that the status quo is maintained. It's really a glimpse behind the curtain of the oil trade, how religion and terrorism and greed and poverty all combine to make the world we live in. I thought it was okay, if a little boring. A good movie to half-nap to. Best performance here is from Chris Cooper. Love that guy.
Trivia: George Clooney gained 35 pounds eating pasta for this role. Due to the weight gain, he suffered a spinal injury during a stunt and had surgery to repair it. He was laid up for weeks and couldn't do promotional work for Ocean's 12.
5. A Scanner Darkly: Much ado over the visual style. It's animated over the actor's performances, like the Charles Schwab commercials. I found it to be thoughtfully composed, visually. Philip K Dick's usual drug-fueled sci-fi gritty examination of human nature and oppressive police state. I liked Keanu Reeves here. I liked the execution of the sci-fi elements like the scrambler suits and the surveillance banks. The message about the war on drugs was sort of lost on me. I thought this was a good movie.
Trivia: Sreenwriter/director Linklater's interpolated rotoscoping technique, also used in his '01 film 'Waking World', takes 500 hours of work to produce 1 minute of animation.
6. Lady in the Water: Last week we tried to watch this movie but the DVD didn't work. I took this as divine intervention. Nevertheless, I ended up asking for a free replacement at the video store in an attempt to be more proactive. This time we stopped it ourselves, during one of the endless rounds of tactless exposition. With the TV off, Lisa and I lay in the dark room, our palms pressed to our eyes, and talked for twenty minutes about how bad it had been, like two people who escaped a ferocious storm in the woods cringing for shelter in a cave.
Trivia: 'Sixth Sense' writer/director M Night Shyamalan ditched Disney, producer of his four hits, to get this flick made the way he wanted.