Turn the volume down
On this, the box-office low tide mark of the past four years, I managed to go to five movies. Friday was a future Semi-Incongruous Double Feature with default earnings champion Bangkok Dangerous followed by Traitor. I'll go into greater detail later in the week via L blog, but I have to say, I prefer the far less reputable Bangkok, not just because I'm a Nicolas Cage fan (this one is closer to the Next/Ghost Rider end of spectrum than the Con Air/Gone in 60 Seconds area), but because it has some semi-interesting relationships and entertaining ridiculousness before it all goes down in flames of stupidity and banality. Traitor, though, is downright boring. The reviews that have suggested that it forsakes intelligent character work in favor of by-the-book thrills are too kind. Ninety percent of this movie is not remotely thrilling and it wastes Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, and Jeff Daniels. It did remind me that I'd like to see Guy Pearce in more movies. Maybe the next Batman movie if Nolan does it.
We finally caught up with Tell No One on Saturday in Brooklyn, and while it's been a touch overpraised, probably because it's French, it's an engrossing thriller that has fun with a lot of familiar genre elements. It has a barrage of twists at the end, like the filmmakers realized the movie was tracking to end at 150 minutes and that had to fix it quickly to get something a little shorter, but that's a minor complaint. As a thriller, it works. It's based on an American novel, which means an inferior U.S. version can't be far behind. Also, in addition to making sure I was following it correctly, I spent some of the movie trying to figure out who in it was the guy that Jen said was awesome.
After dinner in Brooklyn we headed to the Upper East Side for Tropic Thunder with Andrew, Jon, and Tom, cause they hadn't seen it yet. That movie holds up well (though it made me feel guilty for not seeing Wall-E a second time). I hope Downey pulls out an (unlikely) Oscar nomination.
Today we played one more round of catch-up, finally seeing Transsiberian, another thriller with Hithcockian overtones (it would make a totally congruous double feature with Tell No One). Emily Mortimer deals with marital problems, guilt, and drug trade on the Transsiberian Express. The movie could've been tightened a little in its second half -- the slow-building, carefully developed character stuff in the first half is quite good -- but mostly I liked it.
I think I've also developed a semi-plan to keep my moviegoing busy in this time of mostly-uninspiring fall releases:
1. See the restoration of The Godfather, which I have seen twice but barely remember, and have never seen theatrically.
2. See the restoration of The Godfather Part II, which I tried to watch once with Rob and Jeff, and fell asleep, because we started it late.
3. See Christmas on Mars at some point.
I'm not sure when I can do these things as I have birthday parties and book festivals and baptisms to attend this month, but they're both available throughout September so interested parties should be able to work something out.
After Spencer's birthday dinner tonight, we came home and did something that routinely makes me feel older than that or any of the September birthdays: we watched the MTV Video Music Awards (albeit in a DVR-condensed 65 minutes). Some notes:
--I liked Russell Brand from Forgetting Sarah Marshall as host, not because his jokes themselves were all that funny, but because his nonstop stream-of-consciousness play-by-play delivery was, and because he seemed to be taking the piss a bit. Jordin Sparks, meanwhile, took a brave stand for abstinence and humorlessness.
--Britney Spears had a video? That people liked? I know Blackout actually got some decent reviews and "Gimme More" did well on the radio, but I had never heard of this second single and accompanying video. Can anyone confirm/deny this video being any good? I know I could just find it on YouTube but I think I'd rather be told whether or not that's a waste of time. Plus it's late and, as mentioned, I'm old.
--Tokio Hotel? Zer? Are they French or something? If so, why do they sound like awful Fall Out Boy-style imitation of glam rock? Again, I refuse to look this up. I know there's a band called Tokyo Police Club or something like that. I don't know who they are either, though.
--Maybe the subtleties are lost in the three-second clips, but it seems like every male R&B artist on MTV is pretty much doing the exact same thing.
--Those performances constructed around the Paramount backlot were actually pretty cool, concept-wise, even if most of the songs sucked.
--That new Christina Aguilera song, OK, the song itself, not so great, but the production and instrumentation and stuff was actually really cool, that New Order-y thing, like electro with a budget or something. I don't really like any Xtina songs apart from "Ain't No Other Man" but she really seems like she's interested in making her albums sound different from each other. Good for her for making the lives of people who like her maybe 0.3% more interesting.
--I kinda don't get why an artist who takes himself as seriously as Kanye West repeatedly turns up at these things. I mean, he always ends up looking a bit odd for doing something interesting or even (compared to most of the bombast around him) fairly restrained, and I guess it's a high-profile gig so he wants in, but an upside to his arrogance should be that he shouldn't care if he doesn't receive awards from MTV (does anyone even know who votes to determine the nominees and winners for this show?) or if he gets to be the closing number on a crap awards ceremony.
--It looks like the token actually-interesting-in-any-way video was that one from the Ting Tings, which looked, from the three-second clip MTV showed, like a complete knock-off of the video for "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes.
--OK, I will go to YouTube to retrieve this link again. This video is awesome! I like videos when they're good. Someone should make a channel where they show them all day.
We finally caught up with Tell No One on Saturday in Brooklyn, and while it's been a touch overpraised, probably because it's French, it's an engrossing thriller that has fun with a lot of familiar genre elements. It has a barrage of twists at the end, like the filmmakers realized the movie was tracking to end at 150 minutes and that had to fix it quickly to get something a little shorter, but that's a minor complaint. As a thriller, it works. It's based on an American novel, which means an inferior U.S. version can't be far behind. Also, in addition to making sure I was following it correctly, I spent some of the movie trying to figure out who in it was the guy that Jen said was awesome.
After dinner in Brooklyn we headed to the Upper East Side for Tropic Thunder with Andrew, Jon, and Tom, cause they hadn't seen it yet. That movie holds up well (though it made me feel guilty for not seeing Wall-E a second time). I hope Downey pulls out an (unlikely) Oscar nomination.
Today we played one more round of catch-up, finally seeing Transsiberian, another thriller with Hithcockian overtones (it would make a totally congruous double feature with Tell No One). Emily Mortimer deals with marital problems, guilt, and drug trade on the Transsiberian Express. The movie could've been tightened a little in its second half -- the slow-building, carefully developed character stuff in the first half is quite good -- but mostly I liked it.
I think I've also developed a semi-plan to keep my moviegoing busy in this time of mostly-uninspiring fall releases:
1. See the restoration of The Godfather, which I have seen twice but barely remember, and have never seen theatrically.
2. See the restoration of The Godfather Part II, which I tried to watch once with Rob and Jeff, and fell asleep, because we started it late.
3. See Christmas on Mars at some point.
I'm not sure when I can do these things as I have birthday parties and book festivals and baptisms to attend this month, but they're both available throughout September so interested parties should be able to work something out.
After Spencer's birthday dinner tonight, we came home and did something that routinely makes me feel older than that or any of the September birthdays: we watched the MTV Video Music Awards (albeit in a DVR-condensed 65 minutes). Some notes:
--I liked Russell Brand from Forgetting Sarah Marshall as host, not because his jokes themselves were all that funny, but because his nonstop stream-of-consciousness play-by-play delivery was, and because he seemed to be taking the piss a bit. Jordin Sparks, meanwhile, took a brave stand for abstinence and humorlessness.
--Britney Spears had a video? That people liked? I know Blackout actually got some decent reviews and "Gimme More" did well on the radio, but I had never heard of this second single and accompanying video. Can anyone confirm/deny this video being any good? I know I could just find it on YouTube but I think I'd rather be told whether or not that's a waste of time. Plus it's late and, as mentioned, I'm old.
--Tokio Hotel? Zer? Are they French or something? If so, why do they sound like awful Fall Out Boy-style imitation of glam rock? Again, I refuse to look this up. I know there's a band called Tokyo Police Club or something like that. I don't know who they are either, though.
--Maybe the subtleties are lost in the three-second clips, but it seems like every male R&B artist on MTV is pretty much doing the exact same thing.
--Those performances constructed around the Paramount backlot were actually pretty cool, concept-wise, even if most of the songs sucked.
--That new Christina Aguilera song, OK, the song itself, not so great, but the production and instrumentation and stuff was actually really cool, that New Order-y thing, like electro with a budget or something. I don't really like any Xtina songs apart from "Ain't No Other Man" but she really seems like she's interested in making her albums sound different from each other. Good for her for making the lives of people who like her maybe 0.3% more interesting.
--I kinda don't get why an artist who takes himself as seriously as Kanye West repeatedly turns up at these things. I mean, he always ends up looking a bit odd for doing something interesting or even (compared to most of the bombast around him) fairly restrained, and I guess it's a high-profile gig so he wants in, but an upside to his arrogance should be that he shouldn't care if he doesn't receive awards from MTV (does anyone even know who votes to determine the nominees and winners for this show?) or if he gets to be the closing number on a crap awards ceremony.
--It looks like the token actually-interesting-in-any-way video was that one from the Ting Tings, which looked, from the three-second clip MTV showed, like a complete knock-off of the video for "Seven Nation Army" by the White Stripes.
--OK, I will go to YouTube to retrieve this link again. This video is awesome! I like videos when they're good. Someone should make a channel where they show them all day.