A Year of Zip Movies: February 2012
Pirate Radio (a.k.a. The Boat That Rocked) (2009)
Directed by Richard Curtis. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Rhys Ifans, and a bunch of British people (mostly guys) who live aboard an illegal (pirate) radio ship broadcasting rock and pop music from the North Sea in the 1960s. Kenneth Branagh is the bureaucrat who wants to shut them down. (Jack Davenport is his assistant.) Great soundtrack - no Beatles, though, due to licensing I guess - and pretty entertaining on the whole. It took a while to get into this, and there are some excrutiatingly embarrasing slapstick-y sex scenes, but on the whole we liked it!
Return to Cranford (2009)
Bad Things Keep Happening in Cranford, I really did not need it to be so depressing, but then, that is the reality of the time period. The ending was uplifting and there were some moments of true comedy in this series (IMELDA STAUNTON AND THE BIRDCAGE OMG) and all in all I liked this a lot. Judi Dench is fabulous as always. I was disappointed not to see Baby Paul Bettany a.k.a. Simon Woods in this installment, though.
Fair Game (2010)
This is the movie version of the Valerie Plame situation, when a CIA operative has her identity leaked by the government as payback for an anti-Bush-administration op-ed article her husband wrote. Naomi Watts and Sean Penn star, and are good - believable in the parts and Penn is not over the top. (GOOD.) This movie was based on books by the real Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson, and so of course it shows their side and them being in the right. (Which I think they were, so that doesn't hurt the movie for me.) Roger Ebert points out that it's interesting that they used real names in this 'fictionalized' account - Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney are played right there on the screen with their real names. Recommended.
And not from Zip:
The Trip (2010) (6-part series)
This felt almost like a documentary. A sad, moving documentary of a lonely and sad man who may or may not be Steve Coogan in the middle of a mid-life crisis and his kind-of friend who go on a restaurant tour of the North of England for a magazine feature. (Steve was supposed to take his girlfriend but they are on a break.) Some of it is hilarious (I still love Gentlemen, To Bed) but some of it is heartbreaking. Really good stuff. (We watched it one episode at a time - there is a movie version but I think that might have been too much all at once.)
Watched in March or Currently Out From Zip:
-Eat Pray Love (2010)
-Buried (2010)
-10 Items or Less (2006)
-Megamind (2010)
Anything you've watched lately that you recommend - or don't recommend?
[2012: The Road, Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Big Night, Pirate Radio (a.k.a. The Boat That Rocked), Return to Cranford, Fair Game]
Directed by Richard Curtis. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Bill Nighy, Nick Frost, Rhys Ifans, and a bunch of British people (mostly guys) who live aboard an illegal (pirate) radio ship broadcasting rock and pop music from the North Sea in the 1960s. Kenneth Branagh is the bureaucrat who wants to shut them down. (Jack Davenport is his assistant.) Great soundtrack - no Beatles, though, due to licensing I guess - and pretty entertaining on the whole. It took a while to get into this, and there are some excrutiatingly embarrasing slapstick-y sex scenes, but on the whole we liked it!
Return to Cranford (2009)
Bad Things Keep Happening in Cranford, I really did not need it to be so depressing, but then, that is the reality of the time period. The ending was uplifting and there were some moments of true comedy in this series (IMELDA STAUNTON AND THE BIRDCAGE OMG) and all in all I liked this a lot. Judi Dench is fabulous as always. I was disappointed not to see Baby Paul Bettany a.k.a. Simon Woods in this installment, though.
Fair Game (2010)
This is the movie version of the Valerie Plame situation, when a CIA operative has her identity leaked by the government as payback for an anti-Bush-administration op-ed article her husband wrote. Naomi Watts and Sean Penn star, and are good - believable in the parts and Penn is not over the top. (GOOD.) This movie was based on books by the real Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson, and so of course it shows their side and them being in the right. (Which I think they were, so that doesn't hurt the movie for me.) Roger Ebert points out that it's interesting that they used real names in this 'fictionalized' account - Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney are played right there on the screen with their real names. Recommended.
And not from Zip:
The Trip (2010) (6-part series)
This felt almost like a documentary. A sad, moving documentary of a lonely and sad man who may or may not be Steve Coogan in the middle of a mid-life crisis and his kind-of friend who go on a restaurant tour of the North of England for a magazine feature. (Steve was supposed to take his girlfriend but they are on a break.) Some of it is hilarious (I still love Gentlemen, To Bed) but some of it is heartbreaking. Really good stuff. (We watched it one episode at a time - there is a movie version but I think that might have been too much all at once.)
Watched in March or Currently Out From Zip:
-Eat Pray Love (2010)
-Buried (2010)
-10 Items or Less (2006)
-Megamind (2010)
Anything you've watched lately that you recommend - or don't recommend?
[2012: The Road, Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing, Before the Devil Knows You're Dead, Big Night, Pirate Radio (a.k.a. The Boat That Rocked), Return to Cranford, Fair Game]