I saw this movie the other night with Robby. I wasn’t quite sure what it was all about, expect for the fact that it was packed full with memorable actors and actresses. Here’s a few…Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Garrison Keillor, Kevin Kline, Lindsay Lohan, Virginia Madsen, John C. Reilly, Maya Rudolph, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, L.Q. Jones and Marylouise Burke.
If you didn’t know, this movie is loosely based off an old live radio show that used to really happen. That’s sort of what the movie is about, except it’s their last show. There’s plenty of comedy thrown in between Keven Kline being a somewhat detective and people doing interesting things during the show.
If you’re into music much, this might be one to watch. The singing is just amazing. I had forgotten how well Lilly Tomlin and Meryl Streep could sing. Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly did a really good job too, and as much as I hate to admit, Lohan can sing too. For some reason I just have problems recognizing her as a legitimate actress in my head.
I also found out that P.T. Anderson stepped in and did a chunk of the directing for Robert Altman, who was having a lot of health problems. Anderson is someone I admire greatly for many of his previous films, so that could be another reason for some people to check this one out. I can’t say that I was able to see definitely influences of is, but it’s not like there was a noticeable difference between any parts in the movie. I’m not sure if this is one I would buy, but it’s definitely worth a watch.
This just happened to be the movie we kicked off Movie Night ‘06 with and it turned out to be a winner. What we have here is some classic Kevin Spacey being backup up by Laura Linney and a good performance by Kate Winslet. David Gale (Spacey) is a man on death row for the rape and murder of his co-worker Constance (Linney). The story gets a little bit more interesting because Gale was an activist against the death penalty and now he’s going to recieve the punishment for which he fought so hard to ban. The story seems to be heading towards a sad ending as we see his life work being flushed due to his family problems, scandal with a student and his apparent drinking problems, not to mention the death row sentence.
Bitsey (Winslet) is a reporter who is given three interviews with Gale before he dies. She’s not quite too sure why she has been given this audience and priviledge, but it becomes apparent that Gale is hoping she can uncover some evidence to help prove his innocence. Everything pretty much comes down to the wire, but you’ll have to watch to find out what happens yourself.
The movie starts out a bit slow, but picks up and has a strong finish. So stick this one out if you’re prone to getting bored with a movie right away. This one really is pretty good.
I saw Winter Passing soon after Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and have to say I was much more impressed with the former. This is a very serious movie with some hilarity thrown in by Will Ferrell who plays the role of Corbit. We also see amazing performances by Ed Harris and Zooey Deschanel. I don’t think I’ve seen a single thing by Harris or Deschanel that I haven’t liked yet. We also get to hear Deshanel sing a small bit and as Liz said, “She really needs to release an album”. It’s true. She can surely sing. If you don’t believe me, you should check out Elf.
Harris plays a J.D. Salinger character. In fact, his name is Don Holdin. His last name isn’t spelled the same as the character from Catcher in the Rye, but it’s sort of obvious. Holdin is an acclaimed writer who hasn’t released any material in the past seven years and Deschanel plays his daughter, Reese, who hasn’t been home for the same amount of time. Mrs. Holdin has died recently and Reese has come home looking for some letters that her mother had left for her. On one hand you have the seriousness of a broken man reuniting with his daughter and on the other hand you have Will Ferrell being serious and hilariously funny at the same time.
This is a great movie. There’s not much more I can say. Check this one out.
Published in Based on a book,
Based on a novel,
Black Comedy,
Buddy Comedy,
Comedy,
Film Noir,
Filmmaking,
Murder,
Mystery,
Neo Noir,
New York,
Suicide,
Thriller and
Twist .
From the previews I was really looking forward to this movie, but I have to say I was pretty disappointed with it after actually seeing it. I really wanted to just turn it off while watching. I felt like it was giving me attention deficit disorder. The flow was choppy and hard to follow, the events just didn’t make sense, the lines were cheesy, etc. I then realized why the movie seemed so weird. They were trying to mimic a myster-detective-trashy-romance paperback series they reference throughout the movie. When I finally realized this, everything started to make sense. However, I still didn’t like the movie.
For starters, we have Robert Downey Jr., Val Kilmer and Michelle Monaghan as the three main characters in the film. Downey is a theif-actor who is job shadowing Kilmer. Kilmer is an actual private detective investigating some murders. Monaghan is Downey’s childhood/high school crush that randomly turns up and runs into Downey. The movie is narrated throughout by Downey as he re-tells this story with Kilmer interjecting a couple times. I will say the movie is clever, but it’s probably a little too clever for most people to follow. So much so that I really, really wanted to just turn it off. Luckily I have a rule that I need to just watch movies til they’re over because you never know how you might feel about it after the credits start to roll.
Some of the reason it’s hard to follow, in my opinion, is because the story is being narrated. And just like when some people tell a story, Downey would accidently leave a part out or have to re-tell something. So the story would backup or pause while the details were worked out. The story also jumped from one character to another, which isn’t bad in itself (Look at Pulp Fiction for example), but didn’t flow very well. Another problem I had is that things just weren’t making sense. I felt like I was watching a soap opera at times. This can be explained by the following-the-book-genre theory of mine. People would say weird things or have stupid ideas, crazy thoughts, do weird things, etc. Many of the situation just seemed contrived and not real. There were even several times where nudity was introduced. However, it didn’t have a point and it wasn’t really that American Pie/National Lampoon-esque either. You know - the kind that draws in the 13-20 yr old crowd.
If I didn’t think this movie was the way it is, I would say this is probably the worst movie I’ve seen in a long time. I’m sure there are many that would disagree with me on this one, so maybe you should give it a watch yourself and then put up a comment as to what you think.
I finally saw this long awaited film last night. It was just as good as I expected it to be and even a little bit more. I didn’t know much about this other than it involved hooligans or soccer fans that like to cause trouble.
Recognizable actors were Charlie Hunnam (Undeclared, Nicholas Nickleby, Cold Mountain), Claire Forlani (Meet Joe Black, Mallrats, Mystery Men) and Elijah Wood (Everything is Illuminated, Sin City, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). I’m relaly liking Elijah Wood more and more in every movie I see him in. After LOTR I was a little afraid he might get himself pidgeon-holed into a hobbit role of sorts, but I’ve been so glad to see him succeed. He also happens to be born the same year as me and from my home state. So I say, “Rock on Elijah”.
Anyways, besides being a movie about thugs, there are a lot of good values to be learned here. Some might have to look a little harder than others, but I’ll name a few in case you’re wondering. We get to see Matt Buckner go from a scared, easily pushed around person to somebody that stands up for themselves is confident in who they are. We see friendships made and friendships tested. We have people realize that having a reputation with certain people isn’t always all that it’s cracked up to be. We also see that the mob mentality and violence very easily get out of hand and can result in some pretty drastic outcomes.
If you’re into soccer, or football as the rest of the world says, I would think this might be a movie for you.
Jack Black has got to be one of my favorite current actors. He’s so funny, so hilarious. My first realization of him was in the movie High Fidelity. I had seen him in things before, but had never really noticed him. What’s amazing is that Black continues to make-me-laugh-til-my-sides-ache time and time again.
I’d like to start off by saying that this movie has been heavily marketed to kids on Nickelodeon so that gives you an idea of its target audience. However, that doesn’t mean it still can’t be funny to 20, 30, 40, 50, or whatever year olds.
This also happens to be the 3rd notch on Jared Hess’s director belt and I’d have to say I haven’t been dissapointed yet. If you consider yourself a real movie buff and like to watch extra stuff about movies, you have to visit the movie web site and check out the confessionals. These are little clips of Jack Black talking about the day-to-day happenings while on set.
This movie should make you laugh. Black plays a mexican monk who dreams of being a luchador (professional wrestler). The only problem is that this fighting is forbidden. Meanwhile, a hot, new nun comes to the monastary and Nacho is doing all he can to impress her. Eventually Nacho gets into a prize fight with the chance to win some money to help out the orphans and I won’t say any more about the plot because I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you. All in all, I would list this movie as very entertaining and worth seeing this summer.
After seeing previews for this a long time ago, I really wanted to see it based on the bowling scene. This movie looked hilarious. As the time came closer and closer for it to come out, I also found out they had to re-shoot a bunch of footage to change the ending. This made me start to wonder a bit, but I think they probably made that decision for the best. Test audiences can be a good thing.
Two things I must point out is that I spotted Peter Billingsley (Ralphie Parker from A Christmas Story) and Keir O’Donnell (Todd Cleary from Wedding Crashers). I was proud of myself for that. There’s some other recognizable faces like Vincent D’Onofrio, Cole Hauser, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman (Arrested Development), Joey Lauren Adams and of course Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn.
Parts of the movie seemed very weird to me because when I think of Vince Vaughn, I think of Swingers and it’s sometimes hard for me to think of him in a serious role. Liz reminded me that I still haven’t seen him in some serious roles. I think I need to get on that. So even though some of the movie seemed a bit cheesy to me, I still think it was full of hilariously funny parts. We even heard Vince almost repeat a line from Wedding Crashers.
If you’re into Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau humor, you’ll probably want to watch this one.
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