ShakeYour HipsLike Battleships!

Movie Reviews.

A few movies I’ve seen since, well, the last time I did this.

Drive: Ok, I watched this back when it was in theaters in September, and I didn’t intend on doing a “review”, but since it looks like it will be somewhere on the Oscar nominations list, I might as well. So with this movie, I think you’ll either love it or think it’s stupid. It stars Ryan Gosling, his character has no name, and he actually doesn’t speak a whole lot either. He’s a driver for movies by day, and a getaway driver by night. He becomes friendly with his neighbor (Carey Mulligan), and events ensue from there. Personally, the movie in itself I didn’t love, however I really did like the cinematography. I think that’s the one thing you can agree on with this movie is it was shot beautifully. I would say watch it, you’ll realize by maybe the second robbery scene if you want to finish it or not.

The Aviator: It took me 3 tries to watch this movie, only because it is pretty long, but it’s Martin Scorsese, so that’s expected. I loved it. I do have a bias for Scorsese films…and historical dramas, however this movie is really, really good. It’s about Howard Hughes. He was a very wealthy business man as well as an aviator and director (he made the original Scarface). Acting was great, especially Kate Blanchett as Katherine Hepburn; such a good portrayal. It was shot beautifully. I would recommend it, just schedule out some time in your day first because…3 tries.

Sideways: This was on my list since 2004 (2005?), since it was nominated for several Academy Awards that year, and it looked entertaining, and since it was on ABC so that gave me an excuse to watch it. It came off as a very “Sundance-esque” type of movie, which isn’t a bad thing but not everyone would find it entertaining unless you usually like the Sundance films (which usually don’t have clearly defined plots and conflicts, instead they just gradually progress through the movie focusing on the story itself…usually). These two guys are going on a road trip through wine country because Jack is getting married, but wants to have one last fling before he ties the knot. Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church are so perfect for these roles, I can’t even; they’re the main reason why I wanted to watch it. You will feel very sorry for Miles character, or at least I did. It wasn’t enough that he’s a divorced writer/teacher, but what else happens, takes him to this low point where you kind of just want to help him, it’s that pitiful. It can be very comedic at times, and the ending was surprisingly happy (open ended but happy).

Insidious: Me and Liz watched this movie at our last sleepover; she said it was supposed to be this really scary horror movie, so I was excited. I was cutting it and the characters down the entire time. I’m a very bad judge of what makes a good horror film because if it doesn’t creep me out, I don’t think it’s done its job. However, Liz had trouble sleeping after, so I guess that says something. The plot however was creative, I really didn’t see it coming. I don’t even want to say what it is because to me finding out what exactly was happening was the best part, I will say though it inolves a child who won’t wake up. It also got brownie points for using the “Living in the Sunlight” song by Tiny Tim. You know, from the first episode of Spongebob. Watch this with friends.

Coffee and Cigarettes: This was lovely. C&C isn’t really a movie, it’s just a collection of 11 vignettes around 10 min., where it involves dialogue between 2-3 characters, all whilst enjoying coffee and cigarettes. Vignettes 1-3 are entertaining. Tom Waits and Iggy Pop’s is the funniest (personally my favorite one out of the entire movie). 4-6 were “eh”; I would skip over them next time I watch this. 7-10 were great. Cate Blanchett plays her own cousin, Jack White built a Tesla coil, “Cousins” was funny (each vignette is named), and then 10 involves GZA, RZA, and Bill Murray as a waiter, need I say more? 11 I didn’t really pay attention too only because by then my surroundings had made it impossible for me to hear, so I just stopped paying attention. Anywho, watch this.

Pretty Woman: I hadn’t seen this up until a few weeks ago when it came on E! (or was it Oxygen…or Style…it was one of those channels). I understand why most people like it. I think everyone knows the premise, right? A prostitute gets picked up by this wealthy business man, they end up falling in love; rags to riches essentially. Yea, lovely movie, and Richard Gere is a rather handsome man ^_^.

River’s Edge: My favorite movie I watched recently. So this guy (forget his character name but he played the dad in that Disney movie Quints) kills his girlfriend, and leaves her body naked in the forest. So he goes to school and he’s telling everyone about how he killed her and his friends don’t believe him, so he takes them to the body, and the movie just progresses from that. The characters are what make this movie so entertaining. There’s Feck, the local paranoid drug dealer who just gives weed out for free because his sister brings him so much of it, and he’s in a committed relationship with his blow-up doll. Layne, who is really the only person who cares about protecting Mr. Murderer even though he really doesn’t care if he gets caught, and the two of them aren’t even good friends. Matt played by Keanu Reeves (waaay back when he was teenager) isn’t really a stretch for him, haha but he’s nice to look at. His little brother (I forget his name) was just a little bastard, I don’t know how he let him live to be 13. Anywho, really good, highly recommend.

American Beauty: This movie is what you would get if the narrator from Fight Club had gotten married and had a kid and gotteen himself stuck in suburbia, but without Brad Pitt to show him how to fix his pathetic life. This movie is really good. Kevin Spacey plays a guy who’s in a loveless marriage, hates his job, and his daughter doesn’t like him. The parents are each screwed up in their own way, the daughter is fairly normal but has an extremely shallow best friend (who most likely keeps her around to make herself look better in comparison). A new family moves in next door, bringing along a seemingly clean-cut drug dealing son, a Colonel father, and an essentially invisible mother. I don’t want to mention anymore because that would take away the fun from the movie, but I highly recommend this one.

Clerks: Watch this if you haven’t seen it already. Then just watch the rest of Kevin Smith’s filmography.  This movie is gold. Dante is pathetic, Randall is an entertaining slacker. Jay and Silent Bob. This was so funny, so many quotable lines. “Did he say making fuck?”. “I’m not even supposed to be here today!”. After this I watched Mallrats, which I thought was really funny, I didn’t love it like Clerks, but still funny. But anyway, just watch this.

Stand By Me: And here we have another movie centered around a dead body in the woods, however the kid died by his own accord. So there are these 4 middle school age boys who get news that there is the dead body of a kid who has been missing for a while is in the woods. So these 4 decide that they want to go see it, and they figure they can call into the police and they’ll get rewarded as hero’s for finding it. I liked this movie based just on the story alone. It showcases how close friendships are at that age in life. Like, it reminded me of my friends at that age and how close we were, and all of the ridiculous adventures we used to go on (we even went on a trek into the woods, over bridge, of course there was no train), and it sucks how it doesn’t seem to last forever. The movie doesn’t necessarily have a happy ending, but you should still like it. Haha, and the dialogue was excellent.

Dogfight: An older version of River Pheonix, in a movie that looks sort of like Dear John…kind of. Before being shipped off the Vietnam, solider’s have a 24 hour period, which they decide they will go to a dogfight party. A dogfight is where the guy brings the ugliest girl he can find, and the guy with the ugliest girl wins the pot of money. Birdlace finds a girl named Rose he invites to the dance, but soon realizes she really isn’t ugly enough to compete. Unable to dissuade her from going, she finds out about the dogfight and is pretty pissed. He goes back to her house and apologizes by saying he will take her out on a nice date, and majority of the rest of the movie is their date, and the next day he is shipped to Vietnam and doesn’t come back until about 3 years later, when America has become all hippie-fied, and Kennedy has been shot. This was a pretty short movie, just an hour and a half. It was cute; ended similarly to Dear John too. I thought it was ok, but if you like romances, you’ll like this.

Triplets of Bellville: Watching this movie was actually my final for my Comp I class. This is a foreign animated film (not really a kids movie), however needn’t worry about subtitles because they barely speak, and most of the dialogue they do have is English, but everything written out in French. It tells the story of a sad little boy living with his grandmother who just wants to make him happy so she ends up buying him a bike. Fast forward to the future, and you see him training for what looks like the Tour de France. He is kidnapped by the French mob to be used for betting purposes. The grandmother tracks him down and rescues him. All of the characters (except for the main ones) are drawn morbidly obese. It’s pretty obvious they’re making fun of Americans, especially when they enter into the city where the grandson is being kept, and you can see the Statue of Liberty; she was very fat and clutching a cheeseburger. Aside from that, I found it very charming.

Dazed and Confused: Originally I was going to watch a movie called Remember the Daze, however that was just a sub-par 90’s rendition of this movie, but if you want to see Leighton Meester blonde, watch that. Anyways, this movie is one of those that has a lot of famous people in it before they were really famous. Simple plot; last day of school in the 70’s, teenager’s trying to start off their summer right. I can’t say much about it. It was a teen movie, and I usually like all teen movies, this being no exception. Watch it if you want something to do. I assume it would be even more entertaining with friends.