An-Other Review on The Other Guys

So this is a really hectic week for me.  Rather it has been.  Last Friday-Sunday, I went on a spontaneous vacations with the family.  It was alright, but I was sick the whole time.  Then, Monday, I went to the doctor because I had been sick for over a week.  I told him and the nurse that I had pneumonia -- I have pneumonia at least twice a year, I know when I have it.  He didn't believe me, so after chest x-rays and another doctor's appointment, he determined that I have pneumonia.  Could have told him that without the extra doctor's appointment and $30.


Along with all of this, I moved back into my apartment today.  Took me about 3 hours, but my apartment and room back in order.  Let me just say that moving stuff and pneumonia doesn't mix well.  You need a nap afterwards.


Anyway, so that left Monday-Wednesday to spend with my boyfriend, who is going to college 3 hours in the exact opposite of my college.  So there is a 6 hour difference.  So, as part of our last day together, we decided to try and see a movie: The Other Guys. The key word there is TRIED.  

I saw up to the point where Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson "aim for the bushes."  EPIC FAIL.  And yet it's so funny that it is almost win.  Almost.


Up to that point, I was fairly amused and somewhat bored.  Yes, Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are funny, but I could have watched Dwight and Jim in The Office and be just as amused.  "ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER!" Also, Johnson played the exact same role he did in Get Smart, only his role was cut short by a concrete wall he just couldn't get past.  Speaking of Get Smart, Will Ferrell mirrored Steve Carell's character, and his character from Stranger than Fiction.


This does not mean it wasn't funny and enjoyable; it's just that I had seen it all before.


After that, the movie fuzzed out for the fourth time and the lady said they were having issues with all of their projectors.  When I say fuzzed out, I mean FUZZED OUT.  Think of a giant movie screen with a million different Dippin' Dots on it all having seizures at the same time.  Luckily, we could hear the sound over the drugged-up dots, but some things are meant to be seen AND heard; movies are one of them.


At least we got free tickets out of it.




I'll leave you with a quote: "I am a peacock.  I need room to fly!" - Mark Wahlberg.  For the record, I'm fairly certain that peacocks don't fly.  So keep flapping Wahlberg and we'll see who flies first.

Summer Movie Extravaganza Part Two

1. Captivated by Inception

This is definitely my favorite movie of the summer.  Hands down.  No competition.  It wins, plain and simple, even if Leonardo Dicaprio was in it.  Anyway, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt couteract my dislike of Dicaprio's acting skills.

My mom didn't think that I would want to see this movie because it's all action-y and stuff, but there is so much more to the film than the genre.  The fact that it was about dreams made me want to see it.  The way dreams can be manipulated and altered fascnates me.  I also like to explore the way the lines between dreams and reality can be blurred.  In a way, it reminded me of Paprika, which also deals with dreams spilling into the real world.

I really like what the movie implied about ideas.  Ideas are a disease, the worst and most dangerous kind of disease.  Once an idea is planted (incepted), you can't let it go.  You are captivated with that idea.  You can't let it go until you understand it fully, and even then, you still think about it.

I also love the way they dealt with the dream worlds.  It's more than just appearing in someone's head.  You have to plan it out.  You have to build it.  You have to make it so real that no one notices that it is a dream because once they know it's a dream, the game is over and you wake up.  And Ellen Page as an architect is wonderful.  Again, I love her.  Even more than that, I love all the prep work shown leading up to the ultimate dream.  It reminded me of the Oceans movies: before the big heist, the audience is made aware of all the work that goes into making the heist happen.

The visual effects in this movie are fantastic.  But that was to be expected since Christopher Nolan directed it and he did The Dark Knight, which was awesome.

The only complaint I have about this movie is some of the execution.  Yes, the dream concept is wonderful and fascinating, but the scene jumps and lack of full explanation make the movie extremely confusing.  Some confusion is okay, but I feel that the confusion in this movie may have been a deterrant.  The concept was complicated enough before everything was jumping around.

In the end, I will admit to absolutely loving this movie.  SO SO SO much.  And it made me wonder about my own dreams.  Obviously, Dicaprio's looks like a huge building with different floors where his wife is and he can see the children playing in the yard.  But what would my dream world look like?  What would other people's dream world look like? So many things to think about... yay. 

 

#2. Not A Lot of Brotherly Love in Brothers

Tobey Maguire, Natalie Portman, and Jake Gyllenhaal.  What more could you ask for in a cast?  Portman and Gyllenhaal are awesome and, even though he did that awful Spiderman 3 movie, Maguire is still a passable actor.  In fact, I would say that he has become quite good, especially with facial expressions, since then.  All you need is a fantastic plot and, presto, good movie.  

This movie was hard to watch for me.  I don't do death and that sort of thing well.  People going crazy because they've had to kill so many people is not much better, but I wanted to see it anyway.

I love that when Maguire comes home to his family, there are two distinct reactions.  First, there is the typical "YAY! Daddy's home!" reaction that is seen in pretty much every movie.   It's like a requirement somewhere: when someone comes home on leave, you have to be excited.  

But, this movie highlights another reaction, one that I feel is more natural and that I would likely have.  The other daughter is angry that her dad is home.  Yes, she is grateful that he came home even if it is only for a while, but she is mostly angry because she knows he's going to leave again soon.  Rather than deal with the grief in watching her father go back to war again, she allows herself to feel only anger so that the good-bye will be easier.


I also appreciate what the movie does with the relationship between the brothers, Gyllenhaal and Maguire.  Of course, they are going to fight because Maguire was gone and something could have happened between his brother and his wife, but there is a deeper issue going on.  They disagree on a much more fundamental and ethical issue: killing people.  On the one hand, you have a soldier, trained and praised for killing the bad guys.  On the other, you have the brother who, while seen as unsupportive, demands to know what gives a person the right to kill another, or to decide that they are "bad" and deserving of death.


I felt that the plot of the movie was very well constructed and the psychological battles going on within the characters was displayed perfectly, especially in Maguire.  I do wish that the movie kept the fact that Maguire was still alive secret longer, BUT I understand why they didn't.  If they kept it a secret, they could not have shown him struggling to survive as a prisoner of war.  You would not have seen the reasons WHY he goes crazy in the end.  And the WHY is essential to the movie.


And I love the fact that the word "affair" is never used.  It is implied that it happened, but it is never stated outright.  It reminded me of Doubt; they never say "child molestation", but the audience knows that is the issue at hand.


#3. Clashing with Clash of the Titans









Yet another Sam Worthington movie that I was not excited to see.  I think I may have an issue with him...  Any movie he's in (Terminator:Salvation, Avatar, Clash of the Titans, The Debt), I just don't want to see it.  I don't know if it's him or the type of movies he does, but I just feel a great desire to avoid him.  


Sorry about that Sam. ...Don't take it personally. I don't think it's you, though you could use some acting lessons.  I mean I know you were a robot once, but you don't have to keep being a robot.  I really think it's the movies you choose to be in; I just don't care to see them.

Clash of the Titans came out around the same time as Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief.  Having read the entire Percy Jackson series and seen the movie twice, I didn't see the need to see Clash.  My "Greek mythology" movie watching has been covered for the year, so what could I possibly gain from seeing Clash of the Titans?

Again, I watched the movie with an exasperated sigh. But, like with Avatar, I was with my family, boyfriend, and close friends.  The company made the movie experience more enjoying.


In the end, it was better than I thought it would be.  All the critics who said that it was crap were exaggerating.  No, there was nothing special, but it wasn't terrible.  The only craptastic thing in the movie was the make-up job.  Seriously?  Were all the mirrors broken?


On another note, can anyone say type-casting?  Ralph Finnes as Hades?  REALLY?  He's already Voldemort!  Why not just crown him  "Prince of Darkness" or "Anti-Christ" and get it over with?

Taken With the Grains of Salt

My favorite kind of movie is the kind that does not waste any space.  There are no filler or superfluous scenes.  Every scene, every detail, is used to the advancement of the characters and the story, even if it doesn't seem like it at first.  For this reason, Salt was highly enjoyable, though it is not better than Inception, despite what others may say.

When I sat down in the familiar burgundy fold-up movie theater chair, I had a single thought. For me, this movie had one thing going for it and one thing going against it before it even started.  On the one hand, I am a HUGE fan of Liev Schreiber; always have been.  On the other hand, I am not a fan of Angelina Jolie.  On occasion, I can put up with her (Mr. and Mrs. Smith), but generally, I'm not really taken with her or her acting skills.


That being said, I was both very pleased and pleasantly surprised.  










Schreiber did not disappoint.  He played the role I've known him to play so many times before, the smart-ass, dry guy who always knows what's going on and has a few secrets up his sleeve.  Yes, this is probably type-casting, but he does it so well and I just love it.  And he can play other characters, a la Kate and Leopold.  















Jolie, however, put on a fantastic performance.  I won't go into detail into all the roles she played, but she kept the audience guessing the entire movie.  The only thing that gave her away was a quick flicker in her eyes.  Each time that happened, it was only for a second, but it did alert the careful audience members that she may not be who she currently says she is.  The irritating part, however, is that she always manages to lose her clothing.  The opening scene, she is in nothing other than some white lingerie.  A few scenes later, Schreiber is forced to say "Get your *** - **** panties off the camera!"  Seriously... can we have one movie without her losing clothing?  Just one?








The action-y fight-scenes were pretty epic.  The elevator and the fire-extinguisher rocket were among my favorite moments.  I also liked the crazy chase scene with Jolie climbing across buildings, running through streets, and jumping from truck to truck.  I especially liked that you saw her breathing hard and start to limp a bit during her run.  Finally, someone gets it!  Action star or not, they cannot run forever and not be physically affected by it.  It's just not humanly possible.  I am aware, however, that we are talking about Hollywood and they don't necessarily care about what is and is not within human limitations.


I fear I cannot say much more without ruining the movie.  It is pretty amazing.  And you will have to think a bit, even if you are just going to the movie to enjoy it because it is human nature to try to piece puzzles together and figure out what is going on, and, whether you want to or not, you're going to try and figure out what's going on.  And, in the end, you still might be shocked. 


So be prepared.