Movies

I watched all of these relatively recently. I don't much feel like doing big reviews of them, so here are some blurbs:

August Rush: I really enjoyed this the first time I saw it. It was amazing and beautiful and sad. Then I saw it a second time and had the same five songs from it playing in my car for a couple of weeks. Now it needs to rest for a bit before I watch it again.

Horton Hears a Who!: I saw this with my husband and four other people in the theatre. My husband was the only one who didn't think it was wonderful. Since my husband generally has good taste we'll just have to forgive him for his lapse in judgement. Also, the only recent movie based on a Dr. Seuss to actually be good or respect the source material.

The Illusionist: Interesting movie. Good too. I watched it at my parent's house on Easter morning while I was waiting for everyone else to wake up. If you like magicians and movies that you have to watch over again after you know the ending so you can see all the clues along the way then this is a good movie for you. But The Prestige is a much better movie about similar things. So even if you don't like magicians or don't like The Illusionist, you should still watch The Prestige. Plus, it has David Bowie in it. I dare you to recognize him though. (Un?)Fortunately there's no Dance Magic Dance.

Clue: I was certain this movie was going to be lame. A movie based on a board game? Please! That's almost as lame as a movie based on a Disney theme park ride, with twelve different writers working on it, there's no way that could actually be any good... okay okay, Pirates of the Carribean (the first one anyway) was brilliant against all odds, and Clue is pretty darn funny. Nick has it on dvd and we finally watched it together with a bunch of friends the other night. We all laughed an awful lot. Tim Curry really is pretty brilliant. Of course he voiced a character on Gargoyles so what else would you expect? It's weird/fun seeing Christopher Lloyd so young too. And the three different endings are enjoyable.

Marathon Man: Not sure what i think of this movie. I enjoyed it, but I don't know that I would want to watch it again. It was written by William Goldman though, and based on his book, so if nothing else you can definitely say that he has major range in what he's capable of. I mean, the man writes Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (brilliant), the Princess Bride (even more brilliant), and then this movie that is deliberately sly in its intentions with hard edges and a Nazi war criminal at its center. I think I'm going to have to read the book sometime.

No Country for Old Men: I always like Tommy Lee Jones, and he's good in this as a small county sheriff. The other two main characters, a cold blooded killer and the trailer park veteran who pursues/is pursed by him kept reminding me of the older brother on Everybody Loves Raymond and Tom Selleck, respectively. It was interesting, but in the long run didn't really make enough sense to be enjoyable. Some things just aren't properly explained, and they are things that it seems ought to have been explained. If I had know it was based on a book by Cormac McCarthy I may not have wanted to watch it. I read All the Pretty Horses by him in the eleventh grade and it didn't really make a favorable impression as a coherent whole.

Kung-Fu Hustle: Ya gotta love subtitled kung-fu. Especially when it's funny subtitled kung-fu. I enjoy the character design and costumes in this movie, and how the kung-fu masters look nothing like kung-fu masters. And since none of the spectacular stunts in this type of movie look real anyway, I like how this movie goes ahead and pushes them to such silly extremes. Plus, I really like the mute girl and her lollipop.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Being a big fan of the tv show, I thought I should watch the movie. THANK YOU SO MUCH, JOSS WHEDON, FOR THE TV SHOW!!! Now can we please just forget the movie ever existed?

The Pursuit of Happyness: I've been wanting to watch this for a while, and finally decided to just sit down and do it on my day off. It was good. Sad and happy and good. I don't really have that much more to say about it, and I thought I would. Go figure. Oh, Will Smith must have gotten really in shape from having to do that much running around with a bone density scanner though.