Shakespeare in Love

Ok, I’ll admit it, it was pretty good. But “picture of the year”? it wasn’t THAT good. I did like how the whole plot was constructed though, how it was all kind of a mirror of the Romeo and Juliet story. I liked the non-hollywood ending too.

By the way, count me in the camp who thinks someone else likely wrote the bulk of Shakespeare’s plays. Most likely Edward de Vere. It’s possible that Shakespeare did some serious editing and adding though; more so to some plays than others. I like the idea of an everyman Poet, but the evidence to the contrary is just too strong to ignore.

The Shaggy Dog (2006)

Woof! Aw shucks, I guess it was perfectly watchable and mildly entertaining. They really tried hard to make the events in the movie “believable” – not that the premise is remotely believeable, but little things like the way he has a hard time convincing people he’s a dog, and that fact that eventually he does, and it’s prior to the climax of the movie.

 

Seven Years in Tibet

I thought this movie was a lot better than the “word on the street” made it out to be. I actually liked Brad Pitt in it. I couldn’t believe people were upset that he was a nazi… like the movie somehow forgave the nazis or something. You know, a lot of nazis were really bad people, but most of them were just caught up in the whole thing. BP’s character wasn’t even a real supporter of the nazis either, he just wanted to go climb mountains. If you’re upset about that whole angle, then I guess you hated Das Boot too.

 

Se7en

I never really can get into “lunatic” movies because they always make these people out to be geniuses, when they never really would be. Go see “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” if you want to see a good lunatic movie.

Oh, and that title? very clever with the 7 instead of the V. Very very clever.

 

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events

Some people sigh when they’re very sad, and others sigh when they’re very satisfied. But as I sit here in my one room apartment, typing by candlelight and hiding from the baseball team that would surely like to see me dead, I’m sighing because I just don’t know what to say. Violet, Klaus and Sonny were exactly as I had pictured them, so were their adventures, and general look and feel of their world. But, the movie was missing a certain coherence, a word which here means, something to tie all the bits together. It was a great movie to watch, but difficult to appreciate as a complete film. The problem is the books are just too short, and too dijointed – it’s difficult to adapt them into one story. What this movie needed was a whole new story, but that would have betrayed the whole point of the books in the first place. So, I sigh, because the movie didn’t have a chance in that regard. But, I did like it purely for the asthetic value.

 

Saving Private Ryan

Steven Spielberg’s latest. This movie was about what I expected. All the bare ‘grit’ of war. I can’t really think of anything too critical to say about this movie… it was quite good. I really liked the camera work, it added a bit more realism and was not overdone like some MTV video. I especially liked the lack of fiery explosions and the lack of any slow-motion violence sequences. For some reason, the movie industry seems to think that we can’t relate to explosions unless there is a lot of fire involved, even though almost all explosions are really fireless. Also, Hollywood seems to think that we “get more out of” slow motion sequences. I think slow-motion totally ruins the reality of a scene (with some exceptions). Real life is not in slow motion. Unlike a lot of people, I didn’t think this movie was necessarily ‘too much’ for some younger people (say… kids over ~13 depending on their maturity level… ) I’m sure a lot of people will disagree though, and I can understand why. It is very graphic, but I don’t think it will do permanent harm to anyone’s character. A lot of movies tend to make violence and death overly glamorous and dramatic – I think that’s a lot worse than just telling the truth about it. This movie shows what real violence does to people – there’s nothing glamorous about it. A lot of real soldiers get killed in agonizing ways, and luck has more to do with survival than skill. Who wants to bet their life that they’ll be lucky? War does indeed suck. Maybe people who see this movie will be less inclined to start them. (Oh, I think there was one plot screwup: Pvt. Ryan talks about the last time he was together with his brothers – back on the farm in Iowa. But, we learned earlier that they were all stationed together, and only split up after a different (and real-life) tragedy happened. )

 

Sahara

I saw about half of this movie and wasn’t really paying attention. I think it was on a plane or something. Anyway, it was enough to see that much. The guy who wrote the book this was based-on (Clive Cussler) wrote one of the most ridiculous books I ever heard on tape (which I can’t remember the name of at this moment). This movie fit nicely in the ridiculous genre.

 

Rush Hour

I was waiting for this – Jackie Chan does a Hollywood movie. That’s about all I can say about it too. Yes, I liked it. It wasn’t amazing or anything, and Jackie wasn’t over-the-top unbelievable (like he sometimes is… shoot, he has to be pushing 50 by now). It was fun though, and that’s about all I expected.