I'm not dead yet!

Back from the cruise ships, and back to watching movies in the theater. The prospect has me watering at the mouth. I suppose I am a little obsessed by films; is it because I grew up in LA? Is it because Billy was a close friend of mine during my formative years?

Anyway, I've seen a couple movies since since I've been back (3 weeks total), and all of them have been worth the money. Brief descriptions.

Milk: Good, but not as good as I was expecting. Too documentary-like, with a big boring chunk that dragged in the middle; Cammy and I were both yawning at about 1 1/2 hours into the film.

Slumdog Millionaire: Also good (better than Milk for sure), but not wonderful. And I can't put my finger on why I didn't exactly love it, except that it wasn't very realistic. But a movie doesn't have to be realistic, you say! And I agree. But for some reason, this film kind of bothered me due to its large number of unabelievable coincidences. Nevertheless, I definitely recommend it. Kind of reminds me of Baz Luhrman with the overdone visuals and the hopeless romantic plot.
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And lastly, a film I saw today with the 'rents: Doubt.

I'd heard it was good, but didn't have very high hopes for it. I'd heard that it was overly theatrical and melodramatic.

But I definitely enjoyed this film. I think I liked this film more than both Milk and Slumdog Millionaire.

I liked the simplicity of the story in that it only involved 3 main characters. The characters were all believable, and their motives were comprehensible (unlike so many movies today!).

And the acting was AMAZING. Whenever Meryl Streep (or "God," as Billy called her) started yelling, I almost started crying because I couldn't help feeling like she was yelling at me. Scary.

So yeah. Definitely recommend this film.

Netflix is weird

I rate The Beat that My Heart Skipped as 5 stars. And Netflix recommends Arrested Development?!

I really don't see the similarity at all. However, I do enjoy that TV show. Perhaps Netflix knows me better than I know myself.

Atonement

Atonement--Blah. It was OK, actually. But I think I'll forget that one pretty fast. I'll probably even forget the definitely-attractive male romantic lead, James McAvoy, unless he gets some awesome lead roles in the future. He's definitely a good actor, and it shows in this film.

Keira Knightley, on the other hand, is pretty annoying. I've decided that fairly conclusively after watching this film.

Mom and I both agreed that the first half of the film is quite absorbing and interesting; this is where stuff actually happens, and the plot moves quickly. It's the second half, which is just James McAvoy at war (yeah, war sucks, we get it!) and Keira Knightly pining for him, and the girl, Briony trying to sent things right. Which she doesn't actually do.

This pic's nominated for a Best Picture award. I've seen 4 out of 5 of the nominations, and at this point I'd say No Country for Old Men deserves the award most. Although I have yet to see Michael Clayton. But I doubt that film will really make me think as hard afterwards as No Country did.

The Beat that My Heart Skipped

Today I watched another streamed film, and another French film. (I've definitely been on an unintentional French kick lately. Blame it on Fidel, Karmen Gei, Paris Je T'aime, and this one.) And they haven't let me down yet! Most of them films have had surprisingly cohesive and interesting plots!

And this one was no exception, although it's a French remake of an American film from 1978, Fingers, starring Harvey Keitel. Apparently that's a good movie too; I might end up trying to watch it if the film ever becomes easily rentable.

This film looked like a pretty violent one, so I decided to watch it in the afternoon (on the computer) so that I wouldn't become quite as absorbed in the film if it got tense and/or bloody. Luckily the film wasn't too violent, until the very end, but I felt like the violence was necessary to the plot.

A man (Romain Duris) works as for a kind of mob, beating up people who refuse to pay their rents and kicking people out. One night he runs into his piano teacher from when he was a boy, and the man asks him to audition for him. It turns out the man's dream was always to become a concert pianist, like his mother before she died, so he starts taking lessons every day from a Chinese woman who has just moved to France, and trying to get rid of the darker side of his life.

I really felt like the plot and characters were very believable, and the performances made me totally forget they were acting. (One of my problems, such as in the recent movie Atonement, where I kept imagining the actors--Keira Knightly especially--practicing their lines.)

Paris Je T'aime

Two days ago, I watched Paris Je T'aime, streamed on Netflix. I was a little wary about this film, because Leah told me she really disliked it strongly, which was surprising to me because it's gotten fairly good reviews.

The theme is short films, no longer than 5 minutes long, which are all set in Paris. The directors and actors are all different, but I'd heard of a lot of them, such as the Coen Brothers, Alexander Payne, Tom Tykwer, and Wes Craven.

I definitely liked the film overall--I'd expected weirder stuff, since weirdness and creepiness seems more prevalent in the short film format. However, I'd say most of the shorts were either sweet or bittersweet, or even full-on corny. (In the case of Wes Craven's short, I basically cringed at the cheesy plot.) The ones that I especially liked were Tom Tykwer's, Alexander Paynes, and one by a director I didn't know about two African immigrants. I also liked one of the later skits about an aging American husband and wife who are finally getting a divorce, but clearly still love each other very much.

I lost track of time when I was watching, which is definitely a sign that I'm enjoying a film.

OK, I will now officially attempt to start a blog based solely around movies. Because I watch so many of them.

I will also write about books now and then, and whatever else I feel like I may want to remember in a little while.

Let's see how this goes.