Movie Mondays...

Small disclaimer...part of this post may be discussing something slightly less than classy.

Okay, I tried to start talking about the movies I've been watching, but after only two weeks I kinda got out of the groove. Since then I've been watching quite a wide variety of movies, so let's start again! Just a few days ago, my sister the literature scholar, her boyfriend Albert Einstein, and I went and saw Scott Pilgrim. Surprise, surprise (not really) it was really funny. Very quippy with lots of pop culture references (which I love). The way it was stylized was hilarious, all like a big giant video game. Just about anything Jason Schwartzman is in I want to see. I've heard some complaints that it'll end up a cult film since anyone older than 25 won't get the video game jokes and that it's too hipster-ish (I did feel like I needed to be wearing black rimmed glasses and some skinny jeans in order to fully appreciate the movie), but I think that's crap. It's just fun.

Also a really cute movie was Happy-go-Lucky. Mainly a slice of life movie (I like that phrase) about a woman named Poppy who is infectiously happy and who decides to finally get her drivers license when her bike is stolen. I think Poppy can pretty much be summed up by the scene when she discovers her bike has been stolen. Her only concern was that she didn't get to say good-bye. How cute is that? Okay, to be honest, Poppy's overly happy attitude could get a little annoying at times. She didn't seem to take anything seriously (though I think she really did, she just couldn't get that across to anyone else) and she didn't really seem to understand personal space. But in the end I couldn't help but admire her attitude. And watching her try to flamenco dance was pretty funny.

A few weeks ago, both my sisters and my mother and I went and saw Inception and let me tell you, it is pretty epic. And this movie could have gone either way for me. I am not often one to enjoy science fiction/fantasy. But this I could get behind. I have a mental list of things I don't like in movies (a list my sisters enjoy making fun of) which mostly involves science fiction/fantasy elements and this movie managed not to really use any of these things (such as space, aliens, the future, technology, Angelina Jolie, dinosaurs, robots, etc). And this movie provided me with a new imaginary boyfriend in the form of Tom Hardy (who played Eames). Eames was kind of fabulous. He totally thought he was fly, what with the linen suits and the pink shirts and the loafers with no socks and the pinky ring. I may have actually made up the pinky ring. Anyway, this love for my new imaginary boyfriend is shared by my sister the librarian and we have been watching lots of old movies of his in the past few weeks such as...

What did I learn from watching these movies and clips of others (like RocknRolla, Stuart: A Life Backwards, and Scenes of a Sexual Nature)? Dude likes to get nekkid!* I am not even kidding. And that's not something you get too often in American movies. Naked women? No problem. Just not dudes. British movies (or at least the ones this guy gravitates towards) are quite another story. So there I was, trying to watch a really weird prison movie (Bronson), and all of a sudden...JUNK ATTACK. And not just one shot and then we're done. No, dude was stark naked, greased down, and fighting prison guards, something like three different times during the movie. So let's just say, things were moving around a bit. Despite the amount of junk seen, this ended up being a pretty good (albeit extremely darkly funny and really weird) movie. Kind of A Clockwork Orange meets Chicago the musical.

To continue with the theme of the junk attack, and in an effort to completely contradict what I just said about this not happening so much in American movies, I also watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall this past week. I am a little ashamed to admit I watched this, seeing as I have a strong hatred for basically anything associated with Judd Apatow. He seems to think that all men are just man-children who have poor hygiene skills and are only interested in smoking pot and getting laid, and that all women are uptight shrews who just need one of these man-children to show them have to cut loose and let their freak flag fly. Anyway, I watched this solely because I really like the show How I Met Your Mother and Marshall from that show wrote this movie. And okay, it was kind of funny. There were a few too many man-children for me, but at least the character of Rachel wasn't a terror (even if Sarah Marshall kind of was). I attribute this to the fact that Judd Apatow only produced this and didn't write or direct it.

*naked means you have no clothes on...nekkid means you have no clothes on and you up to something.

Movie Mondays

Still going with the 2010 Oscar nominees. Tonight we watched District 9. Well...okay, we watched about 20-25 minutes of it. I was surprised I even made it that far. I really don't do aliens. My mother didn't even make it all 25 minutes, opting instead to "rest her eyes" (read: sleep). Dad probably could have kept going, but he's leaving for Japan tomorrow and they'll probably offer it on the plane and he can watch it there without my probably uninvited commentary.

Keeping with the Oscar theme, I have a lifetime goal of watching all the films that have ever been nominated for one of the BIG SIX awards (best picture, lead and supporting actor,/actress and director), preferably in chronological order from the beginning of the Oscars to the present. Well, I say all but I left out the first two years or so since I have a hard time making it through a silent movie. And there are a lot from the early 30s that are hard to find and I'm not going to go out of my way to look for them (which is probably good...when I talk to my Dad about this project he tells me I need a hobby). I kind of started this project a few years ago and so far I watched 6 (you're super impressed, right?). And by I've watched 6, I mean a STARTED watching six. I've only finished watching 3. Today's movie Arrowsmith, based on the novel by Sinclair Lewis, was one of the ones I finished. And I have to say I liked it. Arrowsmith is a man with potential to become a great medical researcher, but puts his dream on hold when he falls in love and decides to get married. After several years as a country physician, he is given another chance to follow his dream as a medical researcher. After creating a serum that could possibly destroy any bacteria, he is sent to the West Indies to combat a breakout of bubonic plague, but while there he is met with ethical dilemmas. Should he treat his patients and conduct his experiments in the name of science or humanity? I think the novel it's based on takes a much more critical look at the medical profession of the time, looking for quick results and breakthroughs and publicity, but the movie only touches on that a little. There's also a lot more to Arrowsmith's character I believe. But still, I found the movie to be enjoyable. And it's significant in that it's the first American movie to feature a black character with a college degree and who wasn't characterized as a 1930s stereotypical African American (no tap dancing, poor speaking skills, etc).

Earlier in the week, continuing with the sports movie theme of last weeks A League of Their Own, Dad and I watched Pride of the Yankees. I have a hard time thinking of this movie without thinking of that Friends episode where Phoebe is watching movies she never realized were sad. "Pride of the Yankees? I thought yea, Yankee pride and then BAM! Lou Gehrig's disease." And then Richard's response, "They guy was Lou Gehrig. Didn't you kind of see that coming?" Classic. Anyway...I know this is supposed to be a classic tearjerker sports movie, but to be totally honest, it never really felt all that moving. Lou Gehrig kind of came off as a goober, even though he made a great good-bye speech. Too often conversation in movies from this time period comes across as a little unnatural, so it's hard to really get an emotional connection with anyone. I did really like Papa Gehrig. My biggest reaction to the movie was thinking the bracelet he gave his wife for their fourth anniversary, made up of medals he'd won throughout the years was kind of heinous. And then I felt bad when I realized the bracelet they used in the movie was the actual one he gave his wife and is now in the baseball hall of fame.

Knowing me to be a secret lover of all things 80s (I am an 80s baby after all), my sister the librarian brought Footloose home from the library the other day. Somehow this was a movie I had yet to see. I know, all of you are thinking JUMP BACK. But it's true. Somehow Footloose had evaded me. The situation now rectified, I'm pretty sure it's my new favorite movie. Sure it's a little far fetched and a little dated and a little campy, but sometime that is what makes a really excellent movie. And did you know it almost starred Rob Lowe instead of Kevin Bacon? Yeah, had that actually happened I'm pretty sure I would have seen this movie long ago.

And the last movie from the past week, The Greatest. It was a little independent movie from last year about an 18 year old girl who shows up at the home of two grieving parents 3 months pregnant from the one

night she spent with their son. The night he died. It's funny...had I read this synopsis for a book as opposed to a movie there's absolutely no way I would have read it. I don't do grief books. Too often I find them melodramatic and saccharine and a bit cliche. Not to say that all books dealing with grief should be characterized that way, but for me they don't connect and so I tend to stay away from them. That being said, movies that deal with grief I can often get behind. I don't know what it is about the different mediums. Maybe the fact that I can see their pain and despair in the tiny movements of their faces and in their unsaid words instead of the sometimes overwrought descriptions of those emotions. I really liked this movie. Though dealing with a very sad topic, there was also a lot of humor. I don't like movies to be too depressing. There needs to be a bit of a bright spot, and Rose, the pregnant girl was just that. I'm beginning to think I'd watch just about anything Carey Mulligan was in. The stoner little brother was fun, too. I always like the stoner kids in movies, I don't know why (though if I think about it, perhaps the stoner high school boyfriend has something to do with that...). Anyway, good movie. Sad, but hopeful. Maybe my dad's right. Maybe I do need a hobby...

What movies have you been watching this week?

Movie Mondays

My family and I have been watching all the movies that were nominated for Best Picture during this last Oscars. It's been a little slow going, but we're getting close to the end. Only three more to go. So far there haven't been too many we thought were really Oscar worthy. There were some we liked okay, but out of the seven we've watched only Up and Inglourious Basterds have really stood out as excellent. Tonight we watched A Serious Man. I have found that Cohen Brothers' movies can really be hit or miss for me. I thought Burn After Reading was pretty funny, but I fell asleep during Fargo (though I think I need to give that one another try). I loved O Brother Where Art Thou? and hated The Big Lebowski. As for this one, I'm not sure. There were definitely elements that I found funny...particularly the thirteen year old son, stoned at his Bar Mitzvah, and the Korean student trying to simultaneously bribe and blackmail his professor. But more often, instead of laughing I was wincing...wincing as the main character's wife and her new boyfriend talked to him in their totally different but equally horrifying ways or wincing every time his brother was onscreen draining his neck cyst (which is as gross as it sounds). I can appreciate the comparison to the book of Job from the Bible, but I think perhaps I needed a character who was a bit more compelling. Larry was a schlubby dude before his life went to pot and he was an equally schlubby dude at the end.

In better movie news, we watched A League of Their Own a few days ago, and I'm pretty sure this is one of my favorite movies. For some reason, I love sports movies. I don't really know why. I'm the most un-athletic person ever (unless we're comparing me to my sister the librarian or my sister the literature scholar in which case I'm only mildly un-athletic). But
give me a good sports movie and I am happy. Let's be for real, give me a mediocre sports movie (um...The Cutting Edge anyone?) and I am happy. A League of Their Own is far from mediocre. The characters are great, the acting is excellent (Tom Hanks at his comedic best), and the story is compelling. Plus there's an exciting bit of history to boot, which makes me happy. The story and the characters are a fictionalized account of the start up of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League. When you're in school and you learn about War World II and the involvement of women in the workplace on the home front, most of what you talk about is Rosie the Riveter and the women who went to work in the factories. While that was an extremely important contribution to both World War II and the feminist movement (my Granny worked in a factory), it's also interesting and worthwhile to look at the other ways women were called on to support the war effort, ways such as playing pro baseball. Things like that sometimes tend to get overlooked. What movies have you been watching this week?