Watched this Week:
The 40 Year-Old Virgin 3 ½ stars Oh man, that waxing scene. That scene is on my iPod and I watch it over again and again. The pain is funny, but I think what makes it work are the guys around Steve Carell. Their reactions are so genuine. I don’t think there’s much acting involved when they’re cringing and laughing. What is really perfect casting though is that Chinese waxer. She is hilarious. Listen to the sounds she makes when she pulls off the strips. And that crazy look of pleasure on her face when she gets a big one and he screams at her, “I hate you, stop smiling!” Also makes me cry, “Mika you should burn in hell!”
but I enjoyed some of it. The story of an aging country singer going through a Britney Spears addiction meltdown still doesn’t have much interest for me. Gwyneth I think is a little miscast as a Southern girl. She still feels too East Coast. The younger storyline is better with Garrett Tron Hedlund as a blue collar guy with authentic music and his romance with ex-beauty queen wanna be country pop star Leighton Gossip Girl Meester. I’ve never seen Gossip Girl, but Meester surprised me with her acting chops. With her and Blake Lively, evidently that show has a lot of good young actors. It helps that her character is different than expected like when she studies random historical facts so that she can appear more intelligent duying conversations. Her insecurity about being perceived as superficial is endearing. There is an alternate ending on the Blu-ray that I found actually better but their storyline was the part of the movie I liked. I’m not so crazy about country music nor about the backstage look at any musician, but not that bad overall. 
Phone Booth 3 ½ stars Kiefer Sutherland has an amazing voice. Years of smoking cigarettes apparently pays off. Phone Booth has a gimmick: one guy in one phone booth for the entire film. There is a brief prologue with Stu (Colin Farrell) walking around Times Square talking and lying on his cell to clients and managers, but the rest of it is at that phone booth. I think it’s a great gimmick, this Twilight Zone-esque morality tale of a sniper holding one man hostage at a phone booth until he confesses his wrongdoings. Bullets are scary, but I think the pressure to admit the things you are doing out loud would terrify anyone. If someone came up to you right now and said, “I know what you did last night”, we’d all freak out for a moment, because we’re all guilty. Kiefer is the voice of the sniper and it’s a great performance. It's 99% voice but it's a performance. A witty, sardonic, cruel performance. I remember being in the theater and hearing his smoker's voice emanating from the big bass speakers. He was actually a reshoot choice and the original sniper was a different actor. He and director Joel Schumacher have worked on more than few movies together and it’s a good thing he called in an old friend. An old friend with a very creepy voice.
3 stars When I was trying to explain to a friend what Hanna was about before we saw it, some inarticulate sentence came out regarding a young girl raised in the wilderness who is trained to be an assassin. Thinking about it now, it can probably be summed up as The Bourne Identity with a 16 year-old girl.
Watched this Week:
Steven Soderbergh continues to be an inspiration to me. His commentaries are always intelligent and informative and what he has to say about filmmaking makes a lot of sense. It's helpful and practical. Which makes me sad that he feels like he needs to retire from directing, but personally I think it'll just be a hiatus. At least I hope so.
The Company Men 3 stars I was out of work for 54 weeks starting in late 2008. It was okay since I have no family to support, no debt, no car payments or mortgage payments, and most of my money goes to movies and food. Unemployment benefits got me by fine and I admit I had a lot of fun waking up at 11:30 every day and working out a lot. I do imagine though how bad it could’ve been. 
Rabbit Hole 2 ½ stars I’ve said it before, but how many children have died in the history of movies so we can watch the parents grieve? Rabbit Hole is specifically about grief and not just a subplot so the hero has something to feel, but despite it being directed by the same director as Hedwig and the Angry Inch, most if not all of the territory feels the same. The boy’s room remains unchanged, there’s grief group therapy, the couple is now distant and unaffectionate which boils over into a big screaming argument that explains what everyone is feeling and why. I was hoping for a new take, a different perspective on this subject but it’s not here. Even the scenes where Kidman’s character meets up with the boy responsible for their son’s death aren’t that special. It isn’t half as dark or melancholy as I thought it would be, but it isn’t all that insightful or emotionally engaging either. Also the world of suburbia in the film with gardening and dogs and neighbors asking you over for a cookout is not an enjoyable place to be. Frankly it’s horrifying. Sorry Nicole, you’re still a great actress.
Garden State 4 stars Zach Braff’s Garden State is still the indie romance. It came out of nowhere in 2004 with its phenomenal soundtrack, a very good script by Braff, and a performance by Natalie Portman that is one of her best. Andrew Largeman is an actor in LA and he returns back to his hometown in NJ to attend his mother’s funeral. He’s been somewhat estranged from his parents and has been on one form of mental medication since he was a young boy. The movie is less about the mother and family and much more about returning home after years away. He goes to a party, he hangs out with old friends, and he meets a hilarious girl in the waiting room of a doctor’s office. Sam is one of the great movie characters. She has epilepsy so she has to wear a funny padded helmet occasionally, but most if not all of the character comes from what she says. Braff gives her great dialogue to deliver and Portman handles the tone and subject changes beautifully. So much of what makes the film so good are those conversations between Sam and Largeman. One hyper and talkative, the other docile and subdued. Her rave of his performance as the retarded quarterback still makes me laugh. “Great job man!”
Constantine 3 stars If you really think about it, yeah it’s silly. God and the devil making some wager for the souls of humanity. Whoever influences the most wins? That being said, don’t think about it and just enjoy the style. Keanu Reeves is John Constantine, sort of a grown up version of Haley Osment’s character in The Sixth Sense. He specializes in exorcisms and has a variety of very cool tools to help him do that. I still really like his gold shotgun cross. Rachel Weisz plays twin sisters, one of whom recently took her life and the other wants to know if there is a way she didn’t go to hell. She is a Catholic and suicide is of course a mortal sin. And you know she’s going to meet Constantine.
Watched this Week:
The Truman Show 4 Stars I remember being knocked out when I saw it back in '98. The concept was too good. Truman is a baby born on camera and as he grows up, the reality show around him decides to grow too, and an entire city is built with around 5000 cameras, many actors and extras, and they're all following Truman. The show runs 24 hours a day and people are addicted to it. I know I would be. You'd just want to see if anything would happen. Truman of course wants to explore and travel the world, but the show won't let him, and he eventually he grows suspicious of what is actually going on. The movie was directed by Peter Weir, and the screenplay was written by Andrew Niccol who wrote another great film called Gattaca. I always like his take on the sci-fi future.
Enemy at the Gates 3 ½ stars Enemy at the Gates suffered from coming after Private Ryan. It actually has nothing to do with America, and it focuses very specifically on one story that happened in the conflict between the Soviets and the Nazis. Jude Law is Vassili Zaitsev, Russia's golden boy hero who became a symbol of hope during the war. He is a sniper, a supremely talented sniper, and his reputation grows and grows as Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) begins writing story after story about his encounters and victories over Nazis. Zaitsev killed 10 German soldiers today, Zaitsev eluded a whole platoon last month. Zaitsev becomes such a problem for the Germans that they decide to send in the head of their sharpshooter school Major Erwin Konig. He is played by Ed Harris, and I think it's one of his best performances. Konig isn't a regular soldier, he's an aristocrat. He eats well, gets his boots shined everyday, and he travels alone in a luxury train while troops are crammed in on top of each other in an adjacent one. He is much older than Zaitsev and he has a strong reputation of his own. Harris brings so much weight to the character. A kind of regal quality and dignity that is constantly compelling. Honestly, I would've been okay if he won.
The Way Back 2 ½ stars Peter Weir is a great director. The Truman Show, Dead Poets Society, Master and Commander. He is known as an immaculate planner. He researches and dissects and it's probably a big reason why there are so many years between his films. The Way Back unfortunately tanked at the box office in January. No one saw it, I think barely any people have heard of it despite having Colin Farrell and Ed Harris in its cast. Maybe people weren't interested in a group of Polish and Russian prisoners who escape a brutal Siberian Gulag and walk 4000 miles to India. I mean that is a great story. That's a story that deserves a movie. Still, no one cared.
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Watched this Week: 
