Bad guy, good actor?

Another old treadmill movie.



Conspiracy Theory


Mel Gibson and Julia Roberts - no romantic chemistry there but you could believe they were friends. Mel Gibson might not be such a nice guy, but his acting isn't bad. He plays a cabdriver who sees conspiracies everywhere and accidentally stumbles across a real one. Sort of. He is pursued by various agencies and elaborately covers his tracks and misleads them. It's pretty clever. Best line "I'm just a guy trying to put out a fire". This story has a common thread with "The men who stare at goats". Maybe it's real. I enjoyed this movie, lots of action, it made the treadmill time pass quickly.


BH has cabin fever, might have to go away somewhere this weekend.

Old school

More old movies from the library.



The Thomas Crown Affair

I think movie makers should give movies names that excite interest. Generally speaking, people's names are not interesting. This movie is way more interesting than it's name would lead you to suspect. It's a cross and double cross art theft and investigation story. Pierce Brosnan is innately suave. Rene Russo seems to have a bit of a chip on her shoulder. That's how she wears her coats too. Please, sleeves, you are supposed to put your arms in them. It's a clever heist and ends nicely. The museum scene near the end is a delightful farce, but the airplane scene, you would get shot by an air marshal.



The Pink Panther

This is the 1960s version, so it's pretty old school. Gentleman actors David Niven and Peter Sellers and the gorgeous Claudia Cardinale - Catherine Zeta Jones is so like her. Peter Sellers was a genius, a tortured genius. This movie showcases his gift for physical comedy. Otherwise it is a British bedroom farce from the old days, but still amusing. In the final scene, I am sure that one of the policemen is Burt Lancaster, but have been unable to confirm this in a cursory internet search.

Back to Peter Sellers - as I said, a genius. A member of the off-the-wall, ahead of it's time Goon Show. He plays it straight in "The Optimists of Nine Elms", and semi-straight in 'Being There", both wonderful movies. Sadly missed.

Treadmill time

Delightfully cool, only 28 degrees C.



Ghost

I watched this while doing some treadmill time and it kept me distracted. It's still a satisfying movie. Swayze looks really in love and Moore is impossibly youthful looking. The clay love scene is so sensual. Goldberg provides the comedy. I like the things that take the bad guys away, I always think of them as O'Neill's "formless fears" and an obvious precursor to J K Rowling's dementors. It's a good story.



The kittens are getting brave, sometimes they enter the house.

Change in the weather

Be careful what you wish for. I wished for a change in the weather and got thunderstorms with a forest fire caused by lightning. Yikes!



The Sorcerer's Apprentice


A fun but non-original idea that didn't deliver. Ancient sorcerer Balthazar (Nicholas Cage) is looking for the one who can wear the dragon ring, to help him free his girlfriend who is trapped in a nesting doll with the evil Morgana. The other layers of the doll have other trapped wizards. Nerdy guy becomes that apprentice, mayhem ensues in modern day New York. It's part Cinderella, part Fantasia (yes, they do the house-cleaning sequence), part Karate Kid, a touch of Harry Potter, and lots of other similar genre movies. It appeared to me to be a series of scenes or set-pieces, lacking the sense of momentum which obviously needed to be there to get us to the climactic scene. I didn't like Nicholas Cage in it, but to be fair, I don't like him in anything. I think he went to the same acting school as Helen Hunt. He has one facial expression, either worried, constipated, or waiting for Botox, one of those describes it. He is not believable as a magical person. Hmmm, that's an interesting idea in itself. Alfred Molina models Horvath on David Suchet's Hercule Poirot, at least sartorially, and there is a random magician rock star who could have been played nicely by Russell Brand, but wasn't. The geeky guy is okay, the maybe girlfriend is superfluous, the female sorcerers are non-events. Best bits: geeky guy's laboratory in a disused underground railway, the eagle and, no sorry, can't think of anything else. There was some good music.



Yesterday it rained. I don't think the kittens have ever seen rain. Must have been a shock for them. Wait till the snow comes!

Best blog ever!

No, not mine. Women please read this. Men, don't bother, you won't get it.

http://myfaultimfemale.wordpress.com/

Who hasn't been there?




The Spitfire Grill


I judged this DVD by it's cover for a while, it looked vaguely supernatural. Today I thought I would give it a chance and if it didn't engage me in the first 5 minutes I wouldn't bother with it. The first sight caught me and I watched it in one sitting. A young woman (Percy) is released from prison and goes to the small town of Gilead, Maine for a new start. Pretty country. She works in the Spitfire Grill with older woman Hannah. She does some good things, then gets suspected of a bad thing. Meanwhile who is the mysterious man in the woods and why was Percy in prison? Look out for the pinecone birds.

Mostly relatively unknown (to me anyway) actors, none of them glamorous. They looked like real people. Delightfully subtle acting but a lot of "stranger in small town" cliches. That's to be expected - I am a stranger in a small town myself and some of those cliche situations are pretty real. This movie gives rednecks a bad name - oops, too late, they are quite capable of doing that for themselves.

I had to have English subtitles to help me decipher some of the dialogue, regional accents you know. I liked this movie. Pretty much a chick flick.




Continues hot, getting hotter. No respite until September apparently.

Gym movie

Hot - every day is very hot. The desert gets like that. So after my workout I watched another movie at the gym. I asked the man in charge what he would recommend (didn't have my glasses) and said I don't like scary movies. He said I was out of luck. Actually, he said they also have action and another word he used to imply non-clever comedies, then handed me:


Robin Hood - Men in Tights

It's Mel Brooks, of course it's funny. Stupid funny, sometimes clever funny, lots of visual gags and industry references - 12th century fox for example, and a reference to a Robin of Loxley who has an English accent. Beautiful Maid Marian, thought it was Petra Bagust in a wig for a minute. Funniest parts - the Men in Tights song, and Mel Brooks as a Rabbi.

It had a Monty Python feel about it but never attained the heights of deadpan comedy and ridiculousness that John Cleese, Michael Palin (any relation?), Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Graham Chapman gave us. But nobody expects ...



Have a good weekend. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to anyone who might be celebrating a 50th birthday but might want to remain nameless. Sorry about missing the party. You don't look a day over 25.

Rich criminal

Today, an opinion on current events.



Roman Polanski


Sleazy film director admits drugging and raping etc a 13 year old girl. Don't forget the etc. Then he says he just did what every man wants to do. Is it any wonder I think men are a bit suspect in their entitlement to being considered human beings? So he gets a slap on probably a minion's wrist with a wet bus ticket and a token stay at a psychiatric institution. He is released after 42 days but the judge (what was he on? Remember this was California in the 1970's) wants him to serve the full 90 days. 90 days? Did he not pay a parking fine? Maybe he jaywalked - don't try that in Seattle folks (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgFenCL0jzw).

Polanski skips the country for 30-odd years. Now Switzerland has refused to extradite him to face trial in the US. The victim wants it all to go away. Too late honey, it's not about you anymore. It's about men's power over women and children, it's about acceptable human behaviour, and it's about justice being served. Some have commented that the victim was no angel. So? Does that make it right for an adult to rape a child? Even someone who should have known better said maybe it was consensual. If you are below the age of consent there is no way in law it can be consensual. I think the issue of plying the child with alcohol and quaaludes might cloud that argument if it was in fact an argument. Like saying she consented after she had a hefty dose of the creepy loser's friend rohypnol.

What have we learned from this episode? Here are some possibilities, all alleged of course:

California condoned child rape in the 1970's
Some judges quite like the idea and don't think it should be punished
Rich famous people don't need to go to jail
If you have a tough early life (Polanski did - I respect his survival) you have carte blanche to make someone else's early life traumatic
Switzerland condones child rape

and that old favourite:

If you are female you are asking to be raped. Even if you are a child.


Human beings have accepted standards of behaviour. The stronger are supposed to protect the weaker, not prey on them. We are not animals. I hope that, one day, men may join the human race and behave like human beings.

I apologise to the good men out there.

Odd but okay

More old videos


Jade

Two redheads in the same movie, in leading roles no less. This is a movie from 1995, starring David Caruso. He's okay. It's a story of sex, blackmail and murder. It has car chases in San Francisco, with the unique driving challenges that city presents. It has the most graphic car versus pedestrian accident. It has weird sex, a sulky-looking leading lady and scary music. Some crass lines. What is it with men - they have to denigrate what they are biologically compelled to seek. Why? Are they ashamed of their desires and their humanness? Are they all misogynists fighting a biological compulsion to mate with the female of the species but hating every second of it? I've been seeing a lot of it in movies and I know it happens in real life. Women like men. What do men like? Back to the movie - not a winner. Best bit: Caruso's character is assistant District Attorney. He works in a building which has a cat. I like that.



The Outlaw


I didn't watch all of this. It's a Howard Hughes movie from 1943. Jane Russell is well built - I noticed a distinct resemblance between us. She doesn't act much. The movie seems to be about the relationship between Billy the Kid, Doc Holliday and Pat Garrett. All funny. There is a bit of a school yard spat about friendship - those three-ways never work. I don't think it is intentionally gay, but that's what it looked and sounded like - a masculine love triangle. One of them has to die of course.


30 degrees C, but apparently only feels like 28 degrees C. That's a relief.

My Marley

Still hot. Went to the gym to watch a movie. Mistake.



Marley and Me


Sad. Too sad for pet owners. Way too sad for this blogger who has a well-loved 16 year old cat named Marley.

Happy remake

We went to the city and started the day right with:


Karate Kid

My choice, not his, but he was happy to see it. I'm not a martial arts movie fan, but I enjoyed the Karate Kid movie from way back so thought this would be okay. It was more than okay, it was excellent. Jaden Smith can act. He has subtlety, humour and humility. He acts with his eyebrows. If he avoids the Lindsay Lohan school of how to be famous and wreck your life, he surely has a great cinematic future. He can dance, is a Kung Fu master, and I expect he can sing as well. He is also a very good looking young man. A renaissance man like his father. His character Dre moves to China, has a hard time fitting in, likes a girl, gets beaten up by Chinese Kung Fu experts (his classmates), and is rescued by the maintenance man Mr Han (played by Jackie Chan). That rescue is a good scene. Mr Han teaches Dre Kung Fu so he can enter a competition and win some respect. At the same time Mr Han is restoring a car - that is explained later in a moving scene. The training is worth watching. Jaden Smith really did train that hard and built up his little body with muscles no twelve year old should have.

The training visits to the Dragon Well and the Great Wall are beautiful. Such scenery and serenity. A boost for the Chinese tourism industry no doubt. Truly magnificent. It's a happy ending story, as far as brutal martial arts competitions can be happy. Dre's mother is sitting in the audience cheering him on. I would have been down there in the ring berating the other child who was beating my baby up. Yes, I caused my children a degree of embarrassment at times. Smith and Chan triumphantly rule this movie. Chan needs more of those thinking-man character roles. Others of note are the violin-playing girlfriend, the main bully Cheng and the evil Kung Fu school instructor. He could be a Bond villain. The camera work is often choppy in an appropriate action-movie way, beware of that if you get migraines. The music is good, adding emphasis to the action. It's a long movie but holds the attention all the way through. A sequel would be most acceptable. So: it is a well-acted, well-written, attractive movie with messages. Uplifting and entertaining.



Slightly getting used to the heat now.

Good advice

Found a nice way to keep cool. My gym has extra rooms, one for Wii and Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and one for PlayStation, dvds and Blu-Ray movies. It is also very well air conditioned. So after my workout I watched a movie. I'll be doing that again.



He's Just Not That Into You


I didn't have my glasses and this was the only title I could read that looked like a chick flick. It's a series of interconnecting stories about women and the men they meet. More specifically, it's about the waiting, the group agonising, the phone/email/text stalking that goes on when a man says he will call and then doesn't. The "signs" are discussed and interpreted at length. Extraordinary scenarios are dreamed up to explain the lack of contact. Gigi (the glowing and friendly looking Ginnifer Goodwin) meets Alex who tells her that if a man wants to see a girl again, he will make it happen.

This is very good advice and the movie should be required viewing for all women. Stop chasing men. Let the man chase you. Men value things that are hard to attain. So be hard to attain. Have a life of your own. If he really wants to be with you he will. Stop being so desperate. And forget any ideas you had about men and women being equal. This is an ancient game played by ancient rules.

As for men - if you don't want to see someone again - just say so. Say "Thanks for the great evening, it was nice to meet you but I don't think this is going to go any further." Or "You are a really interesting person but I feel we are too different to be together." Or "It was an interesting experience but I don't think we are on the same wavelength." Then shake hands and leave without a backward glance. DO NOT SAY you are going to call when you know you are not going to. It shows you up as unmanly and dishonest. Women talk and you will soon get a reputation for pathetic wimpiness so you will have to move to another town to date any women at all. Lecture over. What's the opposite of mysogyny? - I think I have that.

This movie has lots of famous faces, including the dashing but possibly surgically enhanced Kris Kristofferson. I saw him in concert - awesome. Jennifer Aniston is moving into character roles, Ben Affleck does the "right thing", Bradley Cooper ("Face" in the A-Team) wrecks his reluctantly-entered marriage, surprisingly not because of his fling with the luscious Scarlett Johansson but because of his failure to give up smoking. All engaging stories. The nicest characters are Gigi and Alex. Drew Barrymore is on the verge of the character role, but she is still undeniably cute. Cute like her character in ET. She has a Heidi-esque hairstyle (as in yodelling not modelling or madam-ing) and the worst blouse ever seen. Which designer? I'd like to avoid him or her. Jennifer Aniston walks up the aisle, as a bridesmaid, with a dog. Bad choice, prompted mean but joking comments. She suffers from some unflattering camera angles.

I liked this movie. Total chick flick. Men should not see this movie. Do we really want them to know how stupid women can be? Side benefit - I dreamed about Brad Pitt changing his career to become a gardener. He's not in the movie but can anyone see Jennifer Aniston and not think of him?



A trip to the city is planned for today, might even go to the movies.

Fat and thin

At least the weather is consistent - the forecast is for daily highs of 29 degrees C for the next 10 days.



Someone is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe


A book by Nan and Ivan Lyons, also a movie under the name of Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe - I haven't seen it but will look out for it. This is a black comedy or maybe a humourous murder mystery with recipes you will not want to try. The title gives you the plot. Someone is killing the chefs whose decadently rich food is killing him. I enjoyed it for a light read. Why am I telling you about it? For this wonderful exchange between Max and Natasha:
"[They] had to have been killed by the same person, or maybe some international group of organized criminals."
"You mean like Weight Watchers?"




Castaway


Tom Hanks acting in his usual sincere and believable way. So sincere he lost a great deal of weight for this movie. I believe he had to do that for "Philadelphia" too. Why is Helen Hunt in movies? Fedex exec Hanks is cast away on a deserted island for a few years. The bulk of the movie is just him and a volleyball and how they cope with isolation and survival. I think that survival thing appeals to a lot of people - how could I survive, where would I make my camp, what can I use to help me survive? A modern day Robinson Crusoe, with some MacGyverish ideas. We put this DVD in the player just to check it was working and ended up watching the whole thing. A happy ending is implied after Hanks delivers a Fedex package that was cast away with him and let's face it, who wouldn't want to date Tom Hanks? A good movie.


When will they make a movie of MacGyver and will Richard Dean Anderson star? I understand one is on the way and I will be first in line to see it, I have to check if it is suitably MacGyverish. Janna, watch out for it.

Kid's movie

Pleasant weather, not too hot.


Toy Story 3

Another animated/CGI movie. I watched the first Toy Story because a friend was working on it and it was cool to see her name in the credits. At that time it was a bit cutting edge as far as CGI goes. It also had a good story and great characters. Toy Story 3 does not disappoint. A lovely story, if a little scary at times. I can see a generation of children refusing to ever throw out old toys. The characters in this movie are well developed and very appropriately voiced. This is another MacGyverish tale of bravery, ingenuity, nostalgia, loyalty and love. The Heath-Robinson inventions that aid their adventures are delightful, showing the characters, the toys, in a realistic environment with it's unique challenges despite their abilities to walk, talk, and in the case of Mrs Potato Head, be far-seeing. Some toys are not what they seem, and the film abounds in social learning opportunities, as we are told by the doleful Chuckles just why a certain character is the way he is. I can't give too much away, my daughter hasn't seen the movie yet. Some scenes in this movie had me reaching out for a hand to hold as it seemed that there was no way for the toys to escape certain doom. A classic scene involves Ken modelling outfits from his extensive wardrobe for Barbie, who is not the dumb blonde she is sometimes portrayed as. Best characters: Woody, with his Tom Hanks wholesomeness, and the dear little girl Bonnie. She could star in her own CGI movie.

It's not real, but it's a darn good representation of reality, a very watchable morality tale.



Enjoy Independence Day.

Religion

Another old library video.


The Saint

The 1997 movie version of the television series. It lacks the sauvity (suaveness?) of the television series. Its an action movie with not enough action and far too much romance, with some of the ugliest movie kissing ever. Kilmer's character is a master of disguise but I was distracted by the way he seemed to be channelling Neil from "The Young Ones". The old Russian guy was apparently not George Best and his son was apparently not Laurence Llewelyn Bowen. Best line - "While you're down there ..." Highlight of the movie - Julian Rhind-Tutt (Mac from "Green Wing") in a bit part. Another dig at the Catholic church at the beginning. Well worth missing. It might just be acceptable if you have never seen the television series.


Good night.