Too Significant

06:57 pm - Dead Journal

I'm giving up on LiveJournal.
I'm gonna try Google+ for a while.

https://plus.google.com/105567435655052028859/posts

07:01 pm - Moneyball

Great movie. I really enjoyed it. And I don't even like baseball.

07:00 pm - Abduction

This movie stars the guy from Twilight. No, not the constipated guy, the other one.

He is clearly trying to branch out into more serious roles. No more cheap attempts at capitalizing on his teen heartthrob status. For example, we go through at least 10 minutes of this movie before we see him without his shirt on.

But I shouldn't make fun of him. I made fun of Leonardo DiCaprio when he made his first few movies, and now he's one of my favourite actor.

01:13 am - Drive

For a movie about driving fast, the story is often remarkably slow.

I’m not sure that the crowd that the previews attracted will be pleased with the movie itself. This is not a movie for the Fast & Furious crowd. This is a movie for the Reservoir Dogs crowd.

10:35 pm - What are the kids up to?

01:52 am - Les Schtroumpfs (The Smurfs)

To paraphrase Grouchy Smurf's last line:
       I hated this movie... a lot less than I thought I would.

It's probably going to be a little more enjoyable to people familiar with the smurfs.
But even then, I'm sure it would better than any of the chipmunks movies (which is the same basic idea).

01:51 pm - Rat City Roller Girls

I've watched enough sport movies to know that you should always cheer for the underdog. You just know they're going to win.

Turns out... in the real world... underdogs tend to lose :-(

But I don't care. I'll be back next year and I'll continue to cheer for the Sockit Wenches.

01:20 am - Midnight in Paris

Woody Allen is in love with European cities. Last time it was Barcelona, this time it’s Paris.

If you’re thinking about seeing this movie (or you are a guy and your wife/girlfriend is nagging you to see it), there are a few things you should be aware of:

1) it is unabashed in its love for Paris. At times, it can get nauseating.
2) it has a fair amount of dialogue in French, and almost no subtitles. Prenez garde.
3) it is filled with obscure references to authors and painters.

As you might expect, no 3 was a problem for me. I recognized the names of the authors Fitzgerald, Hemmingway, etc… but the references to their work went way above my head. Same for the painters. But I will redeem myself by discussing the one reference to classic cinema in this movie.

At one point, our protagonist travels back to 1920s and meets a young Spanish filmmaker, and he gives him the idea for a movie where party guests find themselves incapable of leaving. They are not being restrained in any way, they just seem unable to motivate themselves to leave. This is in reference to “The Exterminating Angel” by Luis Buñuel, a classic movie that feels a lot like a Twilight Zone episode. I saw that movie during my “see all IMDb Top 250 movies” phase. At the time, I had to go to Scarecrow videos and give a $200 deposit to rent a VHS tape of this movie. But apparently the movie is now available on Netflix. Maybe it’s time I catch up on the Top 250 list again.

01:13 am - The Tree of Life

I have very mixed feelings about this movie.
Let’s start with the final verdict:

This movie sucks.

Ok, now for the mixed feelings part. If I could edit this movie into a short, I would remove any trace of the story (and I’m being extremely generous by using the term “story” here). Then I would remove the annoying whispered narration of poetic proses. What we’d be left with is a series of visual effects and cinematography that is absolutely jaw-dropping gorgeous!

 

12:02 am - The Quiet Life

Vote: 3

If you understand German and Italian, you'll probably appreciate this movie a bit more than I did. Reading subtitles late at night is tedious :-)

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