With all my extra time lately I have been seeing a lot of movies. While meeting up with friends in Vancouver this week they were asking what I do these days. And this is what I said to them. I wake up and say to myself, "What can I do today?" "Are there any good movies I want to see?" "What time should I go to the gym?" "Can I take a trip to the mall and just look?" This is literally what my day consists of. Oh and actually trying to remember what day of the week it is so I know which of my favorite shows are on at night. Tough life...
Reason for this post? Besides to make all you busy people jealous of my life? I have beef with a few movies I saw recently. If anything please read my review on Up In The Air. I recommend it completely to everyone. It was good enough to see multiple times.
First: Dear John. If you haven't seen the movie, don't keep reading this. Skip down to the next picture. First off, I was waiting for the part in the movie where she travels to Italy and finds an old letter to Juliet and responds to it. Ya. Wrong movie. I got the two confused. I thought the overall movie was ok. I only read the first few chapters of the book, a long time ago, so I didn't expect much. My main problem with this movie was the cast. They needed to choose better people that age better. Amanda Seyfried will always look like she is 15 years old. So please don't cast her as someone over that age anymore. Channing Tatum wasn't any better playing his older self. I kept getting confused at the end of the movie when they would show Savannah and John 3 years later and 5 years later. They looked like they were still 15. It didn't look realistic. I was really bugged by this. And what's with the ending? Where the heck was that random meeting? I did not fall in love with this movie like the rest of the world did. I don't care to ever watch it again.
Next: When In Rome. Another typical chick flick. I went with my grandma to see it on opening night. And as we were walking out of the theater she said that next time we should wait a week or two to hear if it's a good movie or not. We definitely could have saved ourselves a few dollars if we would have waited. We made that mistake awhile ago with Leap Year. Saw that on opening night and was dissapointed too. But I guess we are expecting too much from these chick flicks. They are all the same. You know that the girl will end up with the guy in the end. Especially when the movie shows significance on the "meet cute" of the two. You know within the first 15 minutes of the movie what is going to happen in the end. Plus Napoleon Dynamite was in When In Rome. That was dumb.
Now on to the movies I loved!
An Education: One day while watching a movie, I decided that afterward, I wanted to go see another one. So I whipped out my handy dandy iPhone and check movie times. An Education caught my eye. It seemed like an independent film because I had never heard of it before. It sounded good, so I thought I would give it a try. I loved it! It's a story about a girl in high school who meets an older man. She lived a very sheltered life and this man shows her all the things she is missing out on. She falls in love with him and is left to make a big choice. Carey Mulligan is amazing in this film. She deserves an Oscar for this performance. I don't think anyone is going to see this, seeing as how I don't think it's in the theaters anymore. But I think you should rent it. In fact, I KNOW you should rent it. It's very good. It received great reviews on rotten tomatoes. You may think you know where the movie is going to end up, but that definitely doesn't happen. And then once the movie is over you find yourself thinking, "wow, I did not think that would happen." Plus I love that the movie takes place in Britain. All the characters were cast so well. You find yourself falling in love with David (Peter Sarsgaard) while Jenny does. I cannot say enough good things about this movie. GO. SEE. IT!
Next: Crazy Heart. Maybe it's just because I love country music. Or because I love Maggie Gyllenhaal. Or maybe because Jeff Bridges is such a good actor. Or it could be because I am all about the independent films. Whatever the reason, Fox Searchlight picked a great movie! And I was captivated the entire 112 minutes. I think Maggie is one of the best actresses in really becoming her character. It seems so hard to imagine that these two characters would really fall in love. When she is first interviewing Bad Blake it looks like something would happen between them. And I kept thinking, no, no, no, he's too old for you. But then when it happens it seems so real. And you find yourself cheering for it and hoping that Bad Blake can change his life around to better fit with Jean and her son's life. You see Blake in the lowest times of his life. And you see him starting to turn it around and become successful at everything again. It hurts my heart to think about the ending. I would have wished for a different outcome. I think they both are deserving of their Oscar nominations. I hope Maggie wins. But among the people she is up against, I am not holding my breath. Another must see.
Next: Up In The Air. First of all, I was so excited to see this movie. A lot of it was filmed in St. Louis when I was living there last year. In fact I remember one time a viewer called in to tell us there was a limo being escorted by what looked like unmarked police vehicles around town. So I got the job of calling the police department to find out who was in the limo. We were assuming it was George Clooney. They never would tell us who it was. But I think they were saying they knew nothing about it.Second, I often find favorite quotes/lines from movies while watching. But in this particular movie one scene fit so well into my daily life that I HAD to pull out my phone and write it in the notes. So Ryan and Natalie are flying on an airplane together for the first time. Ryan hates Natalie at this point because she brought about a new way of doing his job that would mean he didn't have to travel all the time. But traveling was his life, so he didn't like it. So they are on the plane and she is typing on her laptop working on something. Before they show the characters you can hear the typing noises from Natalie's computer. I knew right then that Ryan would say something about it. And I knew before he even said something that this would be my favorite scene. He turns to her and says, "You mad at your computer?" She says, "I'm typing with purpose." Then he says, "What is it that you're working so furiously on." I LAUGHED OUT LOUD during this part. You may not think it's one bit funny. But to me, this is hilarious. One of my biggest pet peeves is people typing too loud on their computers. It BUGGGGGSSSS me to no end. It's on my "In my world, you would be punished if you..." list. See future post for explanation. I am always looking for new ways to explain the banging on the keys... "You mad at your computer?" is just genius.
Back to what I thought of the rest of the movie. I read some reviews for this before I went to the theater. I remember one person said you think you know what's going to happen and then the film goes in a complete opposite direction. While watching the movie I completely forgot about this review. So I kept thinking one thing was going to happen and then it didn't. It wasn't until afterward that I remembered I was warned about that.
Ryan Bingham, Clooney, is a man who travels 90% of his life for a company that fires people for other companies. His one goal in life is to reach 1 million frequent flier miles with American Airlines. You think of him as heartless and so void of any human emotion. You think nothing can phase him. Until the prospect of losing the traveling part of his job comes up. Once that happens, we see a different side of him as he brings along a coworker, Natalie, (Anna Kendrick) along on his trips. She teaches him a lot about love and human emotions. His "one night stand" that turns into multiple meet ups in the different cities they are in, Alex (Vera Farmiga) seems to be the perfect match for him. But he doesn't see it as more than a physical relationship. That is, until he goes back home for his sister's wedding. He realizes that human emotion and attachment are what he has been missing in his life. Then his outlook on life and love change. I don't want to say anymore about the movie because out of all of these, I want everyone to see this the most. It was so good. One thing I really love about the casting of this movie is that they used real people who had recently lost their jobs. So the emotion coming from these characters is real. You feel for them while they are trying to grasp the fact that they have just been fired. Great decision to use that real emotion.
I had not seen it before the SAG awards or else I would have been cheering on Anna Kendrick and Vera Farmiga both to win that night. They did an excellent job. I will own this when it comes out on DVD.
Last but not least: Valentine's Day. This movie was not amazing. But it definitely was a fun one to watch. There's too many big actors and actresses in this to not like it. But at the end a song was played that made me melt in my seat. Literally. I am not kidding. If you can remember, I posted about a week ago songs that I have been loving lately. 4 and 20 is one of them. I had not seen the soundtrack for this movie before I saw it. So it was a complete shock towards the end of the movie when I heard Joss Stone's voice. I DIED. And I will honestly say that I like this movie because of that one song. And it fits so perfectly... AHHH!! I love it.So there you have it. My recommendations for movies to see and movies to avoid. (or wait until the dollar theater) I am excited for next week. I have plans to see some more films that have Oscar nominations. Like Precious, It's Complicated, Lovely Bones and maybe The Messenger. I refuse to see Avatar though.
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