Breach - I saw this for Chris Cooper. He pulls off another creepy/compelling character role as he did in American Beauty and in Adaptation (one of my all-time favourites). Ostensibly a spy thriller but really it's about a gifted and conflicted man who somehow reconciles deep religion, sexual perversity and the selling of state secrets to the Russians.
Fido - My cousin E is an ESL student so when I go to a movie with him we have to choose movies he can follow easily, so no My Dinner With Andre. I do have a thing for Zombie movies especially if they're funny (intentionally that is). This one is not as funny as Shaun of the Dead but not a bad effort.
300 - We snuck in to see this one after Fido. My cousin also likes movies in which many people are killed (strange for such a friendly guy) and many people are killed here indeed. The whole thing is preposterous, ridiculously historically inaccurate and seems to be a cartoonish exhibition of a homo-erotic parade of one washboard set of abs after another. Frank Miller's Sin City is better if you like this comic book stuff.
Last King of Scotland - Oscar loves spitting, spewing and yelling and if you don't believe me then I'll take a flamethrower to this place.
The Lives of Others - German film about a couple being bugged by the East German Secret Police in the seventies. Sure, there's some European seriousness here but efficiently oppressing your citizenry is a serious business.
The Namesake - That guy from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle here in a serious role. Not bad, a little weepy. Dramatic use of the name Gogol.
Notes on a Scandal - British tale of a creepy girl-crush by Dame Judi Dench on the cute Cate Blanchett. Boy-student on woman-teacher sex scenes also prominently on display!
The Queen - Another British movie. I know that it's employed as a way to highlight the person of the Queen but I still think there was too much about the death of Diana.
Smoking Aces - A whole slew of people are killed in Las Vegas by a series of eccentric assassins (a cousin E special).
Zodiac - A much better choice of a movie where a lot of people get killed. The story of the hunt to catch the Zodiac Killer set in 1970's San Francisco. The latest movie by the director of 7even. It's pretty good for what it is (read: perhaps not as good as everybody says).
5 comments:
You forgot about Half Nelson. No thoughts on it?
Thanks. My list was exhausting but not exhaustive.
Half Nelson - Girl-student and man-teacher, but in another kind of surprising relationship. Touching but not sappy.
An Inconvenient Truth - Even if half of it is true this should be a wake up call to those who haven't been paying attention up to now.
Thanks Jake. You know how much I love those teacher movies. I still cry watching To Sir With Love. Half Nelson was a good twist on the usual teacher movie theme.
...any thoughts on stranger than fiction?
Stranger Than Fiction - I've described it as "not quite Charlie Kaufman and not quite Spike Jonze. A digestible cookie of a movie."
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