Mephistos

I know, impressive.  I saw this movie this evening and I am already writing about it.  It must be something weird in the air, nearly Halloween, or just something else weird.  So I debated between this movie, Appaloosa, and another movie, a French action thriller, titled, Tell No One.   Appaloosa won out in the end because it was a western and it co-starred Vigo Mortensen. So off to see I went, to an almost empty theatre, as I caught the very earliest show I could.  I am thinking, in hindsight, that I must have caught the tail end in the run, but for the life of me I only really just recall having seen information about with in the last week or so. Read more…

This movie is coming out on HBO (and recently was released on DVD) this month and once again I am running this far behind in giving a review of it.  I actually caught this at the theater in probably its last week at the cheap cinema back during the summer sometime.   The movie itself it definitely not for everyone.  First is the fact that is a historical biographical film that is slightly over two hours long.  Ad to that, it was done by a foreign film crew by director Sergei Bodrov, who is Russian.  And lastly consider that the entire movie is filmed using a mixture language, mostly Mongolian, and subtitled. Read more…

No, not the duchess who is known as Fergie of  Black Eyed Peas fame, but rather a very well made costume drama based on historical facts.  I went of course, to see this movie because of it being a historical costume drama.  The fact that it played at the large theater in the Kentucky did not hurt and add to that two favorites playing in it and it was a done deal for sure.

So lets start with the theater.  Once again, I can not say enough if you have not yet seen something over the this wonderfully restored art deco styled building.  The Duchess played in the original theater, with its huge stained glass ceiling Read more…

This is a movie that came out back at the beginning of 2008 and I saw it sometime in the spring at the cheap discount theater.  It was not that I saw there because I did not want to see, as in fact it had looked promising from the day it was released.  I just did not get around to it until a later hour like that.  It seems that I have this problem about time managment with this movie alll the way around as I am just now getting around to making a posting about the movie.  Granted, I was not as active on the blog font back in those months but I have been since.  I had been holding this one though until it made the next step.  Now is the time though, as the movie is premiering on HBO  on the morrow evening at 8:00pm, if I have my facts straight.

Atonement is set in Britain in 1935 for its beginning scenes.  There is an older sister, Cecelia, played by Kiera Knightley Read more…

It has been a while since I have done one of these, but just as I occasionally comment on some music I also occasionally comment on a movie (I have about a dozen of these, both music and movies to post yet).  I did however just see a new movie at the Kentucky Theatre over the weekend.  By the way, if you have not seen a movie at the Kentucky, you should make a plan to do so - it was restored some time back around 1987-88 to its splendor as 1930-40’s theatre.  They run a mixture of art films, popular movies, cult classics on the weekends, along with the occasional other oddity mixed in here and there.  In addition they have the Woodsongs television show filmed on location and occasionally other concerts are held in the venue.  One of my favorite Wednesday afternoon about sixtenn or seventeen years ago was seeing Dr. Zhivago on the big screen. Read more…

Well folks, after something like 20 years of waiting for a sequel that was talked about the last 10 of those, I have to unfortunately suggest strongly that you keep your $8.50 for something else. I don’t want to ruin the plot for anyone who is still going to spend the money, but please at the very least catch an afternoon screening and pay 2/3’s price.

Here are in my opinion a few things that are very wrong with the movie (and given the Ford, Lucas, & Spielberg team it is surprising to be so wrong):

1. Just to much running around doing things with out really that much action. Historically Indiana Jones movies were action flicks that moved along with action well placed and a that sense of what is going to be next. Well, at least mostly, this one is closer to the 2nd one in the franchise on that score.
2. Dialog was just seemingly forced, what of there was. Now some would argue what was I expecting, but I would point them back to the previous movies and contend that the dialog was crisp and witty at times. This one, what bit of that it tried to have just relied on references to lines back in the previous movies.
3. The script was pretty lousy. Not trying to give to much away, but the previous movies, despite having a huge religious supernatural element still worked and didn’t require to much on most of our parts to willing suspend our disbelief in such things. This one was just so 1950’s B movie crap.
4. The direction/acting was lousy. Not sure that was not more a problem with the script and just not having enough there to really let any characters come to life. What minor attempts were made (and there are very few) are just seemingly absurd.
5. I have already mentioned willing suspension of disbelief, and I will even give you that a few scenes in the previous movies were hard to swallow at times. Maybe it because the rest of the episode being so crappy, but this flick just had way to many things going on it in that were just to far beyond the believable.

Well, I tried to say enough to discourage with spoiling if you still insist. If you want some more, I suggest a look at Kansas City Star reviews and comments, which mostly agree with my sentiments. To Lucas and Spielberg I suggest you put Indie to bed and perhaps consider going there yourselves if you can’t do better. To Ford, well we know you can still do better - suppose the temptation was just to much eh? Well, I for one am not going to be adding this one, my collection will remain the trilogy it should. This last one belongs in a museum (of bad crappy movies, in a cold dark wet place with lots of snakes).

Note:  I started writing this one about four weeks ago and finished it just lately.

A little more then a week ago, while over at a friends house, he popped in a new to DVD movie titled Into the Wild. It tells the story of Christopher McCandless, during the few short years between when he graduates college and his death a few short years later. During those few short years though McCandless lives a full life that few of us today are brave enough or otherwise willing to pursue, ultimately ending up in the Alaskan wild. A short synopsis is in order to begin.

We see McCandless at an abandoned bus in the Alaska wild that is called the magic bus. The rest of the movie flashes back from the time he graduates Emory college up through the time he is at the bus. Apparently he had issues with his materialistic motivated parents who apparently didn’t get along so well either. After college instead of heading to Harvard as was discussed, he instead cashes out his college fund, donates its, cuts up credit cards, and takes off across country. Enjoying his freedom he travels from one place to another doing simple jobs that include working at burger place, a long time with a grain farm/co-op, helping some hippies selling books, and leather work with an old man. He also enjoys during his travels lots of nature including kayaking down the Grand Canyon, ending up in Mexico, and the oceans and beeches of the coast. During all of this, he has one focus, which is to go to the last great frontier of Alaska and live completely on his own as self-sufficiently as possible. I will not spoil the movie any further - as I think it is well worth watching if you haven’t seen it.

The thing that attracted me to this movie is the sense of free spirit or just plain old freedom that comes from this. It is the kind of thing that I am often tempted to think about doing myself.  I can see myself in my tempted thoughts riding off with two or three horses, a pack of stuff on one them, a dog in tow just because she would let me leave without her, and heading out to Montana or Wyoming across country… Tempted to think about - but then I have to admit in the end I am to attached to things to just up and let go of everything and move about surviving on occasion on little more then pure darned luck.

Bottom line is this - my hats off to McCandless for actually having had the gumption to have actually lived life to the fullest.

Recently saw the move There Will be Blood, starring Daniel Day-Lewis. A very good American, almost epical, type of film that follows one mans life from that of prospector/miner to that of successful oil man. The movie spans thirty years, starting pre-1900 and ending in the 1920’s - though most of action takes place in the the early 1910’s, where Daniel Plainview (Day-Lewis) is working new oil fields in Little Boston. He uses his “son” to present himself as a family man with simple values and is the man to sign your oil deal. A quick warning to anyone that is stumbing on this and has not seen it, I have a spoiler or two below this point, so turn back now or you have been warned otherwise just in case.

In a true representation of the early version of an Enron type of dealings, it is all a lie. Reality is that Plainview picked the boy as an orphan when he was a baby to help him sell himself to the plain simple folks that he needed get the mineral rights from. In that regard, the irony of his name, Plainview, is itself something to observe and not let be lost on anyone. Throughout the movie, we see how Plainview represents himself as whatever is needed at the moment, even going so far as to accept joining a fanatical church in order to seal the deal for a piece of land he needs to desperately for his business dealings to be successful.

Plainview is the constant player, always representing himself as whatever he thinks the people want to see him as in order to get what he wants. He does have some interesting quirks that seems to come out when someone refuses to see him as he wants, where he lets loose with seeming uncontrollable rage. Most fascinating to me though is the two characters that he runs into that are most like him - a pretender (first the man pretending to be his brother, and his antagonist throughout, the prophet/preacher) - are found out by him and in a true dog eat dog world - killed at his hand. There is a seeming lesson there as well.

Overall though, this movie reminded me of exactly what it is that I think is so often wrong with corporate America and exactly why I was so happy not really being a part of that coroporate America a few years back. Why I am so often longing to return to a simplier agrarian lifestyle, why the simple way of the cowboy have such appeal. In the end despite his success in business, Plainview is a bitter lonely man because he simply lacks that connection with nature and humanity itself. It is interesting to note though, that despite beind driven the boy he took in for his purposes, breaks ranks to be in outside, in nature, in the end wether that means success or failure - and for that Plainview dis-owns him completely.