Talking Movies

The last month I’ve been on a bit of a movie marathon.  Well, a marathon for me – 5 movies in the past 4 weeks!  Here’s a quick review of those flicks: 

Inception

I’ve been waiting a long time to see this.  You see we own the movie but heard that it was confusing and you really had to pay attention.  So each time I suggested we watch it Mrs. would claim she didn’t want to commit to a movie that required thought.  It became a running joke in our house for a year or so.  But we brought the DVD with us to the in-laws over the holidays and there was enough interest that I finally got Mrs. to sit down and watch it.  And it didn’t disappoint.  I highly enjoyed Inception, a thoroughly original movie with really cool special effects and an interesting story.  I also didn’t find the plot confusing at all, so I’m not sure what all that was about (perhaps I’m just smarter than everyone else?).  I’m sure there were some things that wouldn’t make sense if you thought about them long enough (dreams within dreams, being cognizant of the dreams of others), but I just didn’t think too much and let myself be entertained.  A definite recommendation.

The Bourne Legacy

Mrs. and I have enjoyed each of the Bourne films, so we decided one night to order The Bourne Legacy On Demand.  At the end of the day it felt very similar to the other films in the series, which was both good (it was fast paced with cool action sequences) and bad (it’s just more of the same so did we need another film?).  Mrs. liked Jeremy Renner (replacing Matt Damon as the lead) in the role of Aaron Cross, another member of Operation Treadstone, the program that Damon’s Jason Bourne was a part of.  After watching him scale a building I jokingly said it would be cool to be badass like that and was then mocked incessantly by Mrs. for weeks (apparently I’m not badass).  Overall I felt the plot was a little thin, and if we get another Bourne film (and the franchise might be going stale at this point) they’re going to have to get Aaron Cross and Jason Bourne together.

The Dark Knight Rises

I enjoyed Batman Begins, but like many really felt that The Dark Knight took superhero films to another level.  Going in, I wasn’t sure that The Dark Knight Rises could live up to that.  When the film ended my first thought was that The Dark Knight was still the best of the three, but I’ve since wavered.  I wonder if Heath Ledger’s fantastic performance as The Joker is having too much influence on my overall opinion of the film.  I’ll just say that The Dark Knight Rises was pretty damn good in its own right and did live up to the expectations set by the previous film.  I didn’t love the Bain character, but I did like the little “twist” with his character and another at the end.  And I thought it was a great idea to delve more into the Bruce Wayne character and focus more on him than Batman.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anne Hathaway give stand out performances and were welcome additions to the cast.  A good ending for this high quality trilogy.

Safety Not Guaranteed

I saw a trailer for this awhile back and was interested in checking it out.  The plot involves a writer for a Seattle magazine and two interns trying to find a guy who placed an ad in the newspaper looking for someone to time travel with him, to determine if he thinks he’s serious and see if they can get a story out of it.  I knew it wasn’t a Mrs. type film so I took advantage of her being out of town to watch it one night.  If you’re a fan of smaller budget films this is definitely something to check out.  It’s only 86 minutes long, but is a fun, well written, and entertaining movie.  Aubrey Plaza (who’s already great as April on Parks and Recreation) does a great job as one of the interns.  And don’t let the time travel thing throw you off, you don’t see any actual time travel (at least not until the very end).  I’ll also add that at first I thought the end was a bit of a let down, but quickly realized it was perfect.

Les Miserables

Mrs. is a big fan of Les Miserables, but despite the popularity of the musical (the book may not be as popular since it’s thousands of pages in unabridged versions), I really didn’t know the story.  So Mrs. gave me a crash course a few weeks ago after the movie version was released, which she really wanted to go see.  And even though it had been years since we’d been to the movie theater, we found ourselves there last weekend to see Les Miserables.  I would say that if you’re a fan of the musical, the movie is probably pretty fantastic for you.  I’m not a huge musical fan, and even though I don’t think this movie changed my mind on that, I’ll admit that it was really good.  Hugh Jackman as Jean Valjean and Anne Hathaway as Fantine are the highlights, with the latter delivering the emotional "I Dreamed a Dream" song and locking up her Oscar.  I’d heard some criticism of Russell Crowe’s singing and decisions director Tom Hooper made with regards to close ups, but while Mrs. claimed Crowe was a little flat, I would say he was adequate.  And as far as the close ups, I personally think they worked well to show the emotion of the scene and really focused on the performances of the actors.  It’s at the top of my list of 2012 best picture nominees that I’ve seen (although it’s also the only one I’ve seen).  You know whether or not you’d be interested in this movie, and if you are then I doubt you’ll be disappointed.  It’s a high quality film and a worthy best picture nominee.