Movies, yes, we got movies

Reviews...because the summer is winding down, and I have to make sure I've taken in enough media...

Midnight Cowboy

• Only X-rated movie to win best picture Oscar - one of only two ever nominated - and I wasn't at all surprised that it initially got an X. There's a whole lot of sex and sexual discussions here.
• The flip side is that it's relatively tame compared to modern movies. Ah, sliding social mores.
• I was surprised at how sad that movie was. The Ratzo Rizzo character, in particular, was heartbreaking. Hoffman did a spectacular job with this one.
• The dubbing was off at times, and I wonder if that's just a case of modern technology having spoiled me.
• Impressively well-done film that does hold up with the time that has passed.

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Frost/Nixon

• Impressive acting performances, the arc of the plot, however, fell flat for me. Not enough ground work to justify the hard-hitting final interview.
• Interesting to see the 'making of' on the DVD to get some glimpses of the actual interviews.
• Don't know that either actor deserved a best actor nomination.
• Big bunch of meh for me.

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Synecdoche, New York

• Here is some true freaky freaky, arthouse stuff.
• Basic plot - playwrite is writing and putting on a play about his life. In the play, the main character is - needfully - putting on a play about his life. It's more than a little introspective.
• Phillip Seymour Hoffman is outstanding here and in pretty much everything he does.
• The romance between the main character and his assistant, bleeding into the actors playing the characters in the play was interesting and kind of fun to watch.
• There was clearly a lot of symbolism in the movie that I think I didn't get.
• Great idea, muddled execution.
• Probably should watch it again to understand what the heck was happening at times.
• Really didn't understand the burning house throughout the film.

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Moon

• First the bad news: The trailer gives away pretty much everything. I walked in knowing the plot development that comes early in the film and strongly assuming what the twist would be. Sadly, I was right.
• That sadly is because it meant I knew pretty much exactly where the film was heading from the moment I saw the trailer, not because it was a boring twist or a poorly executed one.
• Everything was very well done, in fact. Excellent acting by Sam Rockwell who says probably 80% of the lines in the film (almost all the rest come from the Kevin Spacey-voiced robot.)
• The film's drama and tension stays at a fairly constant 7 throughout. Never rises above that, never peaks, never causes any real fear - just constant, moderate level drama.
• For craft, it's a solid 9. For enjoyment and worth as a film, more of a 6.
• Acting - good...sets, cinematography - good...script - boring

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Babe

• We'd been on a run of downers, and neither of us had seen this, so...
• I'm gonna guess most everybody out there has seen it.
• It's cute and sweet and wonderful and funny and touching.
• Its basically cotton candy with vitamins.
• Solid acting by the few humans. Entertaining voice work. Very solid special effects - for the time or even for today.
• Great feel good kids movie.

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Mission Impossible III

• I've seen the first two and enjoyed 'em both, especially the second one.
• This one, meh.
• The love story didn't add anything to the movie. The 'rabbit's foot' (some sort of uberweapon) was nothing but a fancy McGuffin.
• Phillip Seymour Hoffman was - expectedly - solid and nasty. Really seemed to be enjoying himself.
• Tom Cruise's character is impressive - not that he's a deep, complex character or anything but rather that he's pretty much able to do anything humanly possible (and often more) as the super spy guy.
• The budget of the mythical Mission Impossible Force would take up more than our entire national budget would. It's fairly ridiculous at this point.
• The red herring to whom we are lead (the supposed double agent in the MIF agency) is well played in this one, but I'll tell you in advance that the bad guy isn't really him.

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Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft

• Hey, look, the print medium.
• Initial impressions weren't good because a couple of the characters look the same so it was tough to tell them apart at first. Once the story started rolling, however, things got way easier.
• Solidly supernatural story about a house where three kids and their mom find themselves.
• Of course, there's an ancient spirit that doesn't - at first - appear to be evil and tricks one of the kids into releasing it.
• Good story, highly engaging and enthralling.
• This six-issue arc is the opening of a forty-two issue story that's coming in six-issue chapters.
• I'll be hunting down the follow ups as they get published.
• The artwork, main characters, and engaging story suggest that it's aimed at teens and up.
• If I were a parent, though, I'd skim through because the kids have to go through some fairly rough times (dad being shot, the family being held hostage) as the story progresses, though. You know your kids better than I do.

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A bunch of Blackest Night lead ups...

• Green Lantern Corps: Sins of the Star Sapphire
• Green Lantern: Secret Origins
• Sinestro Corps War 1 & 2

My thoughts...

• This crossover is massive, huge, titanic.
• The lead-up alone is taking a couple of years and happening at the same time that Final Crisis is rolling along.
• As a corporate thing, it reminds me very much of how Marvel let Messiah Complex build while Civil War was rolling forward as the main event.
• So far, the build up has been of a very high quality, really interesting lead up with all of these trades being enjoyable reading.
• Best of them was Secret Origins as it takes a very familiar tale (Hal Jordan getting the ring and learning from Sinestro) and retells it while tying it into the Blackest Night prophecy.
• Saphire story was a little more disjointed as it told two tales in the collection without much action. Important, though for the introduction of the violet corps.
• Sinestro Corps War is huge in scope and, if it's just the lead in, the main event is going to be massive. Interesting to see that Sinestro might've gotten what he wanted even in defeat.
• Great series so far.

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Final Crisis

• Moderately interesting art
• Horrible, stupid, confusing storyline
• reading Final Crisis Companion afterwards helped, but not much
• I liked the Seven Soldiers and Dark Side Club stuff that lead into this, but this mega-cross-over event left me colder than Infinite Crisis and Identity Crisis.
• Other than Blackest Night, DC should leave the cross over events dead for a while to get the stink of these last few off of them. Let the individual series run their courses before even trying to tie them together.
• Seriously, can anybody explain this series to me - especially the crap about the New Gods?

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Charlie Wilson's War

• Closing out the inadvertent Phillip Seymour Hoffman bonanza...
• Excellent performances all around - major players and minor ones, alike
• Thoroughly engrossing storyline about an historical series of events that I had no idea about
• Surprisingly good performance from Julia Roberts
• Full of moral ambiguity in every character, really interesting story
• amazing to see what kind of man Charlie Wilson was (drinking, drugging, bedding, hiring practices) and to see what a difference he was able to make - for both good and ill
• great ending with even more moral ambiguity
• really solid film, well worth seeing
• from my quick bits of research suggests that the film is largely accurate - if a bit simplified in combining a few characters and a few events - which makes the film even that much more amazing

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Ultimate Origins

• It's no secret that I've got a mad-on for the entire Ultimate universe, this work included
• More lead-up to a main event, in this case to Ultimatum which is currently going on in the Marvel Ultimate universe and which I likely will be reading in another couple of seasons when it makes its way to the trades
• fascinating to see origins of so many characters (Spidey, Wolverine, Nick Fury, Cpt America, Hulk, all mutants really) all tied together
• good art, storyline that grabs you and never lets up - pretty much what you want in a first act
• I'm in for more

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Hulk: Red and Green

• second collection from the Red Hulk (Rulk, really?) story arc
• far less entertaining than the first one
• there's got to be some story development at some point, because this bit of the red hulk bashing everybody around willy nilly every issue - sometimes taking two or three issues to get the fight over with - has no officially become a bore
• quick summary - Red Hulk can beat people up and is nasty and strategic about it - we knew all of that from the first arc
• wake me up if some sort of story comes out of this rather than just punch - punch - punch - punch
• grey hulk and Windego-Hulk appear hear, too, just to make the whole thing make less sense
• even the gag pages at the end (cartoons with red, green, blue hulks as little kids) are starting to wear thin