Movie: Ever Since the World Ended

I love post-apocalyptic stories, and I love fake documentaries, so I enjoyed this movie. It was one Netflix put on my list of recommendations, and it was worth the time. It is set in San Francisco, after a plague has wiped out almost everyone. There are 186 survivors in the Bay Area, and two filmmakers decide to try to tell the story of the survivors. I would have liked it better if it had told more about the other people; some of the characters are not well-defined. It was good for a Sunday afternoon, and it's only an hour and 15 minutes long, so not much of a commitment.

Broken English - movie

So our cable is back. Turns out, when they were "upgrading" the service in our neighborhood on Thursday, they didn't so much "upgrade" us as "disconnect" us. Took the tech all of five minutes to fix. Why they couldn't have sent someone out on Friday, I don't know. Anyway, I took advantage of the outage and read and watched DVDs, including "Broken English." This one hit a little too close to home: single thirty-something who is beginning to despair of ever getting married. I don't think I'm as desperate as she was, but I could relate to the loneliness. Of course, she meets a handsome young Frenchman, and ends up going to Paris, so it all turns out okay for her. I wouldn't mind meeting a handsome young Frenchman! The movie was well done - good script, believable characters.

I also rewatched the new BBC version of Sense and Sensibility, which stands up to rewatching quite well.

Movie: Juno

I was prepared to be disappointed in this, after all of the hype around this movie, but I found it enjoyable. I think they tried too hard in parts to be "real," but overall it was refreshingly unsentimental and mostly natural. Ellen Page was excellent in the title role, and I'm always glad to see Allison Janney (as the stepmother) working. She was so great on The West Wing!

Movie - Dan in Real Life

Loved this. Steve Carrell is brilliant as the advice columnist who is watching his own life fall apart - not in a dramatic way, but in small increments. He is a widower, still grieving his wife, and living according to the rules. He meets someone who, while not perfect, is pretty close, and she turns out to be his brother's girlfriend. Of course, he is a moral person, so he wouldn't think of stealing his brother's girlfriend, and there is the tension and the drama. Add in that he doesn't understand his daughters, and it's a great story. Overall a great depiction of a "life of quiet desperation."

Movie - I Am Legend

I had lowered my expectations for this after reading too many other reviews, but I did enjoy this. Will Smith is great, and I thought the suspense was quite good (especially at the beginning). I thought some of the special effects were pretty fakey, though. CGI people/creatures just do not move the way normal people move - they are too bendy/bouncy or something. It bugs me and forces me out of the experience every time. (I'm thinking especially of Spiderman here.) I thought the shots of a totally empty New York were great, though - very haunting.

Movie: Michael Clayton

I think my expectations were too high for this movie. I thought it was good, but not great. I loved George Clooney, and the plot was interesting enough, but I thought the pace was too slow. Maybe I'm just impatient, though.

Movie - Right At Your Door

I posted back in August that I was looking forward to this movie, and I finally got it from Netflix. I was not disappointed. The characters and dialogue are sharp, the people are interesting, and it keeps you guessing right to the end. I love movies with unexpected endings, and this one did not disappoint.

Movie Review - No Reservations

I watched this on DVD over the weekend, and I am really glad I didn't bother to see this while it was in the theater. It was cute enough, but very slow paced and extremely predictable. The plot was a typical romance, but with no twists: the "misunderstanding" that predictably separates the couple is trivial and quickly resolved. I think the actors did the best they could with the material, but there wasn't much for them to work with.

"Next" and "The Invisible"

These are the most recent movies I got from Netflix, and they've been sitting on my shelf for a couple of weeks so I finally decided to watch them just so I could get two more movies to sit on my shelf. Although if the writer's strike lasts much longer, I think it will be all DVDs for all of us for a while.

Anyway, of the two, "Next" was the better movie. It stars Nicholas Cage, and is based on a Philip K. Dick short story, both of which were what made me put the movie in the queue. It starts a little slow, but the twist at the end makes it all worthwhile. Don't worry, I won't spoil it. The premise is that the main character, (Cage) can see two minutes into his own future. And of course, there are people who want to use that talent for their own purposes. I thought it was pretty well done, although slow at first, and I did like the "sliding" effect they used for showing it was only a possible future.

"The Invisible" was touted as being like "The Sixth Sense" - and it is, except for the fact that it isn't at all. The main character is a teenager who becomes invisible to everyone except for one troubled girl. This one also bogs down in the middle, and doesn't really recover. There were a lot of things that didn't really make sense, and there were no surprises at all.

Must. See. This. Movie.

I just read this review in the Entertainment Weekly, and I MUST see this movie. I can't find it playing in my town, so I might have to wait for the DVD though.