That's right, after a little over six months, the reviews are back. They were gone so long thanks to my school schedule and my lack of people to see movies with. Actually up until this week, during that time I had only seen like 4 movies in the theater. I'm not going to review those four in any great detail. The first was the Dark Knight, which I thought was one of the better Batman movies. And as far as I'm concerned, when I walked out of theater I thought Heath Ledger should at least get an Oscar nomination. I felt this way because if I hadn't known it was him playing the Joker, I would've had to sit through the credits to see who the actor was. I enjoyed the movie, grab the dvd if you haven't seen it yet. Next were Pineapple Express and Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Both were funny but I could've waited for the dvds. Pineapple Express is a stoner movie and pretty entertaining. Zack and Miri was funny, but if you see it with people, make sure you know them and their sense of humor fairly well as there are some things that could be pretty awkward in there. Last of the four was Seven Pounds. I actually liked it. It was a little odd and confusing, but not too bad for the most part. It was a pretty heavy movie, though I thought the concept behind was kind of uplifting in a weird way. Oddly enough, all of these movies were seen in Medford, Oregon.
So, on to the two movies I saw this week. First off, my class schedule this semester is much more accomodating to movie viewing. This is due to the fact that I only have two classes on Mondays and Wednesdays and they are separated by seven hours. As such I am hoping to see one or two movies a week depending on the demands of my schoolwork. This coming week, I may not see any as I don't have my early class Wednesday and I want to get the week's readings out of the way on Monday. So we'll see what happens. Anyway, on to the movies.
"Frost/Nixon"
Seen: January 26, 2009
At: Shattuck Cinemas
With: Myself
So I went into this movie knowing only that it was about an interview between some guy named David Frost and former President Richard Nixon. I didn't know much more than that, and I definitely didn't realize that the interview did what it did. Frost was a "journalist" in the loosest sense of the word. He was more a talk show than anything else. He set out to do an interview with Nixon during which he would get Nixon to admit guilt and wrongdoing in the Watergate scandal. This is the story of that interview and the struggles Frost and his team had to overcome to accomplish their goals. The story was very well told and I thought Michael Sheen, Sam Rockwell, and Frank Langella all did great jobs in their respective roles. Rockwell usually really irritates me, but I thought he was great in this part. Its worth seeing and I thought it was really good, but it wasn't the best movie I saw this week.
"Milk"
Seen: January 28, 2009
At: California Theatre
With: Myself
So, living in the Bay Area and growing up here I knew the general story behind Harvey Milk and what happened to him. Plus I had seen another movie, which may have been a documentary, a few years ago in a California Politics class I took. If you don't know the story, Harvey Milk was a gay man who moved to San Francisco and set up a camera shop in the Castro. He became an activist and eventually would be called "the Mayor of the Castro." Eventually he ran for a city council seat and on his third or fourth try he was elected as the first openly gay man to public office. Unfortunately, along with San Francisco mayor Moscone he would be assassinated shortly after by fellow city councilman, Dan White. This movie tells us Milk's story basically through his own eyes. Sean Penn is phenomenal as Harvey Milk and Josh Brolin does a great job as Dan White. James Franco plays Harvey's first boyfriend and I have to admit that while he also did a good job, the scenes with Franco and Penn kissing caught me a little off guard. I guess I should've seen them coming knowing the film's subject matter but I didn't. Also, I found the actor that played Milk's second boyfriend in the film to be really annoying. And despite my dislike for him, I thought Emile Hirsch did an excellent job in his role as Cleve Jones. I thoguht this was a better movie and Frost/Nixon and if I had a vote I would definitely vote for the Oscar as I would also vote for Penn over Langella. Go see it. It is definitely worth your time. And if any of you reading this live in California and happened to vote against gay marriage, you definitely need to go see this movie. Hopefully, it will open your eyes and help bring you into today's world.
That's it for the reviews for now. Hopefully my next post won't be six months from now, but it will be at least a week.
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