Slumdog

"Slumdog Millionaire"
Seen: February 20, 2009
At: San Mateo Century 12
With: Myself

I'd been wanting to see this for a while, but it wasn't playing close to campus so I hadn't gotten a chance. My parents went to Mendocino this weekend and as such I got Friday off of work. So, I finally got a chance to go see Slumdog at 10 Friday morning. First off, seeing the first showing of the day in San Mateo is awesome because it apparently only costs $6. Second, this movie has a great story. I didn't realize going into it that is was really a love story but it is. For those that don't know, the basics of the story are that this kid who is a "slumdog" is one question away from winning India's version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. He is arrested the night between shows and accused of cheating. Throughout the night we get both the story of his life and the questions he has answered. From his life story we learn how he knew the answers to his questions. It really is a great story. My only issue with it is that I felt that some of the background story during Jamal's childhood dragged on. It gives you a sense of where he's been, but I think it could've been done differently, but then, that's probably why I haven't made an Oscar nominated film, among other reasons. It also bugged me how trusting Jamal was of people, especially his brother Salim and the Millionaire host. Again though, it was part of the story. If I was part of the voting for the Best Picture Oscar, I really wouldn't know how to choose between this film and Milk. My guess though is that Slumdog Millionaire wins the Oscar. If you haven't seen it yet, you should.

Taken

"Taken"
Seen: February 11, 2009
At: UA Berkeley 7
With: Myself

This was one of the better action movies I've seen in a while. Liam Neeson is a badass in it for sure. The whole movie I was trying to figure out what I had seen the actress that plays the daughter in before. I figured out when I got home that she was Shannon on LOST, but she had brown hair in the movie which threw me off. So basically, girl goes to Europe with a friend, they get kidnapped, girl's father is a former CIA who tracks down his daughter and her kidnappers. It was full of action and I laughed at the ridiculousness of some of the scenes, but I really did enjoy the movie. Some of the scenes were also fairly jumpy which got annoying as you kind of missed stuff when that happened. Famke Jansen's character was a mix of dumb, cocky, and annoying. I didn't like her. If you like action, go see it in the theater, its worth it. Otherwise, at least rent it. Two funny things: One, my cousin saw this right before she went to Italy to study for 3 months. She said that was a bad idea. Two, after seeing the movie, Collin said his daughters will never go to Europe by themselves. I agree.

I was gonna go see Slumdog Millionaire Friday night but it took me to long to make and eat dinner. Being that I have a midterm and paper due on Thursday and no class Monday, I probably won't see any movies this week. Or if I do it will be on the weekend.

He's Just Not That Into You

"He's Just Not That Into You"
Seen: February 9, 2009
At: Shattuck Cinemas
With: Myself

So, I've realized that in trying to possibly become a movie critic/reviewer at some point in time, I have to see movies that I may not always really want to see. I'm trying to work my way into this idea, so I decided to try it out with a chick flick. Admittedly, I tend to like chick flicks. So, this looked decent. And it had a good cast going for it. I came out of the movie thinking it was okay with some fairly funny moments. Although it was cheesy in typical chick flick fashion, I really enjoyed the movie. Here's the funny thing with the ways men and women were portrayed in this movie, I found myself trying to decide while I was watching it, if it was in fact a chick flick. This was stupid on my part. After the movie as I thought about it, I realized it was in fact a chick flick. It had the cheesy ending and the victimized (not all of them) women who are empowered in the end. I kind of felt like the movie was feeding us stereotypes of men and women throughout the movie and it seems like that was kind of the point of the movie. You get all these typical personalities, whose lives all seem to intermingle in some way or another. In the end, I think I liked Justin Long's character Alex the best of the male roles and Jennifer Aniston's, Beth the best of the female roles. Montie is gonna be mad about this, but I was also glad that Drew Barrymore didn't have a huge part. Guys, try to avoid seeing this in the theater. Ladies, go see it together and save your boyfriends/husbands from having to see it against their wills. On a final note, I feel like a title change to "Men Are Either Insecure Assholes or Gay, and Women Are Crazy" would've given the viewer a better idea of what the movie was about.

Beth - Let me know what you and T think of it, if you actually get around to seeing it this weekend.

I'm going to see Taken during my 7 hour break from class on Wednesday, so expect to see a review for it later in the week.

Return of the Reviews!

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.