Day: December 18, 2011

I was reluctant to watch Midnight in Paris because it had some things I am generally afraid of. One being Owen Wilson acting, the other being the possibility that I might not get it, because it is a Woody Allen movie. I think there is an unspoken rule that if you don’t like Woody Allen, you are bad at movies. Or something like that. So I have been putting his recent movies off. Even that one with Scarlet Johansson!

But now that I have seen a recent one, I am coming for you Vicky Christina Barcelona!

Film begins with Owen and Rachel McAdams, in Paris! They are married. He is a writer. But they have issues. Hopefully Paris with her parents and friends can help them. The dad is played by Kurt Fuller, who always makes me laugh. Not by what he does, just because of his looks and Wayne’s World.

Well, one night when he just wants to walk around and not go out dancing, he gets invited into an old timey car right at midnight. Reluctantly, he goes with them out to a bar, and eventually realizes he is in the 1920s Paris, much like what his novel is about. He meets the F. Scott Fitzgerald! And other people. Like Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway, and Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein. Famous artists throughout the earl 1900s who inhabited Paris show up, from writers, to song writers, to painters, and more. Night after night he goes to the same place to be picked up by the car, alone after he realizes his wife wouldn’t understand.

Yeah. And he meets a girl. “Adriana” or Marion Cotillard. Not sure if she is actually someone famous or not. But he likes her way more. Afterall, she lives in the “Golden Ages!”

Allegedly.

Despite it being a “RomCom” it definitely takes it in a weirder direction. My whole time watching, despite it being obvious that they weren’t good together, I was thinking that if these trips through time were real, just being with Adriana in them was him cheating. Bugged me.

I thought the dialogue was really good though. Made me interested in what was going on, and during a time I usually don’t care about. The overall theme of grass being greener was a good one to follow, but maybe a bit too forced at the end.

So yeah. Decent.

Catch .44 is obviously going for some clever title, where instead of 22, there is instead a gun reference. That way you know “Hey! There be guns in dem dare movie!” It also flashes Bruce Willis on the cover, but his role is definitely not as some of the others in the movie.

Dude couldn’t even be bothered to put on some pants!

This film is a harder one to go over the plot for. The director/writer has only done like, one other movie before, and in this one he CLEARLY wants to be Quentin Tarantino. The movie is told out of order, has a Mexican standoff, some uncomfortably long scenes, cursin’ and talkin’ about pop culture, and kind of spoils the ending near the beginning. But hey, people like that sort of thing. So here is an attempt.

Three ladies, Tes, Dawn, and and Kara (played by Malin Akerman, Deborah Ann Woll, and Nikki Reed respectfully). If you are keeping track of names, that is Silk Spectre II from Watchmen, and a girl from True Blood, and one from Twilight. Way to capture the demographics right there.

Anyways, they are part of a drug syndicate lead by Bruce Willis. Their mission is to get to a location where a drug hand off is going down, stop it, and recover the drugs. Hopefully without taking on any casulties. There is also “mysterious” Forest Whitaker, who may be following them, killing some people, and sounding super Cajun. Also, Shea Whigham has an important role as well. He also works in the organization.

Because every movie Tarantino-ish needs a “conversation” at a diner, or cafe, or whatever.

Its hard to say what I like about the movie. It is an obvious rip off like thing. But I thought the acting for what it was, was decent. Camera work was nice. Parts in the beginning annoyed me, mostly due to confusion on when things took place, but eventually my questions were answered. Whitaker was super creepy to me the whole movie, could never tell just what was up with his character. But after all of that, it was surprisingly decent.

Possibly the most hyped movie that is coming out this week (Versus things like Warrior, Dolphin Tale, and Margin Call), Colombiana seems to be about one thing. Money.

And how to get more of their monies.

The movie starts in, you guessed it, Colombia. Guy runs into his house, people are coming for him! So he gives some things to his little girl, letting her know to not give up the item, and some other instructions. They die, right in front of her, yet she doesn’t run and hide. Instead she eventually escapes, despite being like, 7 or something. She then makes her way to Chicago, from Colombia, and finds some uncle, Cliff Curtis, who takes her in and just seems to “know”. She demands that he trains her to be a killer.

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER. In 2007. Zoe Saldana now gets to be in the movie. Get to see her be all sneaky assassin like person, breaking and entering into a prison just to kill someone. Whattabitch. She is doing this to try and get the guy who killed her parents to take notice and come to the US. You know, because the guy she killed was important to him. While doing this, she has a boyfriend who knows nothing, and the FBI are on her tail lead by Lennie James to stop her. Guy sends another assassin after her, Jordi Molla. People die, trust is betrayed, and Zoe exists.

I found watching this movie to be pretty ridiculous. Thankfully she wasn’t fighting toe to toe with everyone, or else it would have made me hate it more. Zoe is VERY small, and can only suspend belief so much. I think she really only does that once, and most of her kills are secrets / from behind. (Aka, without Honor? But this isn’t Ancient China or Revolutionary War or whatever).

But what really bugged me is the bad acting, bad plot, and gratuitous T&A scenes. It probably has one of the more pointless “Hey lets get our main star in a shower” scenes, that even shows a nipple, which is generally “no no” for a PG-13 movie.

Alright, I didn’t expect to see this picture available. But hey, there ya go.

Maybe. Just maybe this movie is secretly parodying other “action movies with women” in them. But no one knows it is a parody? Maybe. That is the only way to explain the amount of times that she gets naked, how awkward the dialogue is, and how robotic it all feels. Fights scenes don’t even look natural, just extremely choreographed. She doesn’t have any special powers or anything, its just training from an uncle.

But to me, this just doesn’t work at all.