Two For One Movie Reviews

This week I saw a couple movies and since I don't have the energy to write lengthy reviews, I am going to combine them into one extra lazy post. Both of these movies were not high on my priority list to watch so I waited for them to come out on DVD fist.

The first movie was Midnight in Paris which was directed by Woody Allen. It's about a writer played by Owen Wilson who is on vacation in Paris with his fiance and her family. During their visit he has some strange encounters each night at Midnight as he is transported back to the 1920's and is able to hang out with artists like Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Elliot, Dali, Picasso, and others.

It was a fun idea but the film sort of lost my attention as time went on. If you are a fan of the 20's and enjoy the concept of  being able to interact with famous historic figures from another era, then you would probably get a kick out of it. Owen Wilson had a good performance in it and was able to avoid the usual surfer dude role he often plays. Rachel McAdams was also in a different role than usual. Her character was so unlikable that it was hard to believe they would ever be engaged to each other . I give Midnight in Paris 7.0 stars for being a pleasant movie.

Crazy Stupid Love was the other movie I saw. It had a great cast of Steve Carell, Julia Moore, Kevin Bacon, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, and Marissa Tomei. It is about a man (Carrell) who is dumped by his wife for another man. He moves out and meets a womanizer (Gosling) who mentors him and teaches him how to change his image and pick up women. It also featured several side stories about love and various relationships and is woven together so all of the characters end up having inter-related relationships that take place throughout the movie.

I thought this movie was pretty entertaining but due to the subject matter there are plenty of sexual references so I wouldn't classify it as a family film unless your idea of a family film is sitting next to your parents and feeling very uncomfortable during the movie. Crazy Stupid Love addresses the concepts of love, jealousy, rejection, and forgiveness. It has several funny parts that made me laugh and overall had a good message. I give it 7.7 stars.

The Help

I recently watched The Help on DVD and really liked it. It takes place during the civil rights movement and is about a young white journalist who decides to write a book which gives an account of the many black women who worked as maids in the South in the 60's.

At first many of these women were reluctant to share their experiences for fear potential backlash if their employers and others in the community found out who they were and what they had said about the families they worked for. Eventually they get to a tipping point where many of them were willing to come forward and have the courage to share their experiences so the book could be published.

I thought all of the performances were good, but Bryce Dallas Howard really did a good job of being an insensitive, racist, and shallow Southern belle. I watched this movie with some of my kids and they were in total disbelief that people treated each other that way and they asked me if segregation was real. I told them it was not only real, but the events in the film took place only 45 years ago.

One thing I liked about this movie is that it didn't paint all white people as being villains, nor did it make one or two good white people saviors to the black community. The film also focuses on a white woman who is not accepted by her upper class peers and shows how she experienced much of the same rejection and belittlement by those who felt they were superior to her.

I give The Help 7.9 stars. Some people might feel it is a sugar coated Disney movie since it is not as dark and gritty as many civil rights movies, but I think it was still quite good. It deals with a serious topic but there are several light hearted moments so it wasn't too intense and it was also less of a chick flick than I expected it to be!

The Hobbit

I recently saw The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and I thought it was one of the better movies I have seen this year. It is a prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but since it has been over 30 years since I read The Hobbit, I am in no position to comment on how well the movie followed the book or complain about what artistic liberties were taken by Peter Jackson.

The story deals with the dwarf kingdom being attacked my a dragon and they are displaced from their homeland for years until a descendant of the king decides it is time to return to their kingdom and reclaim it. 13 dwarfs and a wizard recruit Bilbo Baggins to help them with their quest. You will see many LOTR characters that you are already familiar with in this movie including, Bilbo, Gollum, Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and Saruman.

The only thing that really distracted me were such extreme special effects. I understand that computer generated effects are a necessity when you are making a fantasy movie, but some of the scenes, like the dwarfs running away from the Goblins, just seemed too busy and reminded me of a video game. I also thought it was incredibly convenient that despite experiencing multiple life threatening accidents, battles, and falls, none of the good guys ever got injured.

There is plenty of action and special effects during this nearly three hour production. I just wish I didn't have to get strung along for three years in order to finish the series, but I am looking forward to the second installment next year. I give The Hobbit 8.1 stars.

Subtitles Gone Bad

I'm not very cultured or artsy, so most of the movies I watch don't involve subtitles. I don't mind reading subtitles as long as they are legible. The other day I watched The Hammer which is a true story about a deaf wrestler. Since many of the characters in the movie were deaf, there was a ton of signing and therefore, a big need for subtitles.

The problem with this was that the font was too small for me to read and half the time the white subtitles were transposed on a light colored background so it was impossible to read. At one point it got so bad that I thought I might be the subject of a practical joke show and started looking around my room for hidden cameras.

The last time I noticed such bad subtitle work was on the newest Pearl Harbor movie. Each time they showed what the Japanese were saying, the color of the subtitles just blended in with the background. How do movies pass their final editing and get released to the public with such poor subtitle work? I think this is a much bigger goof up than having the boom microphone show in the frame of a movie.

So my advice to those of you who may be making a movie involving subtitles- Do a better job of it!

Skyfall

Last week before leaving town I decided to kick my vacation off by seeing Skyfall. I have been looking forward to seeing this movie for some time and I thought it was better than the the prior Quantum of Solace installment. Skyfall begins as a computer drive containing a list of secret agent's identities is stolen and the names and identities of those spies are made public. We later learn that the person responsible is an ex MI6 operative who has a grudge against M.

Daniel Craig gives a good performance in this film. One thing that I have liked about his character is that he is not perfect. The prior Bonds never seemed to make mistakes and relied too heavily on gadgetry. I have enjoyed seeing Craig as an agent with a human side. This is only the second Bond movie where he cries. The first was On Her Majesty's Secret Service after his wife was killed. I particularly liked the scenes that showed his difficulty in coming back to the service after sustaining an injury in the opening sequence.

The majority of this movie takes place in the United Kingdom. There is not the usual amount of exotic locations and globe trotting, but there are also some scenes in Turkey and China. Javier Bardem plays a flamboyant and creepy villain in this movie. Ralph Fiennes and Albert Finney have minor roles, but are a nice addition to the cast. It was also interesting to see the introduction of a new Money Penny and Q. I think Judi Dench has done a great job as M over the years.

One complaint I had was how the movie took on a "Home Alone" turn at the end as they booby trap Bond's childhood home as they prepare to defend themselves against their pursuers. This may not have been the best plot or the best Bond film, but I was still glad to see it and enjoyed it more than several others (The World is Not Enough, Licensed to Kill, Diamonds are Forever, Octopussy, A View to a Kill, Never Say Never Again, etc.)

I was shocked when I read so many reviews of haters who didn't care for this movie. There have been 50 years of 007 films and some are definitely better than others, but I like what Sam Mendes did as the director of this installment and I give Skyfall 8.0 stars.