January Flicks

Wallace & Gromit in The Curse of the Were- Rabbit
Fun, fun, fun. There's an undeniable, irresistible charm about claymation. Granted, it's a scruffy, DIY kind of charm, but charm nevertheless, which is far more than you can say for most movies.






Blood and Bones
Certain individual scenes are really good, but the overall impression I get is one of tedium and repetitiveness. I really have no patience for most films that tell a story spread out over forty years, and this one has more melodrama than most. Takeshi Kitano is scary and a huge asshole, and while there are a few scenes where he manages to bring a little more to the table, the character remains rather one-note and mostly an enigma.


Broken Flowers
It's funny, it's sad, it's romantic, it's anti-romance, it's a character study, it's a movie that goes nowhere and everywhere, it's episodic, it's rambling, it's bittersweet, it's melancholy, it's hopeful, it's crushing. It's all of the above, and I love it. Bill Murray says more with an eyebrow twitch than most actors do with a page of dialogue.

Favorite scene: The dinner with the real-estate agents - probably the most savagely funny and uncomfortable dinner you'll see on film.

Most guilty moment: Sleeping through over 20 minutes (the Sharon Stone scenes!) the first time I saw it. Drinking a pint right before the movie on a sleepy afternoon was not the smartest thing to do.


Le Grand Voyage
You'd assume this was a typical coming of age movie where a young man bonds with his reticent father through a long journey - in this case, driving his father to Mecca to take part in the Haj. You'd be right, except this film at least tries to venture into darker waters and end on a slightly more ambiguous note.




Derailed
It's a decent movie. That is, until the Plot starts kicking in and Thickening. Plot Twist after Plot Twist follows each other, and finally the whole thing becomes a ludicrous mess. The final scenes are more cheap audience gratification than staying consistent with any character development. Jennifer Aniston is hot though.




In Her Shoes
Plodding chick-flick, boiling over with Unresolved Issues that, in reality, would be so bloody easy to resolve if people just sat down and talked for 15 minutes instead of being Mad With Each Other and Throwing Tantrums in every scene. It's telling when the scene that brought a tear to my eye (I'm somewhat ashamed this actually happened) had nothing to do with the central relationships at all.



Anthony Zimmer
A French thriller that seems to be very clever, with a good final twist... until you walk out of the theatre and actually start thinking, "Wait a minute, that doesn't make sense..." Still, decent entertainment, even though I was actually so tired I slept through a good portion of it. Hmm, maybe that's why it doesn't make sense to me... Oh, and Sophie Marceau still looks damn good.


霍元甲 (Fearless)
I don't know what the big fuss is; I was pretty unsatisfied. The Themes about the Spirit of Martial Arts wasn't anything new that hadn't been explored in many other kungfu flicks, and it was done in a pretty heavy-handed way here. I mean, entire scenes are just full of people saying What the Movie Is All About. His transformation also seems overly simplistic, which is a waste, since the story feels deserving of better treatment. Yes, Jet Li still kicks plenty of ass, but they decided to go for a more gritty, down-to-earth feel this time round. I remember sitting through Once Upon A Time in China II with my mouth open in amazement for most of the movie. None of that here, there's no "Oh my fucking God" element.

By the way, this poster is so much cooler than the American generic version.


Fun with Dick and Jane
Not very fun at all. In fact, not very funny too. In fact, it's almost pathetic to see Jim Carrey do silly, slapstick comedy that doesn't make sense at all. It's like he's taken his great performances in The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and completely wiped them from his memory. There was a time when I found Ace Ventura: Pet Detective absolutely hilarious. That was over ten years ago, and it seems Carrey hasn't progressed much since then.