movie review

Daniel Day Lewis Won an Oscar for This?


Saturday night last I encouraged my husband to choose the movie we would watch. We have a stack because the bookmobile doesn’t run during the Christmas break and we wanted to be prepared. We don’t watch television, but we are movie addicts.

Rob’s choice was There Will Be Blood. Critically acclaimed. Won a couple of Oscars. Historical, and we love historical.

But three hours later, not only have we not watched anything other than a lot of disconnected scenes- but thankfully sequential in a chronological way -that didn’t really tell a story, I learned almost nothing about the early wildcatting days in the U.S.

A terrible movie is bad enough, but when I watch period piece and learn nothing about the time period – my time has been more than wasted.

“I rubbed you nearly the whole movie,” Rob pointed out when I complained.

Well this was true. One of the best things about movie night in bed (as opposed to on the sofa where I assure you I wouldn’t have sat for 3 hours watching Mr. Lewis “dazzle” me with yet another character study disguised as a movie) is that I get my back and bum rubbed. A woman can endure much for a good rubbing down.

Rob was disappointed by the lack of story too but his Virgo nature just won’t let him quit.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were bored?”

“Because it’s better to just watch the whole dull mess than to watch you silently fret about not having finished watching an awful movie. You still aren’t over the fact that we didn’t finish Grosse Pointe Blank even though you have seen it before.”

“I was okay with not finishing The Other Boelyn Girl,” he countered. Another film that was an affront to the history teacher in me.

“That’s only because it was chick flickish.”

I could have headed the whole thing off before we’d even checked the movie out because I’d read a review by a book publisher whose blog I follow which summed it up neatly. No plot. But Rob had been wanting to see it for a while and I can’t feed him a steady diet of romantic comedies and widow movies. He needs the occasional man movie and well, Iron Man has a waiting list that stretches into the summer.

“I think I should pick the movies from now on,” I said.

“Did I ever tell you the story of the time I went to the video store to pick our films by myself?”

“You were never allowed to do that again, were you?”

He laughed because I know him too well.

“Nope, I came home with Judge Dredd and Species.”

In case you haven’t seen There Will Be Blood, it’s about an oilman in the early part of the 20th century in California. The story, such as it is, is episodically told and there is so little dialog I felt as though I was watching a silent film at times (probably I was supposed to – you know – because it was “art”). But the characters are an unlikable lot and Lewis “emotes” a lot. 

I know that film is also about the look. It’s a moving painting in a way. But without good story-telling, it might as well simply hang on a wall. Good films blend the visual with plot. This film was not that good.

 

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John Cusack or Are Romantic Comedies Evil?


My husband pointed me in the direction of a recent study which asserts that romantic comedies aka “chick flicks” are more than just the bane of his existence.

“Why do I always let you pick the movie?” he asked, the thin air really, when I chose Must Love Dogs out of a stack of mostly John Cusack movies last evening. Read Full Article

Dan in Real Life: Our Friday Night Movie Pick


As many of you know, Rob and I frequently cuddle up in bed with his laptop and a DVD from our public library. The library has quite an impressive collection. We have seldom been unable to find a film that strikes our fancy and often we choose movies from the sneak peaks that are provided on the DVD’s we have seen.

Dan in Real Life though was something I read about on MSN. We are Steve Carell fans and investigate his movies even if we don’t end up checking them out of the library.

I warned Rob upfront that it was a chick flick and he lamented the fact that all the really funny actors eventually succumb to the dreaded genre. It wasn’t until he was firing up the computer and inserting the disc that I mentioned the storyline was that of a widower falling in love again.

“Just had to keep the streak alive, didn’t you?” was his arched eyebrow comment*.

The main character Dan, played by Carell, is an advice columnist on the verge of syndication and raising his three daughters somewhere in Jersey. During a trip to his family’s summer home for their annual get together, he meets a woman by chance in a bookstore and they click. However the woman turns out to be his brother’s new girlfriend. Romantic comedy ensues.

The supporting cast is great**. The subplots are humorous but realistic. Dan’s widowhood is central to the story, not in a “in your face way”, but merely as just another circumstance of his life that makes him who he is and explains the way he deals with many of the issues that come up.

And it made us laugh. Both of us. Despite the mediocre reviews the film got when it came out, it is worth a viewing in the privacy of one’s living room, den or bedroom – as is our wont mostly because of the lack of living room furniture thing.

Being widowed, I was especially touched by the tiny details. For example, the opening scene is early in the morning with the alarm going off. Dan reaches out to the empty side of the bed and you can see he is clearly lonely. The camera pulls back to reveal that his late wife’s side of the bed is made and covered with papers and books and whatnot. Another scene at his parent’s home finds Dan being set up for the stay in the laundry room. Rob thought that was funny until I pointed out that naturally he wouldn’t get a real bedroom like his married siblings. It’s not as if he had a wife to consider. And of course there is the constant but well-meaning advice of his parents and siblings to “get back out there already”***.

Of course movie nights mean being tired the next day. We always end up staying up way too late regardless of how early we get started. Isn’t that the way of “dates”?

Dan in Real Life is a good flick. You should give it a look if the opportunity presents.

*Anyone who has been reading here a while knows that Rob and I have a habit of picking/watching movies with death and widowhood themes even when we try not to pick them out.

**The brother is played by Dane Cook who is a comedian Rob often hears on XM and had been on that very day with a bit about his first blow-job and and car door handles. It’s here on YouTube.

***There is a great subplot with one of his teen daughters falling in love that is the perfect metaphor for the newly minted adult single back “out there”. The compare/contrast is great.