My assessment of 'Easy A' from first watch in Dec 2010
My assessment of 'ZNMD' when first watched in July 2011
My assessment of Christmas Vacation when I watched it in Dec 2009... "always funny". I was lucky to get paid to watch it at our work holiday party this year.
Now onto the movies I saw for the first time since last entry!
Dir: Terry Gilliam
Writers:
Terry Gilliam, Charles McKeown
We all have heard of this movie for the fact that Heath Ledger died during filming. I was interested in seeing this movie and how they handled it.The trivia page on IMDB states:
After the death of Heath Ledger, production was shut down for a few months. Then it was re-started when Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell agreed to complete Ledger's role. The film's fantasy premise, and some clever rewrites, let the actors play a man whose appearance changes as he travels between imaginary worlds.Another fact that interested me was:
Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell and Jude Law gave all the income they received for this movie to Heath Ledger's daughter Matilda so that her economic future would be secure.But the spookiest bit is this:
According to Terry Gilliam, the last line Heath Ledger spoke for filming on the set was "Don't shoot the messenger." When Johnny Depp filmed his role after Ledger's death, Depp asked Gilliam if he could try a new ad-lib: "Don't shoot the messenger", unaware that Ledger had improvised an identical line. Gilliam was astounded, remarking, "Heath is still out there. Johnny's channeling Heath somehow. I mean, Shirley MacLaine would love all this."As far as my thoughts on the movie? I liked it well enough. (I had to pause part way through because it was X-mas and the family arrived.) It was a fantasy movie based enough in reality that one was able to follow along. And it was moralistic yet interesting. I do recommend this movie. I had been lukewarm going into... knowing that I 'should' watch it, but I did rather enjoy the outcome.
______________________________
Leaves of Grass (2009)
Written and Directed by: Tim Blake Nelson
A movie in which Edward Norton played twins, it was okay for a movie to watch if you have downtime. It was pretty formulaic and predictable however. I feel bad for not being more involved in the movie, because there were some big names in the movie: Susan Sarandon, Richard Dreyfuss. Keri Russell played the love interest. (Danny DeVito's daughter: Lucy DeVito and TV's Modern Family dad Ty Burrell)
The movie was a little hokey and predictable. It wasn't terrible and had it's funny moments. This one I leave up to you.
____________________________
Young Adult (2011)
Dir: Jason Reitman
Writer: Diablo Cody
I liked this one. It was funny yet dark. Not so much a black comedy as a sad reality. Even though I forgot high school and moved on, it's interesting to see someone who so clearly hadn't. I can relate to the character a bit, and I wouldn't be surprised if most of us could. It shows us our deep, scary parts that we try to suppress.
________________________
Adam's Apples (2005)
Written and Directed by: Anders Thomas Jensen
It's pretty rare for a movie to get you to empathize with a Neo-Nazi but this movie does. It's dark, yet humorous and borders on the spiritual. It was slightly absurdist but I enjoyed the ride.
___________________________
Alice in Wonderland (2010)
Director: Tim Burton
Screenplay: Linda Woolverton
Books by: Lewis Carroll
I'll be honest. I've never read the books nor even seen the cartoon. I was also hesitant to watch this movie, probably for those reasons, but again, felt I 'should' watch the movie. So my mom and I sat down and watched it.
While I'm glad it had a female as the hero, and I'm okay with some absurdity, it was a little hard to follow along and we even had subtitles, so that's saying something. If you're a fan of the books or Tim Burton (I am), you've probably seen it already, so I'm not trying to convince anyone. Would I watch it again? Hmmm.
_______________________
No comments:
Post a Comment