Random Factoid #182

26 01 2010

My one literary purchase while in Argentina: a magazine called “El Amante Cine (The Cinema Lover).”

The magazine is basically designed for cinephiles, written by cinephiles.  This made it especially difficult to read, seeing as some of the pieces dealt with schools of film criticism.  I find myself struggling with these concepts in English, and trying to understand them in another language was extremely difficult.

The issue I got jumped out at me because “Avatar” graced the cover.  The issue was the yearly wrap-up edition.  Their nearly unanimous worst movie of 2009?  “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” one of my all-time favorites and five best of 2008 according to the Academy Awards.


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REVIEW: Michael Jackson’s This Is It

26 01 2010

I watched “Michael Jackson’s This Is It” on my plane flight to Argentina a few weeks ago, and it’s exactly the kind of movie that Continental Airlines shouldn’t be showing on their planes.

Why?

Because the movie is a glorious celebration of the music and artistry of Michael Jackson.  It’s a movie that makes you want to sing along with his prodigious hit songs and get out of your seat and bust a move.  Those two things are unfortunately rather tricky to do without earning the extreme ire of your fellow travelers, so I had to settle for humming and toe-tapping.

The multitudes in London would have seen one hell of a show from Jackson last summer.  As visually stunning as the music and dancing, the concert was a multi-sensory spectacle designed to absolutely floor.  Jackson created several new videos for songs such as “Smooth Criminal” and “Thriller,” but there was also plenty of the familiar material that firmly established him as the King of Pop.

The movie isn’t just rehearsal footage of each number; it is a portrait of the man behind the music, a perfectionist with an unbelievable gift and vision.  It never dwells on sadness from Jackson’s death; in fact, it serves as a glorious reminder of all the great music and moments that he gave us.  I didn’t live in the era of his greatest hits, but I do know that he was bigger than anything from my lifetime.  My parents both remember exactly where they were when they saw the “Thriller” music video for the first time – there simply has not been an artist with as much charisma and talent that has drawn in the masses since him.  “This Is It” reminds us that Jackson lives on forever through his music, but we have lost a kind and brilliant artist, man, and father.  Never do these two coexist more beautifully than in the film’s finale, a performance of “Man in the Mirror” that will assuredly make all of Jackson’s fans tear up.  B+ /


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Random Factoid #181

25 01 2010

Now hanging on my bulletin board: a review of “Up in the Air” in Spanish!  I tore it out of a copy of “La Nación” (The Nation), a newspaper in Buenos Aires, while at a Starbucks Coffee chowing on a donut and croissant.

They gave it four stars, by the way.


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REVIEW: All About Steve

25 01 2010

Sandra Bullock got a lot of press for her movies in 2009, and it has followed us into 2010 as well.  She chose three distinctly different films: a romantic comedy (“The Proposal”), an inspirational sports drama (“The Blind Side”), and a more off-beat comedy (“All About Steve”).  And in each of these movies, she portrayed a wide range of women.  In “The Proposal,” she played a woman who discovers that she needs more than corporate success to fill the void that a family leaves.  In “The Blind Side,” she has received acclaim for her performance as Leigh Anne Tuohy, the mother on a mission to give opportunity to a deserving child.  Most people are so enamored by those two that they are willing to turn a blind eye to the scorned “All About Steve,” where Bullock enters more familiar territory by playing a bumbling klutz who falls madly and hopelessly head-over-heels for a guy who couldn’t care less about her.

Despite what you may think the movie “All About Steve,” it’s hard to take great fault with Bullock’s performance.  She makes the best of a horrifically written character, refusing to lay down and die.  By no stretch of the imagination am I saying that the goofy crossword puzzle crafter Mary belongs in the same league as Gracie Hart (“Miss Congeniality”) or Lucy Kelson (“Two Weeks Notice”) – and it shouldn’t be mentioned in the same sentence as the racist Los Angeles housewive Jean Cabot from “Crash.”  We can wonder all we want about why she chose this movie, but it’s total face plant is not her fault.

Blame unimaginative writing.  Blame pretty much everyone else in the cast who is in this movie to collect a nice paycheck – I’m talking to you, Thomas Haden Church and Bradley Cooper.  When even Ken Jeong, the highlight of “The Hangover” with his hilarious Leslie Chow, can’t invigorate a movie, you know that things are pretty darn bad.  D /


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Random Factoid #180

24 01 2010

In school, it takes me forever to read Spanish literature.

In Argentina, I read a four page article about Matt Damon and the making of “Invictus” in less than 15 minutes.

It’s amazing how easy it is to read something you are interested in.


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I’m BAAAAAAAACK!

24 01 2010

Hello readers,

It’s nice to be addressing you all from my very own laptop in the great United States of America once again.  As many of you were probably aware, I spent the last three weeks in heaven in Argentina doing a homestay program.  I had some internet access, and with the time that I had, I moderated some comments here and there but mainly tried to keep up with all the developments in the industry.

It killed me not to put up my Golden Globes predictions because I find them just as entertaining as the Oscars.  Thankfully, I was able to watch the show through TNT (albeit dubbed in Spanish).  The translator ran about 5 seconds behind the stars, so I could usually make out the acceptance speeches underneath the Spanish translation.  The elegance of Mo’Nique and Christoph Waltz still shone through.  I’ll have more analysis coming with my next set of Oscar predictions, but it was pretty much “Blockbuster’s Big Night.”

I also come with great news.  If everything works out, I will have my first interview with someone involved in the movies.  I won’t tell you who the person is, but I can tell you that this person was very emotionally invested in one of my favorite movies of 2009.  Look for the interview on the site sometime within the next week.

I hope you enjoyed reading a whole lot of negative reviews because I can crank those out at a frightening speed.  As we enter yet another rehearsal period for me (the show now is “Kiss Me, Kate”), don’t be surprised if they start appearing with a greater frequency.

So thanks for reading even in the relative “recession” of Marshall and the Movies.  Boom is coming again soon – I promise.

Until the next reel,
Marshall

P.S. – The “F.I.L.M. of the Week” series will return this week at full force.


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Random Factoid #179

23 01 2010

Incredible frustration is occurring with the Fandango app on my iPhone.

I have a very specific order for my favorite theaters.  The two Edwards theaters come first, then the AMC theater, then the two art house theaters, and then the two theaters farther away from my house that some of my friends attend.

You can add or remove a theater from your favorites by gently rubbing a finger across a lovely heart-shaped button in the top right corner.  This button, however, is incredibly sensitive, and it often erases theaters from my favorites without my knowledge.  To correct the situation, I have to delete my favorites entirely and rebuild the list again in the correct order.  This has happened almost 10 times now, but I will never erase the app.  It’s the best movie ticket app out there, even though I will never use Fandango to buy them.


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Random Factoid #178

22 01 2010

This is my last of the factoids that have been set to publish since January 5th!  Are you excited to read the conclusion?

Since I have started to use the library to get movies, I have sometimes run into situations where I am not able to watch a movie by the time it is due.  I pay $0.20 a day for however long I go ever, which may not seem like a lot, but it piles up quickly.

The biggest late fee I have ever paid was on “The Graduate,” which I kept for at least 3 weeks after the due date.  Runner-up goes to “Cold Mountain,” for which I paid a $2.80 late fee.

(P.S. – I have now officially passed 1,000 tags on the blog.  Proud moment?  You decide.)


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REVIEW: Gomorrah

21 01 2010

Writing a blog has encouraged me to go out of my comfort zone and watch movies that I wouldn’t have usually watched. One of my big areas of exploration has been foreign film, and I decided to give “Gomorrah” a whirl. It had everything going for it in my mind. The movie was presented by my favorite director, Martin Scorsese. It was being released on DVD by the Criterion Collection, a company committed to selling “important” films. The basis of the movie was in a book so shocking and revealing that the author had to go underground after its publication.

The higher the pedestal, the harder the fall. And “Gomorrah” fell hard.

Two hours after popping the disc into my laptop, I had finished what was one of the least involving movies I had ever seen. And this was a topic that I love!

The movie sets out to show the effects of the Italian mafia on the people through five different stories. I was hopeful at the outset, but I slowly began to lose interest. Soon enough, I was disengaging from each of them one by one. The only story I actually cared about by the end of the movie was the escapades of Marco and Ciro, two teenage wanna-be gangsters who compare themselves to Scarface. They were the only reason that I let “Gomorrah” share the screen with Facebook for an hour. Without them, I would have exited DVD Player and happily unloaded this doozy at the library.

Rather than rail on “Gomorrah,” a movie that many people thoroughly admired, for a whole review, let me suggest alternatives if you are interested in this kind of movie. “City of God” is a Brazilian movie that chronicles organized crime and drug trafficking in the slums of Rio de Janeiro, and it is a movie that I wholeheartedly love. Scorsese has two excellent Mafia movies, “The Departed” and “GoodFellas.” But please, save yourselves and don’t waste your time watching “Gomorrah.” D /


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Random Factoid #177

21 01 2010

Almost two years ago when I went to see “Prince Caspian” with a friend of mine on the last day of school, the lady at the box office gave me some sort of paper coupon for concessions that had been roughly cut with scissors.  Rather than throw it away instantly, I kept in my pocket.

Sometime during the movie, I was reminded that the coupon was still there.  I fidgeted with it in my pocket, and I then did something kind of strange.  I decided to slip it in a hole underneath my seat.

Weird?  Yeah, I think it is.  But I can’t help but wondering if it is still there…theater 7 at Edwards Greenway Grand Palace 24.


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Random Factoid #176

20 01 2010

When I know I am flying Continental, I like to check the in-flight movie schedule online prior to flying to see what I can expect on the plane.  The schedule is usually dead on, but they have been off on occasion.


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Random Factoid #175

19 01 2010

Sometimes, when I get especially bored, I will leaf through my ticket collection to see how long ago I went to a movie at the same time as my most recent trip to the theater.  Sometimes it takes a while.  Matching 12:05 when I went to see “Up in the Air” a few weeks ago was especially tricky.


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REVIEW: Jennifer’s Body

18 01 2010

“Jennifer’s Body” may be from the Academy Award-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody, but this is not a movie that will be contending for any awards. It is still laced with the stylized dialogue that made Cody a star, but surprisingly absent is any sort of narrative creativity to make the movie feel exciting. I imagine that “Jennifer’s Body” is to Diablo Cody what “Inglourious Basterds” is to Quentin Tarantino: a project that tickles their own fantasies. The difference is that the latter provides a rush of excitement while the former gives us little more to marvel at than star Megan Fox.

Fox is pretty – pretty unqualified to handle Cody’s rich dialogue. It rolls off her tongue with absolutely no energy, and she almost manages to make it boring. Fox has been given such a fun role, yet she seems to be thoroughly bored throughout the whole movie, displaying a mere fraction of the spunk that Ellen Page showed in “Juno.”

I’m not under the mistaken impression that Cody was trying to reinvent or innovate the high school film, and I recognize that she merely wanted to pay her tribute in the form of a very black comedy. “Jennifer’s Body” doesn’t stop at evoking them; the movie itself feels like a page ripped from their textbooks. I couldn’t get “Heathers” out of my head while I watched the demon Jennifer (Fox) sink into some teenage flesh. Her mismatched best friend, “Needy” (Amanda Seyfried of “Mamma Mia”), notices something a little abnormal in Jennifer’s behavior and investigates. As their small town of Devil’s Kettle mourns, Jennifer is feasting and Needy is trying to figure out a way to stop her.

There is still plenty of entertainment to be had in “Jennifer’s Body.” It’s a self-conciously bad movie, and you can still enjoy yourself laughing at the movie itself, not the jokes. Megan Fox might match the requirements to play Jennifer in looks, but she proves to be little more than a pretty face. She just doesn’t seem to get it – this is really dirty, funny stuff that she gets to handle, and it comes off as dull and uninspired. Although I like a little eye candy, “Jennifer’s Body” definitely would have benefitted from the casting of an actress who has the ability to fully realize the character. C /


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Random Factoid #174

18 01 2010

They teach you a lot of things in driver’s ed, but they don’t teach you how to work a parking garage.  More than a month after receiving my license, my mom taught me parking garage decorum in the Edwards Greenway Palace 24 garage.

Why pay $3 to do it?  Because I was learning an hour before I was slated to attend a movie there.


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Random Factoid #173

17 01 2010

I complain a lot about AMC Studio 30 and all the frenzied moviegoing experiences I have there.  But, I have yet to tell you why it is that I continue to go there.

AMC Studio 30 offers a parking lot, not a parking garage.  I can park for free.  The cheapskate in me usually wins now when it comes to picking movies because my favorite and much more convenient theater, Edwards Greenway Palace 24, charges an exorbitant $3 to park.


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