Monthly Archives: May 2009

Movie review: Synecdoche, New York

[Blu-ray | DVD]

This movie is confusing. I’m not going to pretend I can even come close to fully getting this movie. So here goes as good a review as I can write. This movie, while 100% centered on the great Philip Seymour Hoffman, feels as sprawling as the grand masterpiece his character is creating. Continually adding layers and layers of meta in the movie. It’s pretty amazing. That’s as much as my brain can muster right now.

Hoffman is powerful in this flick, but he always is. He’s so good at playing the sad sack. (By the way, this is why I enjoyed him so much in MI3. The Owen Davian character was no sad sack. In fact, the character seemed kind of like a grown up more evil version of his character in “Scent of a Woman” [DVD].) Everyone else, including Catherine Keener, is so peripheral that it doesn’t even really warrant much discussion. Keener is almost non-existent in the movie. Michelle Williams is okay. Samantha Morton is the only true supporting role. And she’s great.

It takes a lot of brain to watch this movie. Definitely not a bored on a weekend watch, but worthwhile if you’re invested in it.

Movie review: Bride Wars

[Blu-ray | DVD]

How to review this movie without coming off as some kind of chauvinist. It depicts women at their absolute worst. The movie itself is ridiculous beyond belief. Anne Hathaway >> Kate Hudson. Kate Hudson really looks like her mom. The last 10 or so minutes of this movie are so unbelievable I don’t even know how to talk about it. Not a good movie crestor 10 mg. Not at all.

Movie review: Star Trek

So this was a pretty good movie. I think JJ Abrams has to be fully thought of as one of the current better/best action directors now browse around here. However, this and MI3, I think he tends to make movies that are 15-20 minutes longer than needed. I’m all for 2 hour plus movies, but these feel like it.

A lot of the reviews have mentioned the lens flares in the movie. To which Abrams replied something that basically sounds like “my future’s so bright (i gotta wear shades)”. Okay, the actual quote:

I know there are certain shots where even I watch and think, “Oh that’s ridiculous, that was too many.” But I love the idea that the future was so bright it couldn’t be contained in the frame.

So moving along. Everyone says this is a movie for fans as well as newbies, I think fans get more out of it than newbies. The tiny characteristics of each character are put up front, but only meaningful to people familiar with them. JJ Abrams certainly also has a thing for time travel. To take a line from the movie, it kind of feels like a cheat. Some things have to happen, just not the same way or something crazy “Lost” like.

You know they have totally setup the franchise for a gazillion more movies because this reboot really worked. And I sort of hope they do. I definitely enjoyed the movie. Oh I didn’t see it on IMAX, but I bet it’d be awesome on IMAX. Or IMAX lite (or as Aziz Ansari calls it “Bullshit IMAX”).

Mild spoiler to follow:

Oh, but I 100% don’t buy Kirk finally being officially captain. You have a recent grad, saving earth/Federation certainly gets him a commendation and certainly pushes him through the ranks quickly, but the FLAGSHIP of the Federation? Pfft.