[Blu-ray | DVD]

I can’t say I was a fan. This movie was certainly a visual spectacle. And that covers a WHOLE lot of ground for me. I can deal with a lot of bad just to watch a movie that looks good (see e.g. Michael Bay movies). But that said, I can’t say that this movie really accomplished that for me. I mean it is a visual movie. And colorful. And all of that. And most definitely had some amazing vistas and locations. But it was kind of mostly about costume and color. And I don’t think that those two things were used as artistically as they were in “Hero”.

I guess I was just bored by the dynamic of the two central characters. Even at the end, when it took a slightly more melodramatic turn, I just couldn’t buy into it. It’s not a terrible movie and it’s contains some beautiful imagery (looked amazing on blu-ray), just not something I’d really watch again.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

Wow, what a thrill ride. This is a horror movie of the top order. It just throws you into a night of terror. A random night of terror by basically never known assailants. I recently watched The Descent and it suffered from the same kinds of problems that Signs by Shamalan [Blu-ray | DVD]. It ruined the suspense with crazy bad monsters/aliens. The Strangers showed the crazy killers in masks. And unmasked them. But never really showed them. And “You were home” just added to the total random nature of the terror. It was basically all “unexpected” scares, but not bad. There were only EIGHT characters in the whole movie. That’s how focused the movie was on the scary alone. If you like scary movies, this one ain’t bad at all.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

This was about as typical thriller/conman movie as you could get. The basic plot points/twists were all there. Nerdy guy looking to live life. Suave con man. Hooker with the heart of gold. Turn the tables. Happy ending. BORING.

[DVD]

I love Charlotte Gainsbourg, and not even she could hold my attention in this movie. Maybe I’m just not the target audience.

I honestly didn’t like this movie all that much. And I wasn’t so impressed with Kate Winslet here. I thought Revolutionary Road was better, as a movie and for Winslet’s performance. I didn’t think this movie was as nuanced. I suppose it should be applauded for playing it straight, but it got kind of boring.

The last 10-15 minutes of this movie were terrible. Just terrible. And didn’t make a ton of sense. If the prison was so worried about Winslet’s character that they reached out to Fiennes before Winslet was released, wouldn’t they call him before he came to get her and tell him that she’s dead? Or at least “something’s happened, please come to see us” etc.? Fiennes is definitely the king of slow, quiet, go nowhere, but not necessarily bad movies.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

This movie reminded me of “The Negotiator”. Only with great character actors taking the parts played by Sam L. and Spacey. I am a big fan of both Don Cheadle and Guy Pierce and thought they did good work here. Pierce did an okay blown out Southern accent. I thought Cheadle was great showing nuance of emotion throughout. Saïd Taghmaoui I guess is the go to guy to play Arabic characters. It’s a wonder he wasn’t cast in The Kingdom [Blu-ray | DVD]. But he does a good job always. He should get some roles outside of this kind of movie though.

There wasn’t too much surprising about this movie. No big twists and turns, save kind of one. I didn’t really expect Cheadle’s character to engage in terrorism, so I didn’t expect his end bombs were real. But they were.

I don’t think the cat and mouse between Cheadle and Pierce was as grabbing as Sam L. and Spacey, but it was still very good.

[Blu-ray | DVD]

This wasn’t a great movie. It was not bad at all though. How I felt about this movie kind of changed as the movie went on. I liked it, but just okay, but then liked it more and more and then a little less and less and ended up in the middle. In a way I kind of got a Tarantino vibe off of it. Not so much the look or dialogue, but in as much as he took another genre and put it into a different context. This movie is basically a samurai/noir movie, but set today. David Mamet didn’t go the full on Tarantino and use the same style of dialogue from other movies, but the vibe was there. It’s basically one long morality tale, which I suppose most movies are.

Mamet really just dropped you into a story without much back story. You just have to go with it. And it’s pretty rewarding to do so.

I can’t say enough how much I love Chiwetel Ejiofor. He’s great. In everything he’s in. Though I caught a tiny bit of the British English in his speech once. Does Ricky Jay ever play a straight man any more? Always a bit of con to him.

I don’t think I posted a review of Slumdog Millionaire. I thought it was alright, but nothing amazing. I thought it was a visual spectacle for the most part click for more. The story was kind of trite, the performances were okay. But here’s what John Gruber of Daring Fireball had to say:

I’ve seen Drivers Ed. movies that were less predictable and more engaging than “Slumdog Millionaire”.

I can’t say I disagree.

– John Gruber on Slumdog Millionaire  

[Blu-ray | DVD]

This movie wasn’t at all what I thought it was going to be. Well I knew it was going to be a monster movie, and in a cave, but I thought it was going to be a traditional kind of dumb, pretty college girls get preyed upon on by the monsters.

This played out a little, but not the character part. Well the characters were kind of stupid.

I thought the ending bits were kind of interesting. Visually I thought it was nice. Having to work with the dark and color casting with the lights was nice work. That’s about all I could say about it.