Marie and Bruce

Marie and Bruce (2004)


Director: Tom Cairns
Writer: Wallace Shawn (screenplay &play) Tom Cairns (screenplay)
Starring: Julianne Moore, Matthew Broderick

Synopsis
a couple who are on the verge of leaving each other

The Woman
i would not call this a comedy, or funny in any sense of the word. this was HORRIBLE! i had a hard time watching it all the way through, not only because it was bad, but the many things i need to get accomplished before the middle of december were beckoning. i ended up across the room at my table more than once because i just couldn't take it. basically, the couple, hate each other. he's boring as hell, and she's a raging bitch to him. the whole movie revolves around their boring meaningless night where she wants to confront him about how much she hates him and wants to leave, and he is totally oblivious because he's too busy going out to lunch and a party with his boring friends. the party scenes were extremely uncomfortable and hard to watch. it was like being at a party where none of the conversations interest you and you just want to break out with a flame thrower ant torch the whole building. i've experienced those kind of parties and was glad to be leaving them first hand, i don't need to watch them in a movie. maybe that's how i feel about this movie. like one long boring party where there is not a soul worth talking to, and you keep looking at your watch, counting down the time for an acceptable time to leave.

it was also too neurotic new yorker personality for me.

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Director: Tim Burton
Writer: Linda Woolverton(screenplay), Lewis Carroll (wrote a book of the same name)
Starring: Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter Burton

Synopsis
A teenage Alice is starting to realize that she can be her own person and resisting "the man."  Running away from what's supposed to be her engagement party, she falls down the rabbit hole and becomes embroiled in the politics of "Underland" which she doesn't remember having visited as a child.

The Woman
this wasn't bad, but it should not have been called "alice in wonderland". there was also something missing that we discussed yet we still couldn't quite put our fingers on and it keeps me from calling this good. the art direction was very tim burton, but very colorful. the way the mad hatter was presented irritated me a little. i don't know. it kept my interest through the whole of it, but again, something is bothering me.... it was exactly what i requested being ill on the couch. "something brainless that i don't need to think about" also the MESSAGE was very apparent through the whole thing. MESSAGE!

better than "planet of the apes" but i think tim burton needs to go back to his roots and stop doing things that have strong reference material. it makes the public weary and lose faith in your abilities when you present us time after time with stuff almost completely unrecognizable from our beloved memories of the originals. do your own thing, or have you run out of ideas so completely.

MOster
This was fine, but so what?  I really didn't care about this movie.  This is Burton, so if you can get past the omnipresent CG you'll find plenty of beautiful visuals and setpieces; and even a couple of artsy shots of "dark" scenery.

The message was super-typical "find yourself through your dreams" and the plotting itself was superficial and linear while feeling inexplicably rushed.  It's not surprising at a very small majority of characters were acted with any amount of reserve.  We're supposed to excuse that because everybody else is one form of crazy or another, but it really doesn't have to play that way.  Everything was schticky or schlocky; and we already knew that Tim Burton is married to Helena Bonham Carter (that would have been a better title for this film).  The idiotic dance at the end served no purpose but to annoy me into the bathroom.

We watched this out of rotation, which is a pro/con.  We don't have to watch it again; but I could have lived another year without seeing it.

Mother

Mother (2009)

Written by Eun-Kyo Park, Joon-ho Bong, Wun-kyo Park
Directed by Joon-ho Bong

Starring Hye-ja Kim, Bin Won, Ku Jin, Je-mun Yun

Synopsis
a slow kid is arrested and manipulated to plead guilty for the murder of a teenage girl in a small town in korea. his mother, knowing he is incapable of doing such a thing, begins to investigate the crime herself to free her son.
MOster
Another better-than-average outing from our friends in southeast Asia, this film brings us an interesting perspective of how some people are assholes all over the world and some people aren't, but possibly only at first glance.  Quality direction drives us through a story that I don't think could have been produced in this country.

Acting might not be quite the tops here but I doubt seriously that the talent pool over there is nearly as deep.  That said there are no prominent pustules, only a small area of abating acne on some of the supporters.  The leads are all great and their characters are even a little too believable.  Unlike White On Rice we have a genuinely-handicapped Asian person who is played for neither sympathy nor laughs.  And the mother, whose life plan didn't include any child let alone a slow one, treads her horrific path with as much  honor and humility as she can muster.

As we watch her journey, there are enough obstacles to both Schrodinger and the cat that we alternate between guessing and gasping until practically the last, beautifully composed frame.
 
The Woman
 i don't know what is going on with the mentally handicapped asian movies in our house, but this one was far superior to "white on rice". originally, i thought this was going to be much more suspenseful than it actually was. it was more a study of motherly devotion, and it was kind of sad. that said, it was still a really good movie. directed beautifully (i'm starting to think all asian movies would settle for nothing less, and i think american directors should catch on. even if the plot sucks, if it's got beautiful art direction and very deliberate framed shots viewers might get distracted enough and at least have one good thing to say about a cruddy movie) i also didn't see the direction the plot was going in because i was so wrapped up in the journey. being a mother myself, i felt for the overbearing mother, and the angry and annoyed son, irritated by the way she treated him like a child. good movie. two hours well spent.

White On Rice

White On Rice (2009)
Written by Dave Boyle, Joel Clark
Directed by Dave Boyle
Starring Hiroshi Watanabe, Justin Kwong, Nae

Synopsis
Asian man with hobble-along Asperberger's hobbles through life on various crutches.  He does many things which do not improve how most people view him.

The Woman
i thought this would be way funnier than it was. i only laughed a couple of times, but somehow, i think if you are first generation japanese this might be funnier. there seemed to be a lot of cultural clash that didn't hit home for me because i do not know any japanese, japanese people. it was amusing, but shme. the lead character, jimmy, really did seem mentally handicapped. he was like a much less functioning japanese napoleon dynamite. the less functioning part is why it wasn't really funny.


MOster
I don't usually enjoy what I call the Chris Farley School of Comedy (i.e. making fun of stupid people because stupid people are inherently funny) but that wasn't even the problem here.  With the exception of a few chuckles this just wasn't funny.  I think it was supposed to be more Gervais-style awkwardville but it failed more miserably at that not least because it was impossible to empathize with any of the primary characters.  Just because the guy meant well doesn't excuse any of his behavior and I really don't understand how we're expected to leave this experience with any optimism about his future.

The Lathe of Heaven

The Lathe of Heaven (1979)

Written by Diane English, Ursula K. LeGuin (book)

Directed by Fred Barzyk, David R. Loxton
Starring Bruce Davison, Kevin Conway, Margaret Avery

Synopsis
this dude can change the past with his dreams and when his psychiatrist figures it out he tries to manipulate his dreams but he never learns how to word his demands correctly so things don't come out the way he wants them

MOster
It's been a grillion years since I read this, but it seems to me that they did a good job of capturing the concept behind the story.  To an extent it plays out like a Twilight Zone episode; but it's deeper and more SF than that.

This is a PBS production, hampered as much by budget as by the era in which it was made.  Music, effects, "technology of the future," and architecture are all presented from that indelible light.  (Of course, the same could be said of SF from any time period.)  With that in mind, everything was competent at least.  Conway is a real piece of garbage as the "dream specialist," and it's good to see that 30 years ago Bruce Davison was doing a much better job in making the equivalent of SyFy original movies.

I really liked this book and we've (well, I've) been waiting for it to come in the mail for much longer than the standard two year  interval.  I don't think I had expectations to be met or dashed, but I did get value out of watching this.

The Woman
this was rife with plot holes. if dude changes the past when he dreams how is it that the doctor can remember the past before the guy changes it when no one else does? all arguments fail. time paradox. then, about halfway through things get really abstract and i lost what was going on. things changed, things didn't change. things go back to the way it was three pasts ago. his chick keeps disappearing and reappearing. he somehow stops the doctor, but that was done so badly i have no idea what he did, or how he did it. i've never read the story so i have no reference point,but i think it was just the kind of story that translates bad into "movie" when you don't have the character's constant inner monologue to anchor what is going on around him. i didn't like this, if you can't tell.

JCVD

JCVD (2008)

Written by Mabrouk El Mechri, Frederic Benudis, Frederic Taddei, Vincent Ravelec, Christophe Tupin .  Belgish credits are weird.

Directed by Mabrouk El Mechri

Starring  Jean-Claude Van Damme, Francois Damiens, Jean-Francois Wolff, Karim Belkhadra

Synopsis
Having a pretty rough time of things, Jean Claude Van Damme (JCVD) goes into a post office in Belgium (many of you may know that European post offices are also banks) and becomes embroiled in a hostage situation.


The Woman
this was fantastic, and not in the way i expected it to be. i had to stop doing my fiber art because i was so wrapped up in it. though it seems to be a vanity "comeback" movie he has totally earned it. he doesn't paint himself in a very good light either. he's a flawed, has-been, aging, action actor who hit the big time for a fleeting second and pissed it away. i hope he gets lots of roles out of this movie. not only do i think it was way better than "the wrestler" i think van damme did a better job than mickey rourke.

i put this on the queue because we love a van damme movie in this household. i thought it was going to be a van damme movie making fun of van damme, but it turned out to be quite a great film. it kind of shocked me in the way that "rambo: first blood" shocked me. an action film that's actually got some substance to it, but is usually perceived as a brainless blood and guts and explosion movie. i may go as far as to say this was not an action movie at all. it was great to see jcvd speak his native tongue, and maybe that is why he could emote better than i've ever seen him do before. his performance was completely believable to the point where i had to keep telling myself this is not a true story. (clever trick on his part using his real name and old interviews and speaking about his actual career. also the little digs he gets in about people like john woo.). the more i think about this movie the more i like it. mad props to you, sir. i applaud you, and i hope you get some fulfilling roles out of this experience.

MOster

This movie exceeded my expectations on every level.  It was smart, interesting, well-directed and acted, and really quite good.

I don't know how much of the backstory is true, but his problems weren't played for laughs at all.  The divorce/custody hearing might have been a little over the top, but people are bastards when they're getting divorced so maybe not. And when we get to the actual meat of the film--far earlier than I had thought to expect--things unfold in a depressingly realistic way.  There's not a lot of urgency to the pacing here, which again makes sense, and I like how we get to see the politics and general infighting of the Brussles police. While this part is maybe a little more typical (one cop who's actually thoughtful vs. the trigger-happy SWAT guys) it doesn't play out like Die Hard, for example.

I really liked the acting, as well.  I think we see sides of JCVD which hadn't been uncovered before.  Among other things, this film was probably intended to showcase some other chops and I genuinely hope it was successful.  There's one neat little spot where he breaks the fourth wall and it, too, is quite effective.

So, yeah.  An excellence 4 when we were expecting an awesomeness 5 is a very nice surprise.

Cirque du Freak: the Vampire's Assistant

Cirque du Freak: the Vampire's Assistant (2009)

Director: Paul Weitz
Writer: Paul Weitz (screenplay),  Brian Hegeland (screenplay), Darren Shan (series of books)
Starring: John C. Reilly, Josh Hutcherson, Chris Massoglia
Synopsis
The Woman
i was pleasantly surprised at this movie. i thought it was going to be totally stupid kids movie, but it wasn't. the first clue was the amount of time "shit" and "ass" were used. it had that lemony snicket's surprisingly interesting shock to it. it was no masterpiece by far, but it had a lot of sarcasm in it and i can dig. i like john c. reilly. it was definitely the first in a sequence because it had that just scratching the surface-ness to it. you know there is a lot more to all the details going on in the story. i didn't put this on the queue because of how stupid i thought it was going to be, but now, if they make another one i'll totally be on the couch for that.