I took Jennifer’s advice and watched a movie while I wait for Always Sunny. I liked it. Not incredible, but it was definitely a different movie. I’d give it a B-.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a nice movie and had some funny parts, but it seemed a little light on the comedy and heavy on the romance/drama.

Holy lord, Gran Torino is such a good movie.

Trailer for Tucker & Dale Vs. Evil

This looks pretty good.

(via Filmdrunk)

I’m a Dapper Dan man!

Was that the main character was basically Murray from Flight of the Conchords.

But I can’t decide which one. There are so many good ones to choose from. Right now I have it down to District 9 and The Proposal. I’ve heard nothing but great things about District 9, but I’m a sucker for washed-up actresses and that one dude who was in a marginally funny movie a long time ago.

Oh man, I forgot how awesome this movie is.

kevinslane:

While we’re on the subect of movies I’ve watched recently, I just finished watching Magnolia tonight with my roommate. I really enjoyed it, but still have a lot of questions about it. For those who have seen the film, what do you think of it? And for that matter, what do you think Anderson was trying to convey with the film (specifically the ending)?

Answer or reblog if you don’t have room, I’d love to hear people’s thoughts on it.

Edit: And now a question mark so you can answer…. ?

I watched it a long time ago and don’t remember all of it, but I’m pretty sure it was awesome. I really loved Tom Cruise’s character (something that doesn’t happen often), Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s awkward call to the grocery store asking for peanut butter, bread, and porn, and John C. Reilly’s whole existence.

As for the ending. I remember being confused by it when I first saw it, but looking back, I think I liked it. To me it just seemed like a post-modern slap in the face to the audience. Like “Oh, you thought this was one of those movies where all the different characters’ stories somehow come together in the end in some amazing way? NOPE, YOU GET FROG RAIN!” Although that may not have been the film-maker’s intent, that’s the way I look at it, and I respect it.

Apparently a lot of people think there’s a biblical reference there, but I’d rather look at it my way. Either way, the bizarre ending doesn’t take away from the fact that it was a great movie with a lot of interesting and compelling characters.

I finally got around to watching Across the Universe. It was by far one of the most predictable, corny, over-the-top, and just plain ridiculous movies I’ve ever seen… and I loved every minute of it.

Murder by Death - Holy Lord, Shawshank Redemption is Such a Good Movie

I have a somewhat embarrassing confession to make, I had not seen Shawshank Redemption until tonight. This song, from their first, more instrumental album “Like the Exorcist, But More Breakdancing”, pretty much sums up my feelings right now.

Eddie Vedder - No Ceiling - Into the Wild Soundtrack

Great movie. Amazing soundtrack.

(I would have posted “Hard Sun” but apparently Tumblr can’t handle that amount of awesome)

So I just saw The Dark Knight last night (true story: I just typed “knight” and went back and fixed it). I went with four friends and 3 of them thought it was horrible, this is probably because they’re idiots (the last one agreed with me because she knows what’s good for her). While this movie was far from horrible, it was also far from Batman Begins, which is probably the best superhero movie I will ever see. The great thing about Batman Begins was that it wasn’t too comic-booky, and that is really where The Dark Knight differs, but I’ll get into that later.

I had really high hopes going into this movie and that might have something to do with my slight disappointment, but I stand by my opinions. I came in expecting a movie with action, sporadic laughs, and a compelling storyline. TDK definitely delivered on the laughs. The Joker’s dark humor definitely had me chuckling through the whole film. Heath Ledger’s performance was amazing and without a doubt the best part of the movie. Although I won’t be quick to jump on the Oscar bandwagon (we still have what, six months left), the posthumous-Oscar buzz surrounding his performance is not unwarranted. It is definitely one of the best portrayals of a villian I’ve ever seen, right up there with Javier Bardem in No Country and Denzel Washington in Training Day.

Unfortunately I don’t have nearly as much praise for Christian Bale’s performance or that of the majority of the cast. While I normally love anything that Bale does, I was very disappointed in his performance. While watching this movie I found myself hating Bruce Wayne and Batman. In Batman Begins, he made Bruce Wayne a compelling character who the audience identified with in his struggle to do good. In TDK, Wayne just seems like a cocky rich boy who bit off more than he could chew. I found myself rooting for the Joker for the majority of the movie (maybe this was what was intended by the film-makers, but it didn’t work for me). But the main problem I have with Bale was his “Batman Voice”, it just seemed way too over-the-top and his deep, breathy voice seemed really forced most of the time.

Another problem I had was the dialogue. I think if they would have cut about 200 lines from the dialogue (although none of the Joker’s lines, they were pure gold) it would have been a much better movie. It seemed like the writers thought that they needed to explain every little thing with dialog, but the mantra with movies is “show don’t tell” and they definitely had the talent to show but they chose to tell.

It also seemed like they tried to fit too much into the movie. Although it was long (2 hrs and 40 mins), to try to pack the Harvey Dent/Two-Face storyline into the last half of the film was foolish (***Spoiler Alert*** Harvey Dent is Two-Face). Although Aaron Eckhart’s portrayal of Dent was excellent for what he had to work with and light years ahead of the Batman Forever neon purple suit portrayal, there wasn’t nearly enough character development and they could have saved most of it for the next movie.

Although my criticisms of this movie are many, most of them are just due to the amazingly high bar that was set by Batman Begins. This was still a great movie. The action was plentiful although a little hard to follow at spots (this might have something to do with me having the second-worst seat in the theater so I’ll hold off judgement on that) and it’s definitely worth $10 just to see Ledger’s Joker.

Bottom Line: A solid movie that is still a step above most superhero movies. While there are a few corny, “give me a break” moments, the plusses outweigh the minuses by far.

B-

I just finished reading the book and I gotta say, I’m pretty excited for this. The trailer doesn’t look spectacular, but apparently it won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance, so I’m pretty optimistic.