Crazy Movie Weekend

Hello Everyone,

This weekend my wife and I watched 6 movies; Horton Hears A Who, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, Into The Wild, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium, August Rush and Atonement. I would like to talk about each individually; I will try an avoid giving the films away but they MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS.

Horton Hears A Who
Some of the principle reasons why I wanted to go and see this film were that it features a lot of celebrity voices (steve carrell, jim carrey, jonah hill, seth rogen, isla fisher and others), the CGI looked pretty cool and I knew it would be well written because it was based on a Dr. Seuss story. It was a cute little film; I was entertained, I laughed and the film did not go on too long unnecessarily. The moral of the story is pretty obvious to any viewer over the age of 10, but it is a Dr. Seuss story, so you expect that, but it is not too preachy like some of the Disney films can be. Anyone can enjoy this film; not everyone will want to or needs to go to the theatre to see it, but I believe everyone can enjoy this film.

The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford
I believe that this film was robbed of a Best Picture Oscar Nomination; I am glad No Country For Old Men won, but this film should have been nominated. The story is about Jesse James as seen through the eyes of his assassin Robert Ford, whose brother ran with Jesse's gang. Robert Ford idolized Jesse James as a child and young man, but then he begins to see how trouble Jesse is a person, a father and a husband. Casey Affleck was great as Robert Ford and was worthy of the Oscar nomination that he received for his performance in this film. This film also had a beautiful score that should have been nominated for an Oscar; I am not saying that if nominated that it should have won, but the score for Atonement (which won for best original score) was annoying, predictable and totally unspectacular and should not have won. This film is pretty long (2 hrs. 40 mins) and does drag a little at times, but the performances are always great (Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Rockwell in particular). The first 40 minutes of the film features some great landscape shots; great cinematography. The voice-over that pops up every 5-10 minutes was great and detailed thoughts and feeling of some of the characters. The voice-over only enhanced the film that was already pretty well written. This is likely the only film (with the possible exception of Horton Hears A Who) that I watched this weekend that I intend to buy in the near future and by near future I mean payday, which is Thursday (sweeeeeeet). If you consider yourself a reasonably patient person then you will get through the slower points in this film. One of the best films of the year, which is really last year (2007).

Into The Wild
The true story of a young man (Chris) who decides to give up a possibly meaningless material existence for a life on the open road; a road which he plans to take to Alaska. Emile Hirsch (Lords of Dogtown, Alpha Dog, The Girl Next Door) plays Chris, who travels America and has random, but meaningful encounters with other people on his journey to Alaska; Catherine Keener, Vince Vaughn, Hal Holbrook play the main characters that he encounter on the road. It is a very sad and tragic story, but it totally worth seeing. The film is capably directed by Sean Penn and features great music composed by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, Kaki King and Michael Brook. The music enhances some of the emotion behind some of the principle scenes of the film. Worth a watch.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium
My wife Veronica wanted to see this film and I did not really want to see it, but I thought what the hell; I watch movies so why not give it a try. It was cute and magical; in more of small scale way then something like Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (the original). It was also a little unexpectedly sad, but not cry your eyes out sad. If you want to see it, you want to see it and if you don't you don't. Dustin Hoffman does his wacky Willy Wonka type character, but is not as extreme as that and the film does not necessitate him to be any more extreme in his performance than he is. Jason Batemen and Natalie Portman are very capable in their performances of the not totally fleshed out characters that they play. The young boy in the film that helps out at the store (Eric) is a very cute, wise, original and somewhat odd little kid that adds to the film and helps keep the story going when it seems like the film may be over to a sad end for the store and some of the people who tend to it.

August Rush
This film was, I think a very underrated and rarely seen film; almost a sort of indy film; it had a limited release and was only playing in one of the two theatres in my hometown. The story is about an orphan boy who desperately seeks to find his parents and seeks to call to them with the music that he plays and music which he eventually composes. His parents played by Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (great actor, great singer/musician) who had a chance encounter, but were never a couple and who both seek each other out when each has a sort of mini-epiphany. Keri Russell finds out from her father on his deathbed that the child that she was carrying did not indeed die when she was hit by a car 11 years earlier, but was illegally put up for adoption by him (he forged her signature). She rushed to find him as he is trying to find her and his father with his music. The music in this film is great. Jonathan Rhys-Meyers who has an Irish Country band with his family needs to start his own band and start releasing albums because he is a great potential rock star; great voice, good guitar player and he played Elvis in that TV movie that was on in 2005 (I think). If you are into music or like Jonathan Rhys-Meyers or just want to see a good flick check it out.

Atonement
I am not a fan of Ian McEwan's novels, but I have never read any of them, so I gave this movie a chance. I am also trying to watch all of the Best Picture Oscar Nominees (There Will Be Blood will be the last one that I have to watch still) of this year and make a final decision as to what film is/was the most deserving of the Oscar; it is coming up No Country For Old Men still. This film won for Best Original Score, but sadly this was an unworthy win. Unfortunately, I did not see 3:10 To Yuma, The Kite Runner or Ratatouille, so I cannot judge from those films which score should have won the Oscar, but as previously mentioned, The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford should have been nominated in this category. Keira Knightley is not a bad actress and pulls off a fairly decent performance, although I prefer Natalie Portman because she is a better actress. James McAvoy pulls off a much better performance of the two, possibly because he is just started to get recognized by Hollywood (see him next in action flick Wanted with Angelina Jolie) whereas Keira has been around Hollywood since Bend It Like Beckham gained international acclaim in 2002 and I worry that her best days may be behind her. Prove me wrong, Keira. The protagonist of the story, Briony played by younin' Saoirse Ronan (she is only 13) annoyed me and I do not really understand Saoirse's Oscar nomination, but I think whenever a young child is nominated for an acting award, I am always stunned or caught unawares; I do not understand how they decide that some of these young children deserve the nomination; I guess that I believe they are deserving of the nominations...sometimes. The story was part love story, part war epic, part coming of age story. There were a few good twists towards the end of the film, but for me it fell flat. My bias though I think is that I am not a fan of any sort of modern filmed war epic love story (The English Patient) films. I believe that I am more of a fan of the black and white 40s and 50s war epics such as the coming home subtype as seen in The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946). The film is very sad, a little sappy, boring at times and was unworthy of the nomination; I mean Atonement, if you lost me there. Every year at the Oscars there is one or two films that were off in their nomination for Best Picture. In 2005, I believe that Capote and Goodnight and Good Luck were unworthy of their nominations and I was disappointed that Brokeback Mountain lost, but still excited that Crash won. If you really want to see this film then by all means see it, but all I can tell you was that I did not enjoy it and I really did not have any expectations for the film, so I was pretty open to it and it did very little for me.

I hope that you have enjoyed reading this insanely long post and that you make an effort to see one of the films that I have reviewed, discussed or bitched about; maybe not Atomenent. Take care everyone and thanks Denise for telling me that people were unable to leave comments on my blogs; I have resolved this or at least tried, so you should now be able to freely leave comments. If any of you would like recommend films to me that you believe I should see, please feel free to let me know.

REVISED
Since posting this blog originally, I have read Atonement and rewatched the movie. I still stand by what I said about Keira Knightley. I am looking foward to seeing more of James McAvoy in the pictures; possibly as an action star; his next film is Wanted with Angelina Jolie; I know that I already mention that in this blog entry. There are things about this film that annoy me, like how this young girl's unreliability ruins McAvoy's character's life. But it is a good story. I am not usually a fan of the war epic type pictures, but it is very dramatic and sad and I like those sort of elements in films. I now feel that this film's nomination for best picture was deserving but I think that it is the third best film of the 4 of the 5 that I have seen that was nominted (1; No Country For Old men, 2: Juno, 4: Michael Clayton; these ratings may change slightly as I have not seen There Will Be Blood yet; if this happens I will update, you the readers.

Take Care Everyone.

F&nb0y D@vE