Movie Reviews & More
Dark Water (2005)
Starring Jennifer Connelly, Dougray Scott, Tim Roth, and John C. Reilly, this movie was middle of the road. I knew that it was supposed to be a thriller, and I really like Connelly, and the disturbed and imperfect characters she often plays, but this movie seemed like it never really got off the ground.
It reminded me a lot of movies I have seen before, but can’t place, other than The Ring. A little girl is lost, left behind by her confused parents, and she drowns on top of a Gestapo looking apartment building on an island in Seattle. Connelly’s daughter talks to the girl even though she is dead, and they have a connection that as a viewer, can never be good. Eventually the dead girl wants to become the real girl, and to have a mother again, just like in The Ring.
Connelly does a good job of the single mom, she is really convincing, but most of the movie revolves around the damage that water causes to an apartment building, and a ton of climax that revolves around the water itself, but never comes to pass. One of the final scenes is pretty cool when Connelly tries to save her daughter and dirty water shoots out of every outlet in the bathroom, but that is too little too late.
Unless you are a big Connelly fan, this movie won’t be particularly rewarding for you. I wouldn’t recommend this for my parents, and Sarah didn’t like it either.
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (1987)
Most of the movies my dad would bring home when I was growing up, were James Bond movies, and movies with Steve Martin in them. I never liked either, but as I have grown up, I still don’t like old Bond movies, but I get a profound enjoyment from some Martin classics, and this was one of them.
Co-Starring the late John Candy, this is a movie about an uptight advertising exec. who meets a down on his luck but upbeat shower ring salesman. Martin is on his way home for Thanksgiving, but he can’t seem to make it there no matter what he does, via any transportation as the name implies. And along the way, he can’t shake Candy, who keeps showing up to cause trouble.
My parents wouldn’t ever let me watch this one, because of the one scene when Martin makes it back to the rental car lady at the airport. The rest of the movie was really clean, and not foul mouthed, and could be a family movie otherwise.
The whole thing is classic, from the opening scene in the hotel, to the car burning it is always funny and always simple. Everyone should see this movie.
Guess Who (2005)
I really enjoyed this movie. Not a new concept, unspoken boundaries in culture in relationships that cause tension, but I think that the casting was perfect. Bernie Mac as the stern dad, and Ashton Kutcher as the mostly polite but proto-typical American male.
It does get a little sappy, but I think it fits the movie fine. From the start with stereotypes being flung out left and right, to uncomfortable jokes at the dinner table, to the awkward conversations between a father and a boy dating his daughter, just about anyone can enjoy this movie.
If you don’t like Ashton, you might want to skip this, but he isn’t obnoxious. He doesn’t seem to carry over any of his acting from “That 70’s Show” into any of the movie roles I have seen him in. He is a mature guy who is trying to be as politically correct as possible.
Check this one out. Lots of typical scenes with “Women Power”, and “We aren’t talking about the relations you had with my daughter” but perfect to wait to rent at home on a Friday night with the other grownups who can appreciate the possibly real world situation.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)
What a good fun summer movie. Good action, but the plot wasn’t forced and was really funny. Starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie plus Adam Brody from “The OC” fame if you can call it that.
You’ve seen the previews, these two government killers that somehow manage to marry each other. Now they are after each other. That is just about all they could get into the :30 second preview. But what they don’t show is this great portrayal of American marriage, the things left unsaid, and the role that time can play in driving two people apart. It is really funny, and I think that my parents and most people could enjoy it, if they could handle the brief sex type scene, and the violence between themselves and the other characters. But it isn’t bloody, it is just a ton of gunfire.
But Brad Pitt is great, he has just the right delivery for this role, and Jolie did as well, as the housewife, which I was surprised she pulled off.
This is one you’ll want to own and laugh with friends. See it. Have an open mind, but this is a good movie that just didn’t hit it at the summer box office as well as it should have, due in part to the downturn in the film industry attendance.
Ray (2004)
Starring Jamie Foxx as Ray Charles Robinson, you would never know that it isn’t Charles himself. Instead you are slowly immersed into the character and the world that Ray feels because he is blind. The movie covers the different perspectives, from racism, to love, to moving around through a seeing man’s world and how it feels to be blind for all of those things.
I never thought much of Charles. He was a little bit before my time, and although I probably won’t start listening to his music now, the song he did with Billy Joel will have more meaning for me now. A well traveled, tortured musician who fell prey to heroin and adultery, this movie does not make him seem like a good guy by any definition of the word. It instead cuts Charles wide open until there is no where to hide. But you understand why he is the way he is, and you will empathize in one aspect or another by the end of the movie.
A truly great movie, it seems only fitting that Ray passed away just before it finished, so that his legendary status became complete. Not for children because of the drug use and mild sex scenes, I would recommend this movie to anyone, and everyone should see it.
Guinevere (1999)
Hoo boy. This one was a little weird, and probably extremely weird if you are not an artist, nor have watched many movies about artists. Starring people you’ve never heard of, nor will again, this movie is about a young 21 year old girl who is enticed by a 38 year old photographer. She sons becomes his “Guinevere”, or his muse in a sense. The become aromatically involved, and she is an apprentice of art, learning some sort of artful skill.
Twisted not only because of the age difference between the two, you soon find out this girl is the fourth of fifth in a line of women who “Connie” has taken on. He takes in these scared and confused women and tries to open their eyes through emotional turmoil and some mind games. The whole movie is real, and that works to it’s benefit sometimes, because it doesn’t seem like acting. But at other times, like when a whole section of Connie’s bridge breaks off when he is eating, because he has poor dental health makes it a less than entertaining movie that you wouldn’t want to watch again.
Not as mad as Sarah that I watched this, I think that maybe I would recommend it to some of my friends from college, with a beer factor of one to two glasses. Otherwise, if you are my parents, or someone of similar tastes, you would despise this movie on so many levels.
Cinderella Man (2005)
I am the type of viewer that the big studios dream about. This movie made me cry, I got wrapped up in the heroically slanted story, the little guy vs. the big guy during the worst time in America, the whole bit.
Russell Crowe plays James Braddock, who after breaking his hand and being finished, banned from boxing, manages to rise to the top. Old and tired, Russell Crowe looked every bit the part, battered, beaten up, and just tossed around by life. But he wins three fights over boxers younger and bigger than him. Not gracefully, sometimes punch by punch, but he does it. Then in the end, he beats the big cocky, psuedo boxer of a man Max Baer, who spends more time strutting around the ring and swinging huge rights than actually dancing like a boxer should and trying to actually fight.
Everyone should see this movie. Renee Zellwegger does a decent job, but I think I am about all out on her squinty, beaten down girl part. Paul Giamatti is fantastic. He is the coach that you want in your corner, and the guy that once he started to believe in Braddock again, didn’t let him down. Don’t forget the huge brute who plays Baer, Craig Bierko, the most familiar looking giant you’ve never heard of and has never been in anything notable.
Ron Howard knew how to make this story about fighting for something bigger than yourself, and you will leave wanting more.
