Memorial Day Movie Marathon
Posted on May 30th, 2006 by JTkPosted in media, movies | No Comments »
I decided to take the opportunity of this long memorial day weekend to watch some movies that I have wanted to see and others that I wanted to see again. Since they don’t have a decent cinema in this one horse town I had to rely on Netflix and the local Movie Gallery. I don’t get the opportunity to watch a lot of movies these days so this is a real treat.
I decided to watch a mix of potentially good ( you guys that have had the debate with me about good movies know what I am talking about ) with some hopefully entertaining movies. Michael is watching the original Star Wars Trilogy over the weekend.
It all started Thursday night when I watched 2 movies that just happened to star the two best living American actors imho. The first was Ronin which I had always thought was one of De Niro’s weaker movies, and The Royal Tenenbaums which is one of Hackman’s best.
Nobody ever debates that Mr. De Niro is one of the best actors ever, but Hackman very seldom gets the credit he deserves. The story of Royal’s redemption in Tenenbaum is extremely emotional without any of the cliched baggage that most heart-stringed films carry - If you want to know how I feel about Wes Anderson’s movies in depth click on over to here. Ronin was not as bad I had remembered, in fact it features the best car chase scenes since Bullet - but De Niro’s performance was the highlight although Natascha McElhone was very good too.
Friday night I watched two really good movies, Walk The Line and Good Night and Good Luck. Walk The Line was surprisingly good, I have loved Reese Witherspoon since Election and, Legally Blog aside, I think that she is one of the most interesting mainstream actress working today. However Joaquin Phoenix is the undeniable star of this movie and gives one of the best performances I have ever seen playing an icon. Usually in movies when an actor trys to play such a luminary figure suspension of disbelief is almost impossible for me - Joaquin becomes the man in black, and it took huge balls to sing those songs….
Good Night and Good Luck was as good as advertised - I find it interesting that Clooney decided to play Fred Friendly instead of Edward R. Murrow but it was the right choice. Clooney put his ego aside so that David Strathairn could give us a transcendent performance as Murrow. If that is not the way that it all went down, I don’t want to know the truth - I felt as if I was transported back to the fifties and that it was not a simpler time as the revisionist would have you believe. This is movie making at its finest and while the creators of this movie are comparing the powers that were to the powers that be they do not hit you over the head with it. This is as good a movie as I have seen in years.
Saturday night was pure entertainment - The Longest Yard, Napoleon Dynamite ( for the 3rd or 4th time ), and Daltry Calhoun. The Longest Yard was the closest of the 3 to pure entertainment and it was enjoyable and while it was fairly true to the original the action scenes reminded me of Any Given Sunday, but the one thing that I will take away from it are Courtney Cox’s breasts in the opening scene, quite a change from the too skinny Friends era Cox.
Napoleon Dynamite was my movie of the year in 2004, and while it has taken on cult status since I find that I enjoy it as much now as I did then. It is the opposite of the stereotypical John Walters high school movie flicks, and is more of a feel good movie then any of the films that promote themselves as such. This is gonna be one of those movies that I watch many times and I am sure that I will continue to find new things that make me laugh each time.
Daltry Calhoun just didn’t do it for me, it was quirky but a little too sickly sweet and tried a little to hard to tug on my heart strings. It’s one of those movies that could have been good, and wasn’t terrible, but just didn’t quite get there.
Since HBO is making us wait a week for the the season finales of The Sopranos and Big Love I got to sneak in one more movie - A History of Violence. This is not an easy movie to watch, and I am not just talking about having to look at Viggo Mortensen for two hours. It features a great script and beautiful cinematography although I did not seem to like it quite as much as some other folks. But don’t get me wrong it is definitely worth an investment of a couple hours. Hell, it may be worth it just for the Maria Bello as cheerleader scene.
