Tuesday, July 21, 2009

A couple movies

I don't understand why anyone would make a film about Mark David Chapman. I've seen two now and with both, I kept asking myself, first, why am I watching and second, what's the point of making these films to begin with. I saw Chapter 27, with Jared Leto playing MDC. It was a stupid film, that seemed to try to make the audience sympathetic to his motives. Hey, guess what his motives were ... HE'S A FREAKING PSYCHOTIC LOONIE. There, that's it. Why make a film about it??? I fast forwarded through some since the script was just him rambling, rambling rambling ... I mean, I've seen movies on disturbing topics, but this one just takes the cake. Heck, watching Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer didn't tick me off as bad as Chapter 27.

Blindness was a film from last year. My tivo picked it up as part of my effort to watch everything that has Gael Garcia Bernal in it. It's about a world where a mysterious blindness takes over the world affecting everyone but 1 person. The film starred Julianne Moore, who I usually loathe as an actress ... she usually plays annoying harpies and I deplored her Maude character in Lebowski. I guess I never saw what the big hairy deal was with her. But in this film, she was really really good as the one person who didn't go blind. Apparently, when this film came out, advocacy groups for the blind were all in a tizzy, which was really stupid. Kind of like how the Catholic Church got their noses bent out of shape because of the DaVinci Code ... seriously, some people need to chill out. Anyway, the film was very graphic and depressing. It was easy to imagine how it would be if something like this really happened. Gael Garcia Bernal kept up his choice to play really unsavory characters. Why does he do that????

I've been watching a lot of Ovations tribute to African American artists .. I think I mentioned Jimi Hendrix earlier. I watched 2 shows about Miles Davis. First, The Miles Davis Story was a 3 hour show about his life. Came from a very middle class background, trained at Julliard (!!!!) and then onto greatness. Ok ok, I'm not a big Miles fan. I like So What (who wouldn't), but once he went electric, his music was ... I don't know ... mush. I tried listening to Bitches Brew once ... it's probably better appreciated while high, but I don't get it (at least I can admit it). Another show was called Miles Davis Electric. Apparently, Miles did to the jazz world what Boby Dylan did to the folk world, he had the gall to introduce electric instruments to jazz, including eletrifying his trumpet. I can understand the big hubbub behind it, but I still don't get the music. It's all very jam session-y ... who knows, maybe it was supercool live. The show concluded by playing his piece "call it anything" from the Isle of Wight festival in 1970. I think I like the idea of Miles better than Miles himself.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

I'm slacking ... I know I know

Maybe it's because of all these celebrities dropping dead. Who the heck would have thought the oxyclean guy would pass away ... who knew!!!!????

I watched a few movies. The Chocolate War .. hmmm ... strange, unfinished. I have a feeling that if I actually read books, this is one where I'd say "ahhhh, yes, the book was much better than the movie". It seemed to be a very dark version of Heaven Help Us, which I loved. About the only person I recognized was the spazz kid from Weird Science, not Anthony Michael Hall, the other one. I don't know, it seemed to be very self important and unfinished. Again, if I ever feel the urge, maybe I'll check out the book ... it seemed kind of Lord of the Flies in Catholic school ...

I'm with Lucy was part of my Gael Garcia Bernal film festival. He was great, the movie was silly fluffy crap. Not that there's anything wrong with silly fluffy crap (I'm in the midst of What Happens in Vegas ... trying to keep my dinner in my stomach while watching). I also watch a good silly fluffy crap movie called We Married Margot and it was freaking hilarious. So if you're in the mood for silly fluffy crap, watch I Married Margot .. it's actually based on a true story about 2 guys who married Margot and their subsequent breakups. Wow, that was a tangent.

Watched a supecool show about Jimi Hendrix. It's part of Ovation tv's tribute to African American music legends and yes, indeed, Jimi Hendrix is one of them. They showed Jimi's entire performance at Monterey Pop ... just amazing. Not only was he a superb guitar player, he was a master showman. I also watched one on Count Basie ... I'm getting into jazz in my old years. Jumpin' at the Woodside is a great tune .. it's the song that Gene Gene the Dancing machine danced to on the Gong Show ... theres your useless trivia for the day ... and now you have the song and the visual going through your head! HA!!!

Burn After Reading. Coen Coen Coen. The film is only 1:40 minutes long, so it was bearable. The first 35 minutes were bad. George Clooney was bad .. Brad Pitt .. sigh ... bad. He tried too hard to be stupid. It was hard to believe he's the same guy who should have won an Oscar for Jesse James. Frances McDormand was asleep at the wheel. Malkovich ... the only reason to watch this stinker film. There's a twist in the film about half way through that's worth watching. It's a great story arc that makes the rest of the film worth watching. It had a similar "well, that's it folks" ending like no country for old men had. It's kind of obvious that first of all, Ethan Coen wrote the script in a day and that they made it to make money for their works of art, which I'm sure one is coming soon. I call it the Steven Soderberg approach to filmmaking. It's ok as long as they can redeem themselves by the next film.