p e n g u i n d e v i l

Because I don’t remember any of them.

Well, maybe some. I’ve watched some movies over the last weekish and wasn’t really left with many impressions.

So first off, as I mentioned in the other blog, we took the baby to her first movie theater for a movie that I had been dying to see. Yes, Hot Fuzz! It was all around great. I really like Shaun of the Dead, so even though this had a terrible name I figured I must give it a chance. And funny it is, in fact, I think I liked it better than Shaun, which was quite a surprise. The story of a London Policeman who is so good it embarrasses everyone else in the department so they transfer him to a small village. The village of the year in fact, with no murders or crime at all (the biggest problem seems to be the “human statue”). Though there do seem to be a lot of strange accidents. Of course, to his wily city eyes, it becomes apparent that something odd is going on and then nearly non-stop action, some great gore, and lots of cursing ensues! It is gorier and nuttier then I would ever have expected for a police comedy and, again, just damned funny. It goes into the “must-buy” column right off. It has a great cast, some good repeats from Shaun with the two leads and Bill Nighy and Martin Freeman, but also with some added excitement from Timothy Dalton (I never saw any of his Bond movies, but he’s brilliant here), Jim Broadbent and Paddy Considine! Anyway, it is constant great fun with lots of foul language, guns, speeding cars, crazy deaths and a robed villain. Highly recommended to anyone of the over-the-top violent comedy school of taste.

And we also watched The Crying Game. I’ve always liked this one. When it first came out, I somehow managed to go to see it without having heard what the big surprise was first, and I was quite surprised. Beyond that though, it is an all around fine movie. The story of a British soldier kidnapped by the IRA, a kidnapping that goes, of course, terribly wrong. Forest Whitaker is great as the soldier and, on the IRA side, Miranda Richardson and Stephen Rea are really good. Rea really takes the film. His character is sort of passively magnetic as he always seems like a man out of place, not really trying to get anywhere but just going about his business and wanting to be left alone, but since his business is the IRA it requires a bit more dedication than a fellow like him may be inclined to give. On the surface it is a great political thriller, with violence and backstabbing and the great IRA angle (I’m drawn to anything about the IRA, well, any freedom fighters trying to kick someone out of their land)… But it really is a romantic drama of the risks and changes one will undertake for love.

So what else? Well, we watched another version of Great Expectations. Though I’ve seen the wonderful 1946 David Lean version a couple of times (and I’ll see it many more), this modern retelling didn’t really remind of the story. Instead it reminded me of a number of other movies, but I don’t recall which. I liked DeNiro in it alright, and though neither one of the two leads do I like, they seemed good for their roles… but I prefer the original story .

I watched the last half of Meet Joe Black. It was actually pretty good, both dramatic and funny. Anthony Hopkins was good as a CEO who has Death come by for an extended visit. That seems to lead to some changes in his life, both business and personal. Death was played by Brad Pitt, who was alright, though annoying (of course, I don’t think I like him anyway [well, he was fine in True Romance]). I thought that the concept was interesting, but it really just made me want to watch the original Death Takes a Holiday.

And, though it is a bit embarrassing, I watched 10 minutes or so of something called Date Movie. Now I have seen some dumb, witless, bad movies, but I didn’t imagine that they actually made movies this bad. Not bad in any good or entertaining way, but bad as in dull, not funny, and really just haphazardly written and thought out. Sort of like listening to the Michael Weiner (AKA, Michael Savage) radio show in that it’s not interesting, funny, smart or witty and even after a few minutes you feel like you’ve already wasted too much time waiting for something humorous, interesting or surprising to happen.