Movies I’ve Recently Seen

I can’t wait to start making my own again. In the meantime:

DVD:

• Turistas – So boring I couldn’t even finish watching it. Would have made a good short film, I think, but it’s at least an hour too long.
• Ginger Snaps – as good as you’ve heard. Finally broke down and rented it for me and Alex, my teenage daughter, after haring raves about it for years. Great writing helped me overlook the awful (to say the least) acting in Clerks. In Ginger Snaps, the good writing and outstanding acting helped me overlook the downright awful special effects. We’re talking … oh, man … it’s awful, but yes, the rest makes up for it.
• Ginger Snaps 2 – as good as you’ve heard, too. Great premise. The young lead actress plays the punkette receptionist at the abortion clinic in Juno who offers Ellen Page the boysenberry condom (and it’s amazing how pretty she is when she’s not grimacing through a whole moive). Tatiana Maslany is outstanding. Watch it a second time and pay attention to her in particular. I know there’s a debate about which is better. I couldn’t say – they’re too different.
• Children of Men – decent. I wrote an incredibly long rant about movies with no endings to a friend of mine. I delete my sent mail and trash pretty frequently so if he still has it, I’ll post it.
• The Descent – I’m not claustrophobic, but every time they went through a small tunnel I got scared. I’ve been spelunking and it’s the only sport I’d consider “extreme.” Jumping out of planes wouldn’t be a rush to me. The thought of being trapped miles underground terrifies me. The monsters and whatnot didn’t scare me. Alex, my 16-year-old daughter, who loves horror movies said it was only the second movie ever to scare her. The first would be The Blair Witch Project. I thought the all-girl cast interesting. I never noticed The Thing had an all-male cast until the commentary pointed it out. It had this prologue that had no relevance for the rest of the movie which was irritating. Strong women characters which was nice.
• Cabin Fever – I was just curious about Eli Roth- the auteur who brought us Hostel and Hostel 2. I wouldn’t recommend either of those movies, but Cabin Fever was absolutely delightful. I didn’t expect it to be funny – let alone really funny.

Just bought Lucia, Lucia. I found it for $3.99! Looking forward to watching it. Still can’t find a reasonably priced copy of Lucía y el sexo (no relation whatsover). Continuing on this train of thought, I should rent Ten Items or Less.

In Theaters:

• Rambo – surprisingly good. This inspired a rant about our foreign policy. Maybe I’ll post that, too.
• Michael Clayton – good, but the ending seemed rushed and cliché.
• There Will Be Blood – pretty darn good
• No Country for Old Men – first movie I’ve seen with another person in a long time. Robert and I went to go see it. He fell asleep a couple times. I’d have let him sleep but he was snoring. I don’t know if it disturbed other people but it certainly disturbed me. I can’t say enough how refreshing it was to watch and listen to smart characters. I would say the same thing about Juno but even more so with this movie.