At The Movies

Third Monday Movie Day

93 Comments

I had vowed to see fifteen movies in the span between the last movie day and this one, and I got close enough, considering the poor output of the past several months. I saw eleven, so I'm gonna go ahead and put them in a list.

11. The Expendables 2 (2012, Simon West)

For everything the first one did right, this one was terrible. All the first one did was pour on action scenes with combinations of action heroes people wanted to see together, but it at least had a coherent story and consistent characters. This one has inconsistent characterization, lots of bad jokes and has the extra sin of being extremely predictable. I will say this, though: I think Jean-Claude Van Damme should have played villains all along. He still can't deliver a line worth much, but his presence as a villain is much stronger than his presence as a hero.

10. Cop Land (1997, James Mangold)

Sorry, Sly...this just ain't your month. This one, too, is predictable at nearly every turn and has average dialogue at best. I don't know how they assembled the actors they did for this one...it's a mostly strong cast for such a trifle dressed up as an ambiguous, challenging thriller. Everything ends up wrapped up in a nice little bow, which is just not what this movie pretended to be.

9. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012, Brad Peyton)

This one I saw in the theater with my daughters as part of a thing where they show a different free kids' movie every week. I wouldn't have paid any attention if I wasn't in the theater, but this was charming enough. It's got a pretty weak script, but strong spectacle.

8. Mystery of Easter Island

You got me. This isn't a movie. It's a Nova documentary about one of my favorite of the world's mysteries.

7. The Frighteners (1996, Peter Jackson)

This was a lot of fun, and mostly unpredictable. With the kind of budgets he gets now I'm sure Peter Jackson would love another crack at this, but it's a good enough dark comedy with some truly surprising moments.

6. Jeff, Who Lives at Home (2011, Jay and Mark Duplass)

This has got some of that tedious indie angst and a few manipulative "strained relationship" bits, but the overarching story was charming and I did really love the characters by the end. Imperfect film with many fine moments.

5. Sexy Beast (2000, Jonathan Glazer)

Now, this one was hard to rank. It's a movie about a retired criminal pulling one last job, except about five minutes of the job are shown and over half the film is a sociopath trying to talk him into doing the job. Then the sociopath is written out of the story and the rest is an entirely different movie. The movie's structure is poor at best, but the performances are absolute dynamite. Ben Kingsley is the sociopath, and was up for a Best Supporting Oscar. Ray Winstone is the lead and Ian McShane is next billed, so we're in good hands.

4. Where the Wild Things Are (2009, Spike Jonze)

I've owned this for three years and we all just got around to watching it. That's a good thing, because this film is far too dark and sad for my daughters to have been able to handle it at a younger age. Though the movie's message is a hopeful one, it was tough going for Skim, who is extremely sensitive and needed to hug me for about a half hour afterward. Sour Cream loved it, though. This isn't for every kid, but for grown kids like me who were extremely depressed and in a state of self-imposed isolation for much of childhood, it's a thing of beauty.

3. Margin Call (2011, J.C. Chandor)

I watched this yesterday. The cast intrigued me, but the script starred as well. I'm always impressed when a movie draws me in despite not being about subject matter (in this case, high finance) that interests me. The characters are strong and the tension is palpable. In many months, this is an easy number one.

2. The Thing (1982, John Carpenter)

I always underestimate the ability of thirty-year-old movies to scare me. Why? Alien is three years older than this, for instance. This movie starts scaring the hell out of the viewer fairly quickly after introducing a large cast of fairly likable, interesting characters, and soon, they're all in mortal danger and they're forced to turn on one another. There's no way for the viewer to predict who lives, who dies and when. This should be Horror 101, but for some reason, horror is usually so safe and predictable. I absolutely loved this, but I'm glad I watched it with the lights on.

1. Despicable Me (2010, Pierre Louis Padang Coffin, Chris Renaud)

I might have liked this a little more than it deserves, and portions of the story weren't perfect, but damn, I laughed harder at this than I have at a movie in a while. I'm a sucker for small, stupid characters bumbling around, I'll admit, and this movie has a very large helping of that. It also primarily centers around a dark-hearted man learning to become a good father. What do you want me to do, ignore the relatability there? I'm only human, dudes. I have a feeling in time that this could end up being my third favorite movie I saw this month, but for now, here it is.

I'll try to match this total, at least, this month. It was a nice haul...seven of these, I at least liked a lot. Three I loved. Movies are neat.

What have you seen?

93 thoughts on “Third Monday Movie Day”

  1. Oh man, I love The Thing. I watched it alone in a dark hotel room a few years ago on a business trip, which was probably the best way to do it. Also, Kurt Russel's beard should have gotten top billing.

    We started watching Orange is the New Black, which has been great. I really like what they did with the brief cut-aways to the previous lives of the inmates.

    We're also still working on the first half of Breaking Bad season 5. I can't wait until my kids are old enough to play quietly (read: outside) by themselves so it'll be possible to watch shows that demand attention. Other than that its maybe my favorite show ever, and that its gripping stuff, I'm not in a super huge hurry since I can't watch the new episodes right now, anyway.

  2. We also began Orange is the New Black on the recommendation of everybody. Solid so far. I didn't recognize Kate Mulgrew at first.

    Pitch Perfect: Predictable but fun. Perfect vehicle for Anna Kendrick.
    For a Good Time Call: Two friends start up a phone sex business. What decade is this? Lame, but a few genuine laughs.
    Beasts of the Southern Wild: Beautifully shot and great acting, though the way the movie just skips what I feel are significant story points to delve into fantastical symbolism kind of annoyed me.

  3. Despicable Me is pretty highly regarded in this house, too.

    Saw Cloverfield, which was better than the two movies that I feel inspired it: the late 90's Godzilla (as in: "can't we make a better version of this crap?"), and The Blair Witch Project ("neat idea. what if it wasn't annoying?"). The entire thing is filmed on a handheld consumer-grade video camera, shot by one of the characters. There were about three places it could have ended before it did, but I don't feel the additional movie after those points were cheap or tacked-on. They really provided no more resolution.

    Placeholders for my later comment:
    Wives & Daughters
    He Knew He Was Right (both BBC miniseries)

    1. I really hope that Cloverfield doesn't get a sequel. I loved the movie a lot more than it deserved, and a large part of that love was due to the mystery of it all. I think the whole idea hold sup a lot better if it ends up being just a piece of found footage with no larger storyline or context. It's more pure that way.

      On its own merits, I think it's a fun, ominous monster movie with some good scenes and a cool central concept.

      1. Totally agree with this and with AMR's comment that the found footage concept is a lot better when the people aren't annoying. I think that, at this point, we're probably pretty safe from a sequel happening, although I wouldn't put it past some jackass to do a re-make.

    2. I have a funny story about Blair Witch. Well, not so much funny as sad.

      During our last six months in Washington, the guy whose production company I was involved in was commissioned to shoot a TV movie based on a series he'd done when he was younger. He used the cast that was already in place from the series, so there was no spot for me on camera, so I did some uncredited work for the crew. This was "the big one" because someone who was - shall we say - a big deal relating to Blair Witch was involved. A lot of people thought of this as their way in.

      From the beginning, this guy...seemed satisfied with some bad acting and poor story progression. For a while I doubted his authenticity as someone who'd worked in the business (yes, Blair Witch was a disastrously bad movie, but this guy had worked in the business ever since, right?) but some Googling proved he was the guy he said he was. So, I let myself get caught up in it, because all we heard about was the valuable asset he'd be, providing contacts we could use going forward in our careers.

      We shot the movie and the guy on my end and the Blair Witch guy did a few TV interviews for the stations in Washington. A couple of weeks later, my wife (who also worked on it) pointed out a headline story about the Blair Witch guy that had just gone up on a major entertainment website: "----- -----, the ------- ------- for The Blair Witch Project, says he has $40 to his name."

      From the story, it was clear that he had no relevance in Los Angeles, and hadn't for years. He just continues to trade in on that success to get whatever work is available.

      1. At the risk of being a major prick, this guy will never have any relevance in Los Angeles, either. The Googles have made it pretty easy to suss out a dead end.

        Sorry, but the truth is often sad and cruel. Especially in the arts.

        1. That's why we left. He was very, very good at spinning everything to sound like big things were on the horizon. The more I put things together with guys that have worked with him for a long time, the more I realized it wasn't what it looked like.

          There's more to the story, but he's a good guy and I have no interest in going on about it.

          But, in short, if you're a prick, so am I, because I've come to the same conclusion. The sad thing is, he has a lot of strong ideas. There are just concessions he won't make and...well, again, I don't want to talk too much about it. But...we left.

          1. Good. I'm glad you haven't tied all your hopes to the guy, because his online presence is a joke.

            (So's mine, but I'm only trying to feed one mouth.)

            1. I tied myself to him for a while. He was the closest I'd been to success in a while, sadly, and he said all the right things. I remember saying to him how weird it was that so many people had left his company when it was destined to do something important.

              Certainly, I noticed the, uh...novice...look of his online presence, his company logo, and the actresses in his movies (he'll always pick the hottest girl available; nothing else matters) but with nothing better nearby, I went with it. When he called me to tell me I was going to be in a TV show a few months after I left the PNW, I was pretty tempered. I really never saw it happening. Technically, he never told me it wasn't. But it's not. And if it was, there wouldn't be enough money in it to go.

                  1. Look, I'm working thirty hours a week at a job I hate dislike because it affords me another 15 hours at a studio (that I can't afford) that's become essentially an expensive hobby that somehow still manages to pay for itself.

                    Yay, for the arts!

                    1. you guys are just adding to my angst about The Boy's future in the film industry. stop that. tell me pretty little lies.

                    3. Amen. I work a job that I hate tolerate 40 hours a week so that I can have a day in the studio / lying around the house that I can't afford. It's a motherfucker of a choice to be an artist.

  4. You should probably watch the original The Thing too, while you're at it. "Who Goes There?" was an excellent story to work from.

    Watched Oz the Great and Powerful last night; it was definitely made for a younger crowd, and it was overtly 3D.

    I've been watching season six of Doctor Who -- still annoyed with the British penchant to allow for huge plot holes in the name of a cool story.

    Also during work I've been listening to many episodes of Dinner for Five with Jon Favreau off of Youtube; lots of fun hearing various actors, directors, etc. shoot the bull about their experiences. Particularly enjoyed one of Burt Reynolds' stories about Jonathan Winters.

    Lastly, I watched the sci-fi short The Last Moments of Karl Brandt with Paul Reubens. Reminds me of a Spookymilk Survivor short.

    1. Season six was somewhat less than the best for Doctor Who, although a couple of the episodes were really good.

  5. saw Elysium with the Boy last week. It was better than District 9 IMO. A little. the economics were ludicrous, but the politics were less sledge-hammery. The Big Bad (Kruger, played by Sharlto Copley from District 9) was delicious.

    soo much was ludicrous, but it was fun, summer escapism.

    1. That's the problem with access to hundreds of trailers online and movies running in theaters for such a short period - I thought this had come and gone already and I'd missed it.

  6. Linds and I blew through Orange is the New Black in a little over a week. We both had serious love for the show. Good characters (though pretty much every time it cuts away to Jason Biggs, I want to fast forward).

    Spring Breakers - I don't have quite the love for this movie that Zack does, but it was very fun to look at, and James Franco is at his off the wall best. My wife disliked it, but at least I can say "Spriiing breaaaaaak foreeeeeveeeeeer" to annoy her now.

    Side Effects - I was really wondering exactly where the script was going for quite a while (is it about the drug industry? personal culpability? people who lead depression riddled lives?), and then, suddenly, the movie was about something completely different. I really enjoyed it - though I will admit that in the hands of a lesser director and a lesser cast, this film would've been an unwatchable, trite mess.

    And then there's always Breaking Bad.

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    1. Oh yeah, Jason Biggs. I definitely have less of an issue with him as an actor in this type of role than in a central role in a comedy. But yeah, I think his scenes are where the writers were not on top of their game at making a compelling character.

      1. He's fine in it, it's just that they take up time that always feels like it could be better used pointing the camera at something more interesting (namely, things that are happening in prison). What's funny is that on some level, the show understands this (the NPR guy's discussion with Larry at the dinner table), and I do understand that there's a part of the show that needs to be devoted to Piper's atrophying life outside, but it's just never as interesting as what's happening inside the prison.

        1. I think that Piper & Larry are by far the least interesting characters in the cast, and by the end of the season I downright detested Larry. Pretty much everyone else in the cast is very compelling, though.

      2. In one of the Dinner for Five discussions, Jason Biggs mentions that he was cast by Woody Allen (forget which movie) and later found out that Jason wasn't jewish.

        1. When did Woody Allen find out that Jason was terrible?

          I was an extra in a movie Biggs was in. Nice guy. I shouldn't rag on him so much, but everyone else does, so when in Rome...

          1. He seems like a good enough guy, and I can respect the fact that he seems to be totally comfortable with the fact that he got famous for humping a pie.

    2. I'm not sure that anyone loves SB quite as much as me, but I'm glad you watched it. I watched it with some friends last night. One who I had drug to the theatre to watch it with me, he enjoyed his second viewing. Two of the people really disliked it, the other found it fascinating but didn't love it. I can certainly understand why other people would dislike it, but it definitely pushes all of my buttons. I was flipping out about the colors again last night when I watched it. God. It's just shot so well.

      1. When I brought it home a few weeks back, my wife just laughed and accused me of wanting to see "Disney Girls Gone Wild". I told her it had been recommended (ht to Zack) and we watched it together. A reviewer described it as Scarface with Britney Spears in the title role...which I could see. Not as good as I was hoping for, but better than expected after watching the trailers and seeing the actress's interviews regarding the film.

        1. For Lindsey, it went downhill after...

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          I won't say I enjoyed it more after that, but that's when it found its groove.

          I also liked the three "theme sounds" that demarcated the different acts of the movie.

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          1. I can see why it would go downhill from there for people.

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            That point did also mark when Gucci Mane's tour de force performance really got started, too.

            I'm a huge fan of the theme sounds, too. And regarding your amusement in the second spoiler...

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                1. To be honest, all the spring break scenes made me thankful I had no friends in college and didn’t ever do anything like that.

                  Linds and I certainly agreed on that part. Absolutely nothing about it looked fun in any way to me.

          2. I have to admit that I rarely catch those sorts of things while watching a movie. I basically come away with an overall experience of a movie, rather than noticing when there are subtle transition points or signifiers. I have to really enjoy something to want to go back and find all the things that I missed during the first viewing.

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            1. I won't disagree regarding casting. The casting felt sort of exploitative in the "let's see how many people want to see Vanessa Hudgens and Selena Gomez be naughty spring breakera" sense. The ending went int lo pure fantasy, but it had been at the very least flirting with, if not making out with that for most of the second half of the movie.

              Again, it's not like I was a megafan of it, but i'd give it a seven.

              1. Your comment regarding the casting is spot-on...it's likely why my wife thought I brought the movie home.

  7. 8. Mystery of Easter Island

    You got me. This isn’t a movie. It’s a Nova documentary about one of my favorite of the world’s mysteries.

    So that's where your inspiration came from for the current Survivor challenge, isn't it? 😉

  8. I'm just back from SoDak, and was pleased to find breaking bad on amc's website. I was also fortunate enough to find out a good friend has been hosting a weekly breaking bad party. I went back and read all the spoilers from last Monday.

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  9. So I don't have FSN on my cable package, can't find 96.3 on my home stereo, don't pay for mlb.com, and my wife has been out of town a lot on business or visiting her mother. I watched a lot of movies this month.

    Olympus Has Fallen – About what I expected…entertaining for a summer action movie. 6/10

    Spring Breakers – see above 6/10

    Beautiful Creatures – Much better than I expected. Fairly routine story: ‘teenaged witch falls in love with human’ that was well executed. I thought the acting was believable, the story (pretty) convincing and the characters easy to connect with. 8/10
    I'd also recommend Warm Bodies if you're into this sort of fare.

    Gangster Squad – Basically, an update of The Untouchables (which I loved). Great actors, solid acting and a good story. 7/10

    The Hobbit – There were lots of complaints that this was too long and not as good as TLoTR movies. I'll admit it wasn't as groundbreaking as that trilogy, but otherwise, I wasn't disappointed. I’m excited to see the 2nd film/conclusion. 7/10

    Django Unchained – finally saw this (was it in the past month?…I’m not sure) but I feel like I’ve talked about it here already. If not, let me just say that Taratino certainly knows how to do his job. 8/10

    Safe – same review as Olympus but I like Statham so I’ll keep watching until he gets too old to be believable…then I’ll probably keep watching until it’s just farce. 6/10

    London Boulevard – Probably in no small part to the pairing of Colin Farrell and Keira Knightley, this one received terrible reviews. I actually thought it was pretty enjoyable. Reminded me a bit of Layer Cake, though not quite as good. 7/10

    Valhalla Rising – Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. Beautiful, brutal, slow-paced though ‘epic’ at times, it took me a while to figure out what was going on in each scene, but the thing reached a conclusion that I didn’t see coming until it was happening. 8/10

    Louis C.K.: Live at the Beacon Theater – Believe it or not, this was my first exposure to Louis. I enjoyed the performance a ton, could really relate to some of the things he said (especially about being a parent), and thought his delivery was sharp and well paced. I also came away feeling a little morose. 9/10

    We also finished season 1 of Breaking Bad and started season 2 on Thurs...it has been as good as advertised and we're now having trouble turning if off at a decent hour.

      2. I'm glad to hear he's well regarded as an actor; I've enjoyed his movies - including this one. I don't feel at all that that it was as bad as the reviews suggest.

        1. If you haven't seen In Bruges yet, do yourself a favor and give it a watch. Colin shows some fair chops wearing both the tragedy and comedy masks.

          2. Haven't seen it, but I've looked at it a couple times and thought about watching it. I'll check it out the next chance I get.

  10. I watched "Saints & Soldiers: Airborne Creed." It's a low-budget WWII film. I enjoyed it. Acting wasn't the greatest but it was well-written. It's about three airborne soldiers that are trying to get back with their units after parachuting into Southern France. It's not really an action film. It's more about the characters and what happens to men in times of war. The lead role is played by the same actor in 2003's "Saints and Soldiers," which was pretty well-acclaimed. I'm going to see if Netflix has that as well.

  11. Safety Not Guaranteed - Quirky indie film. Very enjoyable.

    True Grit - Original version. Still haven't seen the remake. I have to imagine it will be better. This had a lot more potential than realization.

    Parks And Rec - Through Season 4 (2nd viewing). Still love it. Maybe even more than before.

    I feel like there was more, but there might not have been.

    1. True Grit -- Original version. Still haven’t seen the remake. I have to imagine it will be better. This had a lot more potential than realization.

      I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man.

        1. I don't fully understand this. The original is period-bound to some extent, but I still hold a candle for it (even while liking the remake more). Yea, Glen Campbell's "acting" leaves much to be desired. But the Duke was great, Duvall was great, Hopper has a great turn, Strother Martin was at his Strother Martin-ist. Even Kim Darby turns in a credible performance.

          From Roger Ebert's review:

          One of the glories of "True Grit" is that it recognizes Wayne's special presence. It was not directed by Ford (who in any event probably couldn't have been objective enough about Wayne), but it was directed by another old Western hand, Hathaway, who has made the movie of his lifetime and given us a masterpiece. This is the sort of film you call a movie, instead of the kind of movie you call a film.

          It is one of the most delightful, joyous scary movies of all time. It goes on the list with "National Velvet" and "Robin Hood" and "The African Queen" and "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "Gunga Din." It is not a work of art, but it wouldn't be nearly as good if it were. Instead, it is the Western you should see if you only see one Western every three years (an act of denial I cannot quite comprehend in any case).

          1. I thought some of the performances were less great than they could have been. I disagree that the Duke was great. He had some great lines, but there were far too many where it seemed like someone just off camera had yelled his line to him just before he said it.

            I also thought that motivations were a bit hackneyed, though I suppose I could make some room for concession there, given the fact that it's a Western.

              1. Too bad for you.

                I disagree with phyllo about his portrayal of Rooster, but maybe that's mostly my inattentiveness/rosy recollections or a difference in tastes. I'd point to his Best Actor Oscar for the role, but....

                1. Don't. There have been a lot of average-to-awful performances and movies that have been nominated for Oscars, so it's not a useful enough gauge. I dislike him because he's the same in nearly every film. If True Grit is anything different, I don't recall, but we're talking years ago now since I saw it and I was much more jaded then, so perhaps I'll give it another go. It's on Netflix streaming, so it's not like I'd be out anything. Maybe I'll have a True Grit marathon!

                    1. I think you owe it to all of us to do a frame-by-frame comparison of the Duke's performance and the Dude's performance in their respective Grits.

                2. I'll admit that I haven't seen many John Wayne movies, but I don't think I dislike him per se. I think my biggest criticism is of Kim Darby. I really didn't buy her character's desire for revenge at all. The rest of it, she worked fine for. But the revenge stuff was kind of the most important motivation.

  12. Just finished Season 6 of The Shield. It has picked up immensely once they got away from Forrest Whitaker's investigation.

    I've plowed back through Breaking Bad and have just two episodes of season 4 and the first half of season 5 left on my re-watch.

    Sheenie and I watched Hugo a few weeks ago. That was much, much better than I expected.

  13. I've watched a bunch of stuff, mostly new seasons on Netflix of TV shows (Alphas, Hell on Wheels, Burn Notice, a couple others I can't think of right now), but I was really excited to see Solomon Kane finally made it onto Netflix. Swords and sorcery, lots of gore and monsters. About what I expected, and in a good way.

    1. How is the new season of Burn Notice? I have them piling up on my DVR. (oops; you said Netflix; is that season 7 or something older?)

      1. It's season 6 I'm watching now. Not as good as the earlier seasons, IMO, but still pretty engaging.

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          1. also, late in the season you get a Patton Oswalt story arc. So you got that to look forward to.

            1. Ah, Patton. Another actor I like in small, small doses. I think he has two facial expressions- smug and smarmy. Wait- are those different enough to count as two?

              1. I'd seek out some other work of his, such as his turn on Parks & Rec. He doesn't have a ton of range, but he has a little. He's also a pretty strong voice actor.

                2. Oswalt does have a good voice, and I mostly like him as a comic. Seeing him on King of Queens reruns for years hasn't endeared him to me, even though he was one of the best things about that show.

              2. He was great on "Justified" and I've read good things about his performance in "Big Fan" (if not about the rest of the movie) but I haven't seen it myself.

                1. His character in Big Fan was a good fit for Patton. I can't say that I enjoyed the movie per se, but he was spot on.

      2. That's still on? Wow. I haven't heard much about it since the second season or so. I remember thinking "I'll check that out soon" a long time ago. Turns out I didn't check it out soon.

      1. his wikipedia entry notes that he went missing the day after a British court declared him bankrupt.

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