Ahira's Hangar

Early in Feb. watched Lady in the Water, and it was not the barf-fest I expected. However, there are problems; for example, it does not make a whole lot of sense, why is there a rock band involved in the final scenes, why do the demon's after the fae look like patches of grass, why does a cranky old Korean woman know about this particular mythology, why do the demons kill the Bob Balaban character (is it only so he can deliver some post-modernist dialogue)? There are continuity errors, for example one scene it's pouring rain, and the next scene which is chronologically the very next moment rain has stopped. However, as a director Shaymalan can create scenes of cinematic beauty that are very good, think Ang Lee good. I won't have been happy paying $9.00 to see it, but for me I saw it at local SF convention and included in my weekend's registration.

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
Dito Montiel's directorial debut and autobiographic script of coming of age in the hell-hole that is Astoria, Queens, NY (Jamaica, Queens is even worse believe it or not) in 1984. Very good story, excellent direction, won 2 major Sundance awards, shining reviews, blistering preformances by Chaz Palminteri and the younger actors (including Shia LaBeouf).

Thre is this huge Hollywood Video in Ann Arbor (on the way to work) which is being shut down. So they have been clearing out their movies for less than the price of a rental.

So I have stopped there a few times, probably will another time or two before the permanent closing; have picked up at least 50 movies at this point (I have pretty much cleared out my netflix list, so have cancelled their service).

With the low prices, I have taken some big chances, on stuff I have never heard of before, or heard many things about...

So anyway, since the hub and child claimed the computer and internet all weekend ( ) I watched a couple of them...

Kirstin Dunst is quite wonderful in Marie Antionette, which is based on the wonderful biography called Marie Antoinette; The Journey. Versailles is eye poppingly beautiful; when you watch the film you get very hungry for all of the delicious looking food. This film was a lot better then I was expecting, given its lack of buzz. I think perhaps people disliked it because it integrates modern music into the story. But the songs really do fit very well - for example, "I Want Candy" when the teenaged dauphine and her young friends are having a French pastry and designer shoe orgy. And it shows what a sad figure the doomed queen was - frivolous and pretty as a butterfly when the world went to hell. When she was sent to France she was in her low teens, with very little education or preparation, and married off to a social misfit only a few years older than her who was incapable of having sex without medical intervention. She was gossiped about (the lack of a pregnancy was blamed on her rather than her husband), ridiculed, and isolated. All at age 14 or so. Is it any wonder she was so unfit for her role and came to such a sad end?

Scarlett Johanson is luminously beautiful (and does a great job acting) in Girl with the Pearl Earring, which is the rare good film adaptation of a good book. For those unfamiliar with the book and movie, it is a fictional story behind the creation of Dutch master Vermeer's very real masterpiece of the same name.

A friend lent me a very dark comedy called Keeping Mum. A rural British pastor (played by Rowan Atkinson) is both absent minded and completely absorbed in his work. He never notices that his unhappy and sexually frustrated wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) enters into a relationship with her sleazy American golf instructor (Patrick Swayze), that his beautiful teenaged daughter has become the village bicycle (every teenaged boy gets a ride), or that his younger son is being bullied in school on a daily basis.

When they hire a new housekeeper (Maggie Smith), she soon starts setting their lives to rights in her own unique and murderous way.

We watched Amazing Grace last night, about the life of British politician William Wiberforce. It was quite well done and very inspiring. He worked endlessly in the late 1700's and early 1800's to end the slave trade.

My House in Umbria is the story of the emotional affterlife of a terrorist attack.

An Italian train is bombed. In one carriage, there are four survivors - an elderly retired British general (who loses his daughter), a little American girl (who loses her parents), a young German man (who loses his girl friend), and a British romance writer who lives in Italy (portrayed by the wonderful Maggie Smith).

The writer opens her villa in Umbria to the other three survivors, as the police try to find the bomber.

The four bombing victims form their own sort of family, then must face the removal of the little girl by the highly unpleasant stick-up-the-butt nerdy entomology prefessor uncle she has never met.

I finally got around to watching 300 last night.

You know, the Hot Gates was one of the turning points in world history; a stirring story to this day. So why did I keep feeling like I was watching a commercial for US Marine Corps recruiting???

A friend lent me Miss Potter, a quiet and glowingly beautiful movie starring Rene Zelweiger (I can never spell her name right, but I'm sure you all know whom I mean) in a film about children's writer Beatrix Potter.

Watched the new CGI version of Beowulf. It was sort of an odd film, in that parts were a lot of fun and parts really really dragged. They did incorporate some of the story of the epic, and seriously changed other parts...

And I actually saw two very good family films.

August Rush is a very nice film about a little boy who is a musical genius, who only wants to find the parents he has never met. He hears music in everything, which is true for born musical geniuses (or so I have been told in lectures by such great composers as Dave Brubeck, who has found music in even such mundane things as the sound a creaky old windmill makes). Anyway, it was a very enjoyable little movie. Stars Freddie Highmore (a child actor who manages to not be annoying), Keri Russell, Jonathon Rhys Myers, and Terrance Howard. Robin Williams also appears.

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium is the story of a (literally) magical toy shop. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Jason Bateman, Zach Mills, and Natalie Portman. When Mr. Magorium decides it is time to pass on, the store throws a tamtrum, and the magic starts goes away. His heirs must find a way to bring the store back to life.

Watched Gone Baby Gone last night and it was pretty impressive. Very good cinematography and music-powerhouse performances from Michelle Monaghan and Ed Harris, Casey Affleck and Morgan Freeman very good too. Once again we're in South Boston and it does have a Mystic River/The Departed feel to it. Of course the man from South Boston, Casey's brother Ben, did an admirable job of helping to write, produce and direct. The script may have gone a bit too far trying to outdo itself with twists...but all and all an enjoyable movie. It's its own movie but follows a formula that we've seen many times before.

I'm a bit under the weather today, and am missing work. I think I will watch some old classic films today in between bouts of running to the potty and taking naps. Maybe a fluffy one like How to Marry a Millionaire and a more serious one like Niagara. Amazon has finally figured out that I like old classic movies, and has been dropping them in my gold box really cheap a couple of tiems a week. I think I have most of the old classic Marilyn Monroe movies now, and quite a few of Carey Grant's. I am hoping they will move on to Bette Davis or Katherine Hepburn and Gregory Peck or Humphrrey Bogart soon!

We ended up watching some Dirty Jobs and then Niagara, a sort of film noir light with Marilyn Monroe. It is always kind of a test of mine of whether or not a film passes the test of time on whether or not my very twentyfirst century teen aged sons (or in this case - son) enjoy it. My younger son was glued, and really liked it, trying to figure out who was dead and who was trying to murder whom and why. And while Marilyn Monroe is best remembered for her beauty, she really was a talented actress as well, especially when she actually got a part she could sink her teeth into, as in this case.

I saw Juno a little earlier this week, and I enjoyed it alot. Really an antidote to seeing Ellen Page in Hard Candy, a movie a like, BTW.

I was rewaatching Starman about one week ago on Starz cable. During this rewatching I realized how E.T. is a remake of this movie.

As most of you know CGI makes me ill and I couldn't sit through more than 15 minutes of Beowulf. Juno is in the DVD player and I'm going to try to sneak off to a matinee of Iron Man and Prince Caspian (coming out the 16th!).