How to Train Your Dragon was A+

Exactly. It simply tells a story. I had imagined a big American "issue" film. I kept expecting it to take a turn for preachy/sanctimonious, but it didn't. Appropriately for the story there were no distracting camera tricks or slick screen-writing. Not even too noticeably prodding, sappy music cues to let you know to be sad, or that you don't like the characters currently on screen. A great, simply-presented, raw film.

This is what I watched last night: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013752/

I couldn't sleep. It, uh, wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen.

From Paris With Love - this movie reminded me a lot of Taken. It's a very short, very simple action movie. The plot isn't complex at all, and there aren't even any side plots. It had a lot of very good action sequences (and only a few were preposterous), some comic relief, and was very entertaining. It does nothing spectacular and breaks no new ground, but it is a very fun 85 minute ride.

Just watched the documentary "Bigger Stronger Faster*", which was awesome. It's about doping in different forms. Anyway, they mention Reefer Madness (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reefer_Madness), which also seems like a fun film. Anybody seen it? It's on youtube.

Saw Julie and Julia on the Netflix Instantly. Really good. I liked her before this, but Julia Child is now my new hero. Her half of this is the great stuff; the modern blogger lady part was ok but nothing special. About the Julia stuff, it's a touching love story, really moving, how she gets along with her diplomat husband, Paul. And of course, she's also in love with France, most specifically French cooking. She was a visionary, nothing less. Streep captures her charisma and vivacity perfectly. And Stanley Tucci is also very good as husband Paul.

Saw Bigger, Stronger, Faster a while back. Saw the first hour of Julie and Julia and liked it a lot, but agree that the stuff with the modern young girl was pretty dull in comparison to the Julia Child stuff. Charming girl, though. But much of the parts with her in it felt very generic, especially the beginning, which reminded me of things I had seen a thousand times before. Will finish the movie probably tonight, though. Recommended overall so far, even though I wish they had just done a Julia bio. Now that this has come out, making one will probably be impossible.

I just watched The September Issue, a documentary about Vogue and its editor, Anna Wintour. The fashion industry is strange and insular, to say the least. I guess fashion is art, but it's about the cheapest, lowest form of art around. Wintour is a smart interesting willful woman, as is her #2, Grace Coddington, who I liked a lot more than Wintour. This is a good fast-paced movie, and you really get a sense of this world and the people in it.

just watched Legion. the first hour was mediocre. it was very cliche ridden and unoriginal, but still somewhat watchable. then the third act just fell apart and got dumber and dumber and just stopped making any sense. then it ended, without any real conclusion. but it wasn't one of those "cliff-hanger" endings. the movie acted like everything had been wrapped up and the movie was concluded, but in reality it didn't. it just flat out sucked.

lol yeah, legion looked awful. seems like it couldve been a semi cool concept but the previews were very...strange (to say the least)

Sick poster imo. I think I'm most excited about seeing Cheadle getting Iron Man'd up.

I was really disappointed to see Iron Man would be fighting yet another Iron Man. Didn't Spidey already do this in Spiderman 3, and Iron Man himself do something similar in the first Iron Man, and Robocop do it in ... ah forget it.

He is? I thought the main villain was Mickey Rourke with his massive energy whips... then the government is gonna have all these soldiers as Iron Men so I guess he may fight a bunch of wanna be Iron Mans.

Second biggest Oscar snub of the year not getting a best pic nomination. First I think was those two dudes from Hurt Locker who got passed over for best supporting actor nominations....they got the winner right though.

Shutter Island

I see a lot of people selling this short, and I think it is quite a bit better than people want to believe.

While it has a LOT of nods to the classics (especially Hitchcock), it is still absolutely its own thing.

I just cannot imagine not being entertained by it. In spite of knowing there will be a twist or two coming, one still can't really be sure exactly which twist it might be, or if it might be several. I think that works just fine.

The music was fine and appropriate, and I would be surprised if it were a conscious nod to The Shining (the opening of which is awesome, imo).

DeCaprio is definitely able to carry a film, no doubt anymore. He is a fine actor, and Scorcese seems to have settled on a talented guy as heir to the DeNiro throne (no, I am not comparing the two).

Again, very entertaining. 8.5/10

revealing my nerdiness a bit but that is War Machine, Cheadle's character (Terrence Howard's from the first movie) in a 2nd Iron Man suit. In other words, an ally.

That's what the commercial gave me the impression of, anyway.

Well, that's definitely better than fighting a mirror image of himself.

However, I'm not sure if Iron Man remains so outlandishly special anymore if there's a line of nearly identical looking Iron Men standing in line at the local 7-11 waiting to pay for their slushies.

YGOS?

Obvious most exciting thing about im2 is scarlett johanssen as a brunette.

neither cheadle or t. howard really appeal to me much as jim rhodes aka war machine...i dunno, war machine was a badass mother****er in the comics, both t. howard and d. cheadle look like pussies to me.

edit: they shouldve had stringer bell-

Well, I finished up Julie and Julia, the Nora Ephron flick about Julia Child and a gal cooking her way througth Child's first cookbook. I liked it a lot less last night than I did the night before. I was surprised how much less, though.

It annoyed me before, but Streep's characterization, while good in its parts, was so over the top on the whole. There was hardly a scene in which she was not laughing, even if she was being flustered and laughing about that. After a while one can hardly help but wonder at the shallow characterization, and might be forgiven for suspecting Child was secretly a madwoman. I wonder how the director couldn't have caught that and gotten some variation in emotional tone in her picture. Streep can't even read a note shot from behind at a distance without flouncing about while seated.

Costar in the parallel story Amy Adams is very charming and cute, but her part of the story is quite dull and almost every scene and line recalls one you've seen before, down to the thin and abrupt break-up with her husband that seems to happen only as a pretext for us to be happy to see them get together again. Or at least, that's how the director handles it. Everything is ultra cute and ultra-light, and there is a lot of grimacing in the acting. It is sitcom-level stuff at a slower pace and without the laugh track. The male lead, especially, seems poorly realized. Lucky Stanley Tucci, as Child's husband, is a tangential figure in the picture but was written a far better part. And at least he eats with his mouth closed and without bobbing his head up and down constantly. Adams's husband almost always looks like a duck competing in an air-swallowing contest while he eats. By the time he comes to a scene in which he is eating cake with his hands and moaning, it's been all too much for all too long with him.

Aside from burning a stew by oversleeping while it cooked, which doesn't make for a particularly compelling scene, there is little feel of Adams's character discovering cooking. You never see her meditate over a flavor or ingredient or try something new. You don't see her struggle with knife work. There is no real transition to becoming a good cook. There is merely the chick flick staple emotion of supposedly warranted or cute exasperation over -- what? -- golly, just the ME-ness of my life! Adams does her best, but with the flat writing and the deadness of the director's eye aiding and abetting it, there's no way she can make her half of the movie rise above a disappointingly trite chick flick level.

A movie (at least halfway) about Julia Child deserves so much better than that. So while I thought I would recommend this movie for sure while watching its first half, now I'd caution that only half of the movie is worth seeing, and even that has its flaws in Streep's overwrought performance. If you want to see a good mimic who gives a performance that recalls Julia Child on crystal meth, this is the movie for you. Half of it anyway. If you want to see the worst of Nora Ephron, you can watch the chick flick sister story interrupting the more interesting proceedings to dampen them throughout.

and...

and lol @ your comments re: Julie's husband... seriously wtf was with that cake eating thing?

i personally enjoyed the film but maybe more so for the story of julia child... never really knew much about her besides she was once a spy and is mega tall and has a funny voice.

i did especially like seeing jane lynch in a serious role. she played it well imo.

the media has sensationalized this...if i remember correctly she was just a telegraph cryptographer...one of thousands.

that being said I love everything that crazy old woman did.

Just rewatched Reservoir Dogs by Tarantino. Classic film, but one thing I was wondering was why Mr. Blue was even included in the film. He had no relevance to the story, his role in the heist was minimal, he was old enough to be father to any of the other thieves, he had no personal flashback and zero character development. Lastly he was given only 2-4 lines of dialouge, all within the first 5 minutes of the film. Hell, he didn't even make it to the dvd back cover/poster of the movie. The only thing he delievered was a nice sound-byte in the diner in the epic tipping scene about the waitress taking Mr. Pink in the back and greasing his weasel as being "special" enough to earn a tip. Just thot id rant about it.

Good quotes, OG18k. I followed one of the links and found this excerpt from a reader's response:

I guess the movie didn't show too much about Adams' growth as a cook because her blog was at least a little light about that too.