Category Archives: Movies

Life is Beautiful. Hmmm. Yes, and No.

Love and Life, MovieNight stuff, Movies

I’m not sure what happened here… I wanted to honor Holocaust Remembrance with a movie that would still make for an enjoyable MovieNight, and I recalled finding Life is Beautiful quite entertaining and sweet when I first saw it during its general theatrical release. This one didn’t age very well (maybe the sugar content increased with age?), at least not for me.  Sure, there were some touching scenes (the little boy was adorable), but overall I found it cloying… everything was just a bit too cute, and the coincidences too plentiful. Benigni’s comedic acting, replete with rouge-y clown-like make-up, was reminiscent of an annoying relative who can’t stop making jokes when they come for a holiday dinner.

As for the portrayal of the Holocaust… it was pretty shallow, but ultimately I guess that Holocaust and MovieNight just don’t play well together. I guess I should respect that.

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Alps. Quite High.

MovieNight stuff, Movies

This week’s feature left a number of folks scratching their heads. What happened? Why? Alps was certainly based on a bizarre concept, such as we expected from Mr. Lanthios. One of our regular MovieNight guests, in response to my question, “Well, what do you think?”, said that he’d need some time to think about it. In my book, that’s good… time to think about it. I expect that one doesn’t need much time to think about Wedding Crashers, for example. Not that I’ve seen it. Seriously, though, Norris made a great comment: Lanthios would be so good if he had a great writer. Hey, who wouldn’t?

Thanks to “Matterhorn” for being good company at the bar.

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Beginners (and Enders).

Movies

This week, MovieNight took on yet another shape-shift. We had a healthy, pre-movie bar-hang scene, followed by our feel-good-about-feeling-bad feature, Beginners, followed by one tune by Corinne Bailey Rae, during which I playfully inserted the DVD of John Ford’s stunning classic, How Green Was My Valley. I had intended just to have it on for the visual stimulation (beautiful black and white footage!), but somehow (!) the Corrine faded out and the movie faded up. Almost everyone stayed until the end!

I had always wanted to show How Green Was My Valley, but thought it might be a hard sell. So that’s crossed off our to-do list now. With style.

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Rust and Bone? Trust and… well… same.

Movies

Unlikely alliances often form in the aftermath of a personal tragedy, and in this case they prove to be “keepers”. We were blown away by Rust and Bone, even though the critics seemed bent on discrediting our Jacques for being Hollywoodly formulaic*; I guess now that he has four features (all of which we have shown with pride here) under his belt this is what he deserves? Marion Cotillard and Matthias Schoenaerts shone in this movie. If you weren’t here, and if you haven’t seen it, PLEASE do.

A few of our dearly loved, and their sig-othsâ„¢ couldn’t make it on Thursday, so we made them dinner and watched Rust and Bone again on Saturday night. Was it as good the second time? Let me put it this way… we almost watched it again on Sunday night. Vachement belle! Excuse my French.

*Well, there was one scene, you know, the one with the ice on the pond…

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Brick. Slick. Quick chick.

Giving a shit, Love and Life, Movies

We kept the action turned up again this week with Rian Johnson’s clever, modern noir, Brick. Brick has a loyal following, and was described by more than one of our guests as “one of my favorites”. Sure, it gets a bit ridiculous at times, but who cares? It’s great entertainment. There are so many memorable lines, but one that just won’t leave me, is Laura’s (Nora Zehetner), “Keep up with me now.” I don’t know why.

On another note, this Thursday would have been my dad’s 96th birthday. Although it’s already been 10 years since he passed, I still miss him.

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