Last Chance Harvey

If you live in one of the lucky places that gets to see Last Chance Harvey when it opens for you on Christmas day, and if you like to see movies on Christmas like we do, don't dampen your spirit with some of the deeper, intense and morbid films that'll sweep the Oscars in three months. See Last Chance Harvey on Christmas. The rest of you will have to wait until late January, when it opens for those of us who live in less desirable markets.

Last Chance Harvey is an atypical romantic comedy that satisfyingly skirts some of the common Hollywood cliches. It stars Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman, but instead of the director relying on their star power, such as it is, the actors pull off compelling and likable characters without manipulative music or splashy special effects. They've earned their Golden Globe nominations for their performances.

I don't recommend this movie to you lightly. I go to romantic comedies mostly because if I want to do something I love (go to movies) with the one I love (Liz), I'm most likely going to see a romantic comedy. I wouldn't typically go to such a chick flick without her prompting.

My rating: Worth a Matinee. You don't need to see this on the big screen, but you'll want to see it in an audience.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

I won't waste any of my time on this review, and I'll give you the best advice I can give.

If you liked Forrest Gump, you'll also like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. My favorite reviewer liked it to, so you probably won't be disappointed. Button and Gump had the same screenwriter.

I, for one, hated Forrest Gump. I used to think that my feelings, bordering on resentment, for that film had to do with circumstances, but now I know it's because Gump isn't written for me. I didn't know Button was written by the same guy, and still saw the resemblance between the two films throughout.

And once again, I wanted those two hours of my life back.

Three Quick Reviews

JCVD, a funny and self-referential movie starring Jean-Claude van Damme as himself, surprised me with its depth and cunning. I wouldn't have gone to this film of my own accord and am glad I went. My rating: Worth a Matinee.

I'll talk about Defiance in a later post where I'll talk about three films out this season, all about the Holocaust. But briefly, my rating: Worth Renting.

Finally, I've already told lots of people what I thought about Milk, Gus van Sant's film about Harvey Milk. Sean Penn's portrayal of Harvey Milk shows his acting chops. Penn plays Milk with subtlety and intensity. My rating: Worth $10 because Penn's performance needs to be experienced on the big screen and with others.

Slumdog Millionaire

Imagine if a Bollywood director, taking a page from Charles Dickens, made a movie about a very poor kid who moves through life first trying to survive then trying to save a girl he loves, but the story is told through an episode of India's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Then you'll have Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire. Boyle directed one of my favorite 2004 films Millions. Slumdog is no quaint English tale, though. The main character, Jamal, literally walks through human shit in one scene and is tortured in another. Its backdrop, the vast Indian slums where children are mutilated to evoke pity from tourists, serves as enough plot motivation for Jamal. You want him to survive and eventually thrive.

The good news: he does. But not until you go on the narrative ride of your life. This movie is all story. The characters are dim compared to the action at times.

My favorite film reviewer literally swooned over Slumdog, and my praise of the film is a little less exuberant precisely because the female protagonist, Latika, exists only in service of the plot and is not a fully realized character herself in the way the two boys are.

I still say it's Worth $10 because you have to see it on the big screen and you won't regret the ride.

Australia

Got to see Australia tonight, Baz Luhrman's epic Australian western which evokes Hollywood greats like "Gone With the Wind" and "Lawrence of Arabia" but tells a 1940s love story (love in all its forms) through a 2008 lens of racial and ethnic justice.

I stood in line for a long time waiting to get into the Mall of America's new VIP theater holding huge home theater seating, more than generous legroom and, for tonight anyway, Australian wine, which was good in a generic wine sort of way, and free popcorn. Colin had a much larger entourage with him tonight--I think I saw "14" by his name before they crossed it off and wrote "12" after my guest and I checked-in.

By the end of the almost three-hour-long film, I made a note to myself: see everything Baz Luhrman directs because he sure does know how to tell a story.

Today, I read a New York Times piece about the death of the American story in all its forms (film, book and stage) and clearly, the author and those concerned about storytelling had not seen Australia. With vast vistas and characters you care about and a plot that keeps you rooting for those you like and against those you don't, you can't lose.

If you liked Moulin Rouge, also directed by Luhrman, as much as I did, you'll see a few similar themes. There's a bad guy so bad and his evil efforts so dogged, he's impossible to like. There's the love that can't be bought. But, not to spoil it for you, Australia is no tragedy.

Luhrman jumped from scene to scene too quickly for me in places, which worked really well in Moulin Rouge but not as well here. Luckily, the story carried me away and made me forget this minor distraction.

Can you guess my rating?

Definitely Worth $10 (plus $5 popcorn and a babysitter). You have to see it on the big screen with an audience who will cry and cheer right next to you.

A Year-Long Film Fest of Sorts

Well, this week I won the most amazing film auction ever--I get to go, for a year, to movies with Colin Covert, the Minneapolis Star Tribune's best movie reviewer, at least in this humble film fan's opinion. I take his word very seriously when I'm considering spending $10 on a film.

Tonight, I went to my first film. Twilight. Mostly, I was curious to see what it was like to see a film when a reviewer gets to see a film. Turns out this viewing wasn't anything I'd not done before myself. The studio comes in and gives free tickets to places that market to their demographic audience. Once, I got free tickets this way to see the film The Ballad of Little Jo (which I loved but which few people seem to have seen).

The audience could have been going to a cast call for freshmen girls in High School Musical IV (I don't think I saw any boys, and yes I know there is no HSM IV...yet), and had gotten their tickets from local radio stations. A few of the youngest came with their parents, but most came by themselves. DJs well known to that demographic threw stuff at us (like t-shirts, keychains and can insulators) before the movie started.

I knew only that the movie Twilight was causing swooning teen girls to pass out when they went to a mall to see the leading actor. And that it was about vampires.

Unfortunately, that about sums up my experience of Twilight. When the lead actor appeared on screen tonight, you could hear a collective sigh of immense pleasure from the audience. After the film, someone approached Colin and told him he thought it was a repeat of "Beauty and the Beast" but with vampires. I don't think the plot line matches, but the feeling matches. Imagine a young woman who doesn't seem to need to be saved, but who really does need to be saved, falling in love with a man who wants to drink her blood, but does the right thing by her and holds off. (This rings familiar to me...why is this story of a man with uncontrollable urges managing to hold off in order to protect a woman so powerful in our culture and with our young girls?)

As a film, the cinematography is at first striking, but unvaried and therefore gets old, the acting is flat (I ended up liking the father character, though--he shined despite the dialog), some of the dialogue evoked eye rolls, and it ran on just a little too long.

Your teen girls, be they shy, sporty, preppy or emo, will probably love this film and want to see it over and over and over again.

I, for one, can't wait to see Octavia Butler's vampire novel Fledgling be made into a movie one day (is my Fairy Godmother listening?).

If you share my tastes, I rate it: I Want Those Two Hours of My Life Back (which equates into 1/5 stars if you must). It might be Worth Renting if you want to bond with your tweenager at home (so she won't be embarrassed by your reactions).

My Own Very Private Film Fest

Well, at least one I can share with whomever I want.

We subscribe to Netflix and have loved the service. Though of late we've lapsed in our movie watching ventures, in-part because of the recent film fest (I saw 50 there) and in-part because we're doing other things.

But now Netflix has a device you can buy and stream movies over the internet to your television: Roku.

I read about it on May 20th in the New York Times and after a little research, I bought the device. It arrived on Thursday and took me all of ten minutes to set up (which could have been shorter had I remembered my Netflix password).

Now, we have thousands of films at my fingertips. No more waiting for the mail. No more lost envelopes. No more discs laying around for weeks waiting for me to slip it into the DVD player.

To top it off, we now only pay $8.99/month to see all the movies I want to see. We get one at a time by mail, but we can get an unlimited number of films each month, by both mail and streaming internet.

The picture and sound quality on our HDTV is stunning--at least as good as DVD quality, and sometimes better.

The New York Times says:

Because of the way Hollywood sells rights to its products, most of the Internet titles are more than five years old, although there are some newer independent films and TV shows.

For my money, though, I'd rather have independent films and TV shows at my fingertips than the usual Hollywood fare.

And if there's something I really really want to see that isn't in the "on-demand" list, I can just add it to my queue and wait a couple of days to get it in the mail. In the meantime, I'll be catching up on episodes of This American Life (from Showtime), watching movies I missed in the theaters that I really wanted to see, and re-watching some of my old favorites (like Jesus of Montreal and Bagdad Cafe and Salmonberries).