Two for Tuesday times 2

Here's four quick reviews of films I've seen recently here at Monkey Central.  

Rendition is a very good film with some plot twists you never see coming.  It's a timely topical film that will remain timely and topical as long as anyone is being oppressed by dictatorial regimes and as long as any nation allows torture.  Everyone in it gives convincing believable performances, especially good turns are given by Meryl Streep who plays against type and by our favorite gal from Memphis ever Ms. Witherspoon.  The mini documentary in the extras about the two men who were sucked into our forced rendition program is especially enlightening and well worth the rental or purchase price of this DVD alone.  I highly recommend this film.

We caught this on one of our local PBS stations a few weeks ago.  It is one of those end of the world movies that used to give me nightmares when I was a kid.  Seeing it now almost 50 years after it was made, the film holds up surprisingly well.  It's still a scary and cautionary tale that needs to be repeated over and over again until the rich white guys in power finally do something about making sure we are nuclear weapon free forever.  

The other thing I noticed about this film was that back in the late '50's they did not give a shit about big time Hollywood actors doing credible accents.  Anthony Perkins and Ava Gardner, who by the way was one hell of a beautiful woman, are supposed to be Aussies in this film but neither so much as attempts an Aussie accent.  Fred Astaire is supposed to be British in this film and his accent is as American as apple pie.  The non use of accents detracted a bit from my enjoyment of this film but not enough to make me hate it.  

I hope to one day read the Nevil Shute novel this was based on one day.  

I watched half of this and then I turned it off.  I like the occasional horror film and the odd slasher pic but this was not either of those.  This movie was torture porn.  Ick.  With all the horror and torture our government is meting out in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and odds knows where else I just could not stomach this one.  But oddly enough I'm going to watch Saw 3 and 4 one of these days.

I'm not a huge shoot 'em up action movie guy but I've been a huge fan of these Bourne movies since day one.  It's probably because I was a huge fan of Robert Ludlum's novels, but not the ones they came out with after he died.  These movies finally got the whole Ludlum thing right.  They are fast paced, action and intrigue filled, and they have good performances by everyone in them.  

This latest edition of the Bourne movies is no different.  I quite liked it despite the fact that it was clunky in a few places and the set up for the showdown with Albert Finney was kind of laughable, Finney is told to get out before Bourne can get him but in James Bond villain style he scoffs at the idea of not facing down his nemesis.  As soon as Finney says no to running away from Bourne I turned to Sparky and I said, "I'll kill you Mr. Bond after I torture you."

But even with the odd hiccup or two, I loved this movie.  Who would have thought Matt Damon could kick so much ass and look so convincing doing it?  But as good as Damon, Joan Allen, and Paddy Considine were in this, the star of this movie was Julia Stiles hair do.  I'm not exaggerating, and I don't usually notice these things but this time I did, when I say that she sports the best looking hair do in the history of cinema in this movie.  It was perfect for her head shape, her face, and for her coloring.  And don't get me started on how good the highlights in her hair looked.  But just I was crushing hard on Ms. Stiles and her perfect do, they made her character go and dye her hair and cut it so she could escape the clutches of the evil bastards in the CIA.  They made up for it later when they used Ms. Stiles in one of the last scenes of the film.  

And yes, they left the possibility of making another Bourne film wide open.  I'm betting that in the next one Damon and Stiles hook up and they call it, "The Bourne Pregnancy."