Movie review times two

When I was a young man I loved movies where the old dudes got the younger women, it gave me hope that when I got old I'd get hot young babes too. Then as I grew older and I watched Woody Allen age and play the 'romantic' lead opposite leading ladies who kept getting younger as he got older, I got queasy seeing stuff like that. And I learned that the guy in his late 50's/early 60's never ever gets the hot young woman in real life. Which brings me to this film:
Yes, it was good. Yes, I enjoyed all of the performances in it. Yes, it didn't end like I thought it would, which was good. But I had one major problem with it. As soon as I saw how quickly Maggie Gyllenhaal fell for Jeff Bridges character, I had trouble believing it. His character is a repellent, greasy, chain smoking, old man who would have trouble getting a truck stop hooker with green teeth interested in him, much less a smokin' hot babe like Gyllenhaal's character.

She might be nice to him because she was brought up to be respectful to her elders but holy hell, there no way she'd drop her drawers for him in real life. It bugged me through the rest of the film. Now, if the female lead had been in her 40's maybe I could see it, but with someone as young and pretty as Gyllenhaal, no.

However, I didn't let that stop me from enjoying most of the rest of the film. Bridges does a fine job singing and if that was Colin Farrel's real singing voice, then he good for him. All in all this was a good film but I'm not so sure Bridges deserved an Oscar for it.

I love the novels of Jim Thompson. He wrote white hot crime novels in the late '50's and early '60's. He populated his books with sexy females who were just as bad as their conniving male counterparts. And his male leads were oh so deliciously bad. His novels are full of amoral antiheroes that get etched in your memory forever more as you read about them. I've loved most every film adaptation of Thompson's novels and I love this film adaption as well.

Casey Affleck plays a small town law enforcement officer who, after years of keeping it down, finally lets his psychopathic side out. He starts out small but as the film moves forward the events he's behind spin out of control until they engulf him and many others.

It's hard to watch at times but boy howdy, this film is a fine one. It's violent and a lot of the violence is directed against women, specifically Jessica Alba and Kate Hudson's characters. It's creepy as well, but one would expect that in a film about a sick twisted lawman who uses his profession to do harm.

Affleck is particularly good in this film. His 'aw shucks' banal evil persona is chilling to no end. He's totally believable as amoral killer/paragon of upright law enforcement. Alba and Hudson, well, wow, they're both smokin' hot and I flinched each time they got hit and abused by Affleck.

This film has more twists and turns than a mountain road and despite the violent content, I highly recommend it. But be aware, it's not by any stretch of the imagination a date movie.

Monkey Movie Reviews

On this cold as Christian charity weekend we watched two films. We saw this one last night:
It's a sweet tale of an expectant young couple looking for a place to nest and lives their lives once their baby pops out. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would because of all the mixed things I had heard about it. It's worth viewing mainly for the supporting actors who do such great comic and poignant turns in it. Allison Janney and Jim Gaffigan as the polar opposite married couple in Phoenix are a hoot. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Josh Hamilton are creepily funny as the uber new age couple. And finally Melanie Lynskey and Chris Messina are stellar as the tragically bittersweet couple who live in Montreal. So if the best performances are turned in by the supporting actors where does that leave out erstwhile leads? Well, Maya Rudolph is fine but John Krazinski kind of fades against the strong performances turned in by everyone else. He's kind of milquetoast.

Over all thought I recommend this movie. It's a sweet little film.

And we watched this one Saturday night:

Woody Allen finally got the memo that moviegoers were creeped out by him when he cast himself as the love interest to very young women. So what did he do in this movie? He casts Larry David in 'the Woody Allen' role. And not unsurprisingly Larry David is a perfect fit for that role. Too bad the movie as a whole doesn't hold up.

This film is another in the long line of Woody Allen films that tells us that all the world's idiocy, racism, and sexism would be cured if we all just moved to New York city. It's a magical place where we southern racists learn to love minorities, where the repressed backwoods catfish eating holy rollers leave their god behind and get civilization and learn to love jazz and polyamory, and where the long closeted can finally come out and open antique stores with their new found same sex partners. Oy vey, what a magical place Woody's NYC is! Too bad it's only a fantasy that a New York city centric old man enjoys.

This movie is cute in parts and Rachel Evan Wood is very pretty to look at but that's about it. I'll give Larry David credit for becoming Woody Allen in this movie but I can't recommend it. To me the stink of southern stereotypes was too strong to get past.

A League of Mullets Movie Review

Yo, we watched Stranger Than Fiction the other night and here is our review:

This film is about a repressed IRS agent, played by Will Ferrell, who discovers he is also a fictional character in a book being written by a famous novelist, played by Emma Thompson. As the story progresses Ferrell's character meets a sexy baker, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, who he must audit but who he also falls in love with, all the while listening to the voice of the famous author as she writes her book about a repressed IRS agent. When not trying to break out of his shell so that he can tell the baker how he feels, he struggles with the voice and he decides to get help for it. He turns to a literature professor, played by Dustin Hoffman, to help him find out who the author is and their search goes into over drive when Ferrell's character hear the author say that he was going to die.
That's what the movie is about on it's most basic level. But what the movie really is about is compassion and how much we all need to be compassionate to one another. Ferrell's character learns to be compassionate towards the baker and they end up in love. The baker learns to be compassionate towards the man she perceives as her enemy. Ferrell learns to be compassionate and accept the death that the author has planned for him because he knows it will result in his saving a child's life before he dies. And finally the author learns to be compassionate when she decides to spare the IRS agent's life because he learned how to open up, connect with others, and love people. Ferrell is great in this because he is so restrained in his performance. He doesn't get all "hey look at me bein' a funny guy" on us and it works. Gyllenhaal is fabulous as well, although we got say that we did not dig her big ass tattoo, we're not into tats. Emma Thompson is wonderful as the author with writers block. Queen Latifah, Tom Hulce and the guy who played the youngest Bluth sibling on Arrested Development did damn fine jobs in this film as well. Oh crap, so did Dustin Hoffman, sorry we almost forget to mention you.

The movie is worth renting, buying, or just seeing over again. The special features on the DVD rock as well. Of course the only thing that would have made this a better film would have been is one of the main characters had been sportin' a mullet.

We highly recommend you see this film. We loved it.

So say us! So say we all!!!