Miscellaneous Movie Musings the Sequel

[Alex]

Maybe it's just my particular circumstance but I saw way more advertising for Princess and the Frog than I did for Chipmunks 2. I only really saw Chipmunks ads the week before release whereas Princess was seemed to have half the busses in the world plastered a couple months before it opened.

And in this case it isn't picking great vs. crap it is picking unknown mediocre over known crap (since presumably they saw the first one too). I know I'm in teh minority among Disney people for not particuarly caring for it, but among my non-Disney parental coworkers the response to it has been pretty mixed.

I wonder how much more money Princess would have made if it was preceded by the Pixar logo rather than the Walt Disney Pictures logo.

[wolfy999]

Saw Princess & the Frog Sunday afternoon....cute.

Saw Milk on Sunday evening.....WOW, powerful movie!

Saw the Proposal last night.....cute.

[mousepod]

Went to a matinee of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus yesterday. I'm surprised that there's almost zero advertising for the film that is a real return to form for Terry Gilliam after the badly reviewed Tideland and the just plain bad Brothers Grimm. Without giving the plot away (I recommend you go into this movie cold), I was particularly struck by just how good an actor Heath Ledger was. After his death, his role was completed by three of his friends, which actually works for the most part. My one regret was that during a particularly good scene played by one of his peers, all I could think about was that Ledger should have played it. Sad.

[Ghoulish Delight]

I had heard about the film a while ago, completely forgotten about it, then suddenly in the last couple of weeks started seeing some promos again. I was super excited as it really did look like Gilliam of old.

So happy to hear it's good, but it seems we won't be seeing this one until DVD as it's only in limited release (ArcLight Hollywood, and AMC Santa Monica).

[Cadaverous Pallor]

GC - you're such a sweet softie.

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

GC - you're such a sweet softie.

I know it.


Sometimes I'll pop in a sad movie (or any movie that will be emotional for me) just so I can get a good cry out of it. One of my therapists in the past said it was me reminding myself that I'm alive. I think she was right.

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

Aw NINE last night - A couple really good performances and some well done dramatic moments but it was a bit of a mess storywise - Daniel Day-Lewis was horrible in this with a really fake accent. The music/songs were all over the place and confusing mostly due to the actors trying to use accents in the songs.

[flippyshark]

Originally Posted by Bornieo: Fully Loaded

Aw NINE last night - A couple really good performances and some well done dramatic moments but it was a bit of a mess storywise - Daniel Day-Lewis was horrible in this with a really fake accent. The music/songs were all over the place and confusing mostly due to the actors trying to use accents in the songs.

Have you seen Fellini's 8 1/2? Narrative is decidedly a secondary consideration in that classic, so that may carry over into the musical adaptation as well. I've never seen NINE on stage, but the movie looks colorful enough from the trailer. It's really a lost cause trying to make a film based on such an iconic film (and B'way play) and try to come up with something distinctive, so my expectations for this are muted.

[Alex]

Sherlock Holmes wasn't horrible (and I'm not bothered by the buffed up Holmes as it isn't nearly so present in the movie as in the trailers; and the books do refer to Holmes being a quite accomplished pugilist in a time when there was no such thing as boxing gloves) but it was too long and not very interesting in terms of the central mystery. An awful lot of time was spent setting up the sequel.

A Single Man - I was simultaneously bored by the movie and captivated by Colin Firth's performance.

[Ghoulish Delight]

So I've resolved to attempt to keep track of my movie watching, with personal ratings and notes. I hate that I can never remember what I've seen, and even when I have seen something I can't remember what I thought about it. I'm not sure if this will be different than the numerous attempts I've made in the past to do this, but perhaps Google docs and the fact that I can access it from anywhere thanks to my magic phone will help.

I also just went back and, with the help of this thread, other threads on the board, and our Netflix viewing history, I've reconstructed as well as I could my viewing habits from 2009.

28 movies viewed, 8 of them in theaters (that's really high for us). Discounting Harold & Maude, which we just watched tonight but have seen a few times before and gets a 10 from me, the movie I rated the highest was 1974's The Conversation. What a brilliant piece of film making. The worst was Burn After Reading

Among new movies, The Hangover edged Avatar, with Watchmen being my least favorite (not by much).