Posted by barb on Dec 6, 2003 in
Movies 0.5/5 stars
I watched this movie on the recommendation of a friend who usually picks great movies. Not this time. I was tempted throughout this movie to just turn it off — by the time we got to the end, I wished we had turned it off.
Ana Morelos hears disturbing news from her doctor, and the same evening she receives a drunken phone call from her husband who confesses to cheating on her. She decides to take up two teenaged boys on their offer that she accompany them on a road trip to a secret beach.
The story is old — someone finds out they have a terminal illness and decide to go on one last fling. In this case, it’s given a somewhat disturbing wrapper of a 30-something woman going on a road trip with two teenagers, both of whom lust after her. Intertwined into the story are short interludes with narration about various other people who peripherally come in contact with the boys — for example, they passed an accident scene and we heard about the man who had been hit. Andrew saw these as a means to show how our stories are all intertwined with others, but each of these interludes told of some tragedy or sadness, so I saw it as a means to show us how life sucks for everyone.
I can’t recommend this one.
Posted by barb on Nov 29, 2003 in
Movies 0.5/5 stars
This came on Oxygen, and Melissa begged for us to watch, so we did. I tried reading my novel through most of it, but was too drawn in by the utter cheese to get very far. Olivia Newton-John is a muse who has come to Earth to help inspire artist Sonny Malone. Sonny partners up with Danny McGuire to build a mega-huge roller dome. If that’s not a story for that ages, I don’t know what is.
Posted by barb on Nov 29, 2003 in
Movies 3.5/5 stars
I don’t usually get into horror flicks, but this one did pull me in more than most. Halle Barry plays a psychiatrist at a secure mental hospital. She wakes up after a car accident, and finds that she is now a patient in that very hospital, accused of killing her husband. But she can’t remember what happened.
The “spring-loaded cats”, as Andrew calls them, are generally quite effective. Even more fun, though, were Melissa’s reactions to them (she gasps louder than anyone I’ve heard). I had some trouble with the ending, though, this is not a movie to see for the plot.
Posted by barb on Nov 29, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
This movie is based on the claims of XXX, creator of many game shows and host of the Gong Show in the 70s, that he was an agent for the CIA. The movie follows his missions to assassinate enemies of the US, often his travels were disguised as part of his official duties as chaperone for the prime time Dating Game.
Do I believe it? It doesn’t really matter. One the one hand, he is the perfect kind of person to be an agent, I mean, who would ever suspect him? On the other hand, the movie doesn’t have to be completely believable. It’s fun.
Posted by barb on Nov 23, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
The orders of the English ship, the Surprise, are to hunt down the Acheron, a French ship, and burn, sink or take it home as a prize. Captain Jack Aubrey (Russell Crowe) takes his ship to the ends of the Earth, and beyond, to fulfill his orders. The Surprise finds itself rounding South America, and then trekking back north to the Galapagos Islands.
I was glad that we were able to see this movie on a big screen — it would have lost something on a TV screen. We toured the USS Constellation in the Baltimore Inner Harbor this past spring, and it felt very claustrophobic, even without a full crew — the movie captured this feeling of claustrophobia quite well. The opening scene shows the men in their hammocks below decks — they are packed in there! The movie did lose me when the doctor (Paul Bettany) preformed surgery on himself — until then I was fully taken in by the movie, it’s scenery, plot and characters.
Posted by barb on Nov 22, 2003 in
Movies 3/5 stars
During the biggest solar storms of memorable history, Frank and John Sullivan find that they are able to speak to each other through time. On October 10, 1999, John hears a voice on the other side of his father’s old ham radio. The voice identifies itself as Frank Sullivan, John’s father who died on October 12, 1969. He thinks the guy is playing a joke on him, until Frank accidentally burns the desk, creating a burn on the desk Frank is sitting at, only it’s cold. John gives Frank some advice on the fire he’ll fight the next day (“don’t go with your instinct…go the other way”) But in changing his father’s fate, he changes his mother’s as well, who subsequently becomes a victim of a serial killer. Together, Frank and John work across time to fix what they put wrong.
As with most movies involving time travel or faster than light communications, I had to turn my inner-scientist off for this movie. But factoring out the questionable science, I enjoyed the movie. It borders on touching — telling a story of second chances — but doesn’t become overly sentimental.
Posted by barb on Nov 8, 2003 in
Movies 4/5 stars
The filmmakers followed birds migrating in both the northern and southern hemispheres over four years, and compiled the result into this film. This is not so much a documentary as a visual delight. The narrator interrupts the flow the the birds’ flights only occasionally, allowing the viewer to absorb the beauty and strength involved in such trans country and trans world flights.
Occasionally, I found that I wanted more information on why the birds were doing what they were doing. For example, one species of crane was shown throwing their heads and necks all the way back to their back and clucking. This was often followed or preceded by two or more birds jumping at each other and clicking beaks. I wondered if ornithologists had theories as to what the behavior signified. Mating dominance? Didn’t seem like it. Social behavior? Perhaps, but it occasionally seemed combative.
Overall, though, a visually compelling film.
Posted by barb on Nov 2, 2003 in
Movies 3/5 stars
I think I already knew this, but I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t much like war movies. I think I used to; either that, or every time I think about watching one, I seem to remember liking them.
This was a movie about a pair of soldiers (Nicholas Cage and Christian Slater) who are assigned to protect two Navajo code-talkers (Adam Beach and Roger Willie) during WWII. The Navajo were used because their language was an un-crackable code, provided none of the Navajo speakers were captured and made to talk. So, more than protecting the so-called windtalkers, the soldiers’ job was to protect the code…at any cost.
The movie was well done, for what it was, but I’ve lost my stomach for watching men get blown up. Perhaps it’s because we currently have soldiers in Iraq who are facing this as I write this. Perhaps it’s just that the movies are starting to feel too real (though I’m certain men and women who have faced real combat would have something different to say). Perhaps it’s that I just finished reading The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (a collection of short stories on the Vietnam war), and I kept telling myself that it didn’t seem like a real war story (though, again, if it was a real war story, I don’t think I could have sat through the whole thing).
For what it was, it was a good movie….just not my taste anymore.
Posted by barb on Oct 26, 2003 in
Movies 2/5 stars
Like Volcano, there’s not much to say about this one. The core of the Earth has stopped spinning, due to a weapon developed by the US (in retaliation to a perceived weapon developed by other countries). The science is dodgy, but then one does not watch these movies for the science (though it’s really hard for me to turn off my inner-scientist).
Posted by barb on Oct 13, 2003 in
Movies 3/5 stars
CIA analyst, Jack Ryan, chases down a terrorist group who has gotten their hands on a nuclear bomb with plans to detonate it in the United States.
This is the fourth Jack Ryan movie so far. The most memorable are Patriot Games and Clear and Present Danger — the two with Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan. This latest installment introduces Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan, and seems to pull back the hands of time a bit (Ryan has just started dating his future wife, whereas in Patriot Games, his wife and child are threatened by IRA terrorists). While I’m not, in general, a huge Ben Affleck fan, I think he did a good job in taking up the Jack Ryan torch.