Netflix: I Am Love (2009)

The movie's description is:

Oscar winner Tilda Swinton shows off her multilingual skills in director Luca Guadagnino's atmospheric melodrama in which family dissension, unbidden desire and other tensions bubble to the surface during the patriarch's birthday party. When the seemingly picture-perfect Recchi clan gathers at the family villa to celebrate the great old man, the veneer of civility quickly falls away in this Golden Globe nominee for Best Foreign Language Film.

How I hate thee, let me count the ways . . .
I hate your preening self-importance.
I hate your extreme close-up food porn money shots.
I hate that there wasn’t a gang of murderous robots to destroy the Recchi family whilst giving everyone tetanus.
I hate your really dramatic music preceding someone . . . *gasp* . . . walking out of the room!
I hate that Tilda was a Russian, but “became [so] Italian” that she forgot her real name!
I hate that one person died, but you didn’t follow it up with more deaths.
But most of all, in every way, I hate Oscar winner Tilda Swinton’s multilingual skills.

Jimmy Stewart is totally German.

I'm watching The Mortal Storm. Spoiler alert - Nazis are bad. Hitler has just taken the Chancellorship and Stewart is not on board. I love me some Jimmy Stewart, but he plays Aryan with the same "aw shucks" midwestern sensibility that made his career. At any rate, it's an interesting juxtaposition. Snugglebears is still in utero. Although the last couple of nights, it looks like SB is trying to escape from the inside. Don't worry. I will keep you posted. For now, "Well now . . . I don't think I can heil, there, you know?"

Netflix: eat pray love (2010)

For when you need to muster the rage to murder someone.

if faces could talk*

Silent movies can be difficult to watch. They don't have enough fps; they can be kind of silly and some random 2 people will fall in love within 8 seconds of meeting. Over time, you're expectations morph to accommodate the nuances.

That said I love to watch the actors' !!!!!*F*A*C*E*S*!!!!! They sometimes make these HUGE expressions in the comforting knowledge that even those kids in the cheap seats will be able to discern the emotion. Of course, they are on camera. The effort is lost. But hey, I still appreciate it. But not as much as I appreciate the first director who said, "Hey. You can stop doing that with your face."

* Dick Enberg said this on a football telecast once. It was the end of the game and (I think) the Denver Broncos were about to suffer a crushing defeat (?). They showed a lineman on the sideline sporting frowny face and Dick says, “If faces could talk.” Now, I don’t know about you, but my face can talk – especially the mouth part of my face. The rest of my face says, “HANDSOME!” I think he meant to say something like, “If these faces were micced and were talking right now . . .”? I’m not sure. He might have had early onset of senility. (This was before he was old enough to legitimately be saying that kind of stuff.)

audrey hepburn's accent

Sweet band name, right?

theMomica and I were watching The Children's Hour (winner of 1961's Debbie Downer movie of the year) and Audrey Hepburn was all "WORLD'S CHAMPION BLIND LADY!" and I was all, "WTF is she from?" She had an accent singular to herself. Perhaps British, but not quite.

Turns out, it's no surprise she's an accent mutt. (Please give Jimmy Wales money, fyi.) That's quite the litany of places to grow up in. She should have kept it consistent with sister Kate though.

That's a stupid joke that was supposed to be the closer to the post, but I just remembered theMomica calling out Hepburn on her anorexia. Like totally. She weighs 17 pounds in this movie with 6 pounds of hair. So, is Audorexic Hepburn a better band name? I report; you decide!

Netflix: Grey Gardens (1975)

When I read the synopsis for Grey Gardens, I was pumped. I’m a fan of documentaries and this seemed right up my alley. 2 crazy old ladies (mother and daughter) live in a dilapidated mansion and spend their time tending to multitudes of cats and raccoons. Certainly, they MUST be interesting. Right?

Well, no. They are eccentric. I'll give them that, but they are not interesting and I found the movie barely watchable. As a matter of fact, you can just phone in the eccentric thing. There are actually some rules. Allow me to illuminate:

1. Be interesting.
2. Don’t fucking sing all the time.
3. Speak in turn. They were incessantly talking over each other and squealing at the camera.
4. Lose the creepy painter kid. (Eccentrics always have a creepy painter kid hanging around.)
5. Put some clothes on for god-sakes.

Ok, that list didn't apply so much to all eccentrics, just these two in particular. If you go to the Netflix page and read the reviews (or read professional reviews) they'll shovel a load of BS about "This is a fascinating study of family relationships, of interdependency and the effects of social isolation, even if that isolation is incomplete and voluntary." (Jill in Idaho). Blah blah. Basically, lovers of the film are telling you, "They didn’t used to be old! They were younger – and betterer looking! It's crazy! Look at them now! They are older and nostalgic."

I suspect you could go to your local watering hole and hear more of the same, except more interesting and you'd more likely be drunk. And trust me. After 15 minutes you'll want to be drunk - really, really drunk.

Netflix: Deliverance (1972)

So, if you're Bobby's (Ned Beatty) buddy, how long do you have to wait until you start telling squeal jokes? Like 6 months? Is that too soon? I know it's not funny, but it was written kind of funny what with all the "you look like a hog to me" and "purdy mouth" talking. Was it wrong for me to giggle? Yes, yes it was.

Anyway, banjo boy steals the show. Then a bunch of bad stuff happens, but the dueling banjos theme will stick with you for hours. Recommended!

jack palance just got hispanic on your ass

I was watching The Professionals which I remembered seeing had Jack Palance in it. Why hadn't I seen him? Oh, right, he is playing the Jesus Raza character -- my bad.

These movies always interest me where they will have, you know, real, actual Mexicans in most of the parts, but then they'll put Jack Palance out in the sun for 3 days straight so he can play a Mexican. Was Hollywood really so bereft of Mexican acting talent in 1966? Surely there was already a huge immigrant population. Couldn't they tapped into that market?

Strange choices, but it's the kind of thing you'll see all the time in "old" movies. Old movies, who am I kidding? It wasn't so long ago Fisher Stevens was rockin' the "brown face" for Short Circuit. I mean, you couldn't find another HUMAN that's as funny as Fisher Stevens, let alone an actual Indian guy.

At any rate, Jack gets the girl. She probably wasn't really Mexican herself and wasn't married to the old white dude at all! It's all lies with these Hollywood types!

Burt Lancaster was awesome - per usual.

Netflix: Bug (2006)

Aphids are everywhere and they're sting crazy!

Yah, this was a strange one. I don't disagree with much of Ebert's review other than the part about her going nutso "never seems hurried." Well, I don't know about you, but I would like to think it would take longer than 30 seconds to go from 0 to batshit insane.

I didn't really care for it, but it was interesting. So you shouldn't see it . . . or maybe you should. Wait. Can you take a look at this bug bite?

Netflix: Atonement (2007)

Stop. Spoiler time.

Oh, I'm a whiny little British girl that has an active imagination/makes shit up. Wouldn't it be cheeky of me to tell a lie about my sister's lover and send him to Turkish prison? Would it? I'm a cheeky monkey. Then one day I will take it all back and tell the authorities that my sister's lover is actually a stand-up guy and once saved my dumb, drowning @ss when I jumped in to see if he'd come after me. His hair looked ever so nice and I didn't think he'd do it. But he did! That was cheeky too. Keep in mind I was like 13-years old and the time, not 4. Aren't I cheeky? I am cheeky and lucky, because, in hindsight, he should have let me drown.

I can't emphasize my cheekiness enough. Do you know how cheeky I am? Do you? Well, I didn't actually do the part about exonerating my sister's lover. Instead, I wrote a book about how happy they would have been had I maybe said something and had they not died in the war. Best part, I even interrupted the one chance they had to do it. I'm a cheeky monkey.

Netflix: The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)

top 5 things I wanted to happen during this movie:

1. Terrorist attack at current location of book club meeting.
2. Jane Austen's rotting corspe to reanimate and beat them to death.
3. Each member to be stricken by previously unknown illness rendering them unable to read (but only Jane Austen's works).
4. Super-swine flu.
5. The end.

I don't even really hate Jane Austen. But this movie went from 0 to irritating in the first 8 seconds of the title sequence. It's true.

Netflix: Perfect Stranger (2007)

I liked the tv show better.

Netflix: Doctor Zhivago (1965)

I don't really have any thoughts on the movie. I mean, other than the heavy British, I mean, Russian accents were pretty hilarious. I thought it was well done and theMonica could have done without all the adultery, but, hey, I didn't want to gauge (hurts way worse than gouging) my eyes out. It had that going for it.

At any rate, I know a dispropororpoportionate percentage of this blog's readers are incredibly smart and have advanced degrees and whatnot. And the movie did pique my curiosity. I'm looking for a good book to read to learn all about Julie Christie. No, not her, that slut. I want to learn more about this time in Russian history. I'm leaving it vague ("this time") because I don't know how far I would need to go back tsar-wise, nor how far into the revolution. That's where all you history Phd's/Phd's to-be come in (I'm including you Alan).

And I'm looking for the straight dope. I don't want a romanticized view written by some '30s style American/British communist-sympathizer intellectual (if I just made up the existence of that class of people, please disregard) nor the late-Tsar's autobiography.

This is like homework. Nose to the grindstone people!

intervention?

So theMonica might be having an affair with that creepy Twilight movie.

Initially, she was above the fray as her friends were all, "Lah-di dah, I'm just a pre-teen in love with a dude in a movie." (I think the dude is the one that looks like a clown? Right? White face paint and red lips?) This was the woman I married - above such nonsense.

But then, their wiccan powers overcame her resistance and the next thing I know she's attending Twilight parties . . . wtf? Ok. Disturbing, but maybe it's a girl-chat session, you know, regular stuff: talkin' about real live human boys and manicures and whatnot.

That's what I thought. Well, I usually play basketball on Tuesdays then go to the bar for some wings, but tonight I was feeling all of my 32 and 5/6th years so I came home. And what do I find? theMonica making out with a life-sized fathead of the clown vampire. No, just kidding, she was watching the Twilight commentary track. I mean, for serious? What are we going to learn from the girl with scoliosis? Not much, I say.

Off to the office I went with plans of emailing all our friends and family (except the others that are also addicted to Twilight). theMonica needs our support.

Netflix: Charlotte Gray (2001)

Now with "spoilers"!

I'm usually not to much of a stickler in the "speaking English where it's not an English-speaking country" vein. I mean, it is kind of annoying and strange for every Roman to have a British accent, but I assume that's better than a bad faux-Italian accent. And maybe the producers don't know any good Italian actors and this isn't Fellini where we're dubbing audio on top of the actors random mouth-mushings (paraphrasing Day for Night here).

But, Charlotte Gray is supposed to be about a Scottish Londoner who becomes a member of British secret service and is assigned a mission with the French resistance. Wherein she continually compromises herself and others in an attempt to learn about her downed pilot boyfriend.

Generally, the non-native speaker spy is a good plot device. Will Vichy French peasants notice that she just dropped a "bullocks!" amidst discussion of baguettes? This possibility is entirely lost. I think they needed to do something to indicate to us when she was supposed to be in "French mode". Perhaps something like this:


Charlotte comes to find out there her boyfriend is dead. She's sad. Then, at the end, it turns out her boyfriend is alive. Apparently her disillusioning overlords had presented manipulated evidence to make her think he was dead so she was no longer pining whilst she was supposed to be spying. She like wasn't even happy when she saw him. Very, meh. She gives him a fist-bump, denies him the reunion hook-up and returns to France to be with her commie revolutionary. Hmm.

Netflix: My First Mister (2001)

There are some movies on netflix that you hate so much that you can't wait to log back into your account and drop the one-star bomb on their sucky-movie asses.

Albert Brooks was rockin' a ridiculous looking porn/pedophile mustache, which was strangle a propos.

A whiny, angsty high school melodrama with pedophilic undertones.

And so, thus endeth the notes for my thoughts on My First Mister which I typed many, many months ago. For me, Albert Brooks at his best is forever traipsing at the precipice of annoying. In this case, he plummeted off the edge about 8 seconds into the movie Wile E. Coyote style with anvil in tow.

Netflix's summary (I doubt Netflix actually wrote the text) starts with, "An underappreciated comedy . . . " Truer words were never spoken.

Netflix: The Lost Weekend (1945)

You know how you'll get drunk a couple of days in a row and on day 3, you're kind of hungover and you'll think, "Man. Why did I do that? Maybe I'm an alcoholic." Then you watch The Lost Weekend and you think, "No. That guy is an alcoholic." You don't? . . . Whatever.

I gave it 5 stars and that's like the most.

Netflix: Margot at the Wedding (2007)

Was being such a bitch!

I like Noah Baumbach and I'm a huge fan of Kicking and Screaming, but he's developed this habit of writing characters the audience can only dislike. Likable characters reveal an odious flaw or are only minor characters.

It makes for a depressing experience.

Netflix: Willow (1988)

= Lord of the Rings - Ring + baby

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Dull

*ZING!*

I thought it was all like Harrison Ford didn't want to do this movie for the money only, he wanted the right script, he was too old, whatever. Well, I don't think this was the right script. I can not say that the movie made me want to vomit, but it wasn't anything special by any means. It was overly reliant on special effects, some of which were silly looking. Though I will admit to being impressed with the man-eating ants.

On the other hand, it was fun and most of my complaints were more post-watching. And hey, we got Mitchell's beforehand, so I had that to look back on fondly.

Dang - Mitchell's needs to work on their webpage. Hello 1996!