May Movie Night

Mr. Jim Hagstrom is going to host the screening for May. He's choosen the movie The Caine Mutiny (1954), directed by Edward Dmytryk (a favorite noir director of mine!).

When: 7:00 pm, Saturday the 19th.
Where: Way out in Afton! But in a great screening/home theater set up.
(Google Maps: 3637 Trading Post Trail, Afton, MN 55001)

General Directions, from 94:
Take exit 253 for Manning Ave/CR-15/MN-95 S - Go South 4.2 miles.
Turn left at 40th St S/CR-18 - Go East 2.4 miles.
Turn left at Trading Post Trail S - Go North > .5 miles.
Arrive at 3637 Trading Post Trail - It's the first driveway on the right.

So Many Movies, So Little Time

Playing this weekend...

---St.Paul---
Highland Theater just got The Lives of Others - I didn't expect that I'd be able to see this film in the theaters anymore. Highland's sister theater, the Grandview, is showing The Namesake right now too. You really have to give it to the theater owners around here for showing really quality movies. The Riverview is playing both The Queen and The Last King of Scotland, so if you're like me and need to catch up on your '06 Ocsar Award winners... here's your chance. Oh, and on that note, the Riverview is having a special Earth Day screening of An Inconvenient Truth. (12:30pm, Sunday)

---Lagoon--- (and others, semi-wide release)
The Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie sounds like it's strictly for the fans of the show... so I'd probably enjoy it... (Hey, if it's playing at Lagoon it has to be good right?) Also showing: The Hoax and Hot Fuzz, the second of which I'm very excited to see (as a big fan of Shawn of the Dead). The Hoax looked horrible from the ads but has gotten pretty great reviews (?). Any thoughts?

In wide release, Disturbia sounds like it'll be everything you expect from a modern/teen update of Rear Window... although Shia LaBeouf, Carrie Ann Moss and David Morse are said to give very decent performances.

Let us know if you go to see any of these!
Thanks.

9/11: Press for Truth. FREE SHOWING!

A couple of community members and the management at the Riverview Theater have gotten together to put on a FREE showing of the documentary 9/11: Press for Truth. 10:45 am, Saturday (4/14) morning.

Apparently public showings like this one have been happening all over the country as some of the victims' (of 9/11) families want to share what they've found out about what really led up to 9/11 happening, and what has been done since (and why). To find out more about this documentary and the The 9/11 Timeline project that started this grassroots movement, check out http://www.911pressfortruth.com/.

Maybe I'll see you at Riverview.

The Namesake

So I'm unemployed in case you didn't know... and if I didn't already see enough movies, I definitely am now. Today I saw The Namesake starring Kal Penn as Gogol, a young Indian American son of immigrant parents struggling to tear away from their traditional cultural values, yet eventually coming to terms with his place in the world and their importance to him. I won't recap the plot, as you can read that elsewhere.

Overall the film seemed to try to cover a little too much time, eventually feeling a bit disjointed, but when it was effective, it was very effective. The actors who play his parents were shown in perhaps a 25 year time span. They aged with the use of makeup, hair alteration, and wardrobe changes, and pulled it off very effectively. I really appreciated them a lot.

Sadly, a few of the other characters were a little thinly portrayed. I found myself very engaged in the subject matter for most of the movie, but sadly in an effort to span Gogol's entire life, the movie offered a few less than stellar moments with some fairly boring interjections.

I recommend the movie on it's efforts to draw out the way a family can be sometimes stretched thin because of cultural and generational differences. These were especially vivid thru the eyes of an immigrant family coming to the United States in the late 70's from India. Sadly the film as a whole fell just a bit short of it's promising premise in an effort to do just a bit too much.

The Lookout

Saw The Lookout today, and was quite pleased. I really liked it a lot. I didn't know too much about it, other than what I had read in few quick one-liners about its quality. What I thought was going to be a well developed caper movie was actually more of an examination of the main character's (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) fall from grace and struggle to co-exist in the the very new adult world that he has created for himself in a fleeting moment of adolescent irresponsibility.

Jeff Daniels was also very good as a sort of mentor/buddy figure, playing one of the more convincing blind men I've seen in a long time, such that it's not just a caricature of the sardonic old man, but a true friend bearing some warmth and wisdom in a seemingly bleak existence for the both of them.

Best Movie I've seen this year so far.

To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Bea became this month's movie picker, selecting 1962's To Kill a Mockingbird - a classic for sure - with an Academy Award winning performance by Gregory Peck. It will be fun to see where our conversation goes when we discuss this piece of cinematic history.

On top of that, I have some interesting supporting material that deals with Mockingbird that I've decided I have to share along with tonight's screening. (I couldn't resist...) Let's just say it will (hopefully) add a uniqueness to our understanding of this film.

To Kill a Mockingbird
Tonight - 4/7/07 @ 7pm.
Anna and Bjorn's House.

April will be better.

March was a pretty sad month for this blog... only 3 posts. At least one of them wasn't by me. :)

Well, back on March 2nd I wrote a post called "Movies to see..." How did we do?

Zodiac - I did see this one, with Änna while we were out in Boulder. I was very excited to see it, and it didn't quite live up to my expectations. Could have been that we were annoyed after not being able to find the theatre and missing the first couple minutes... although even with those minutes missing I thought a weakness of the film was how long it was. I'm not usually one to complain about the length of a movie either, but Zodiac seemed long for the wrong reasons... -or- Maybe it was long because there was a lot of content, but not long as a way to enhance the content...

All in all it was definitly a very well crafted film, and the writing was good, as was the acting. But as good as it was to watch, I never felt like I got into the characters' heads... I didn't empathise with their addictions/afflictions... I wanted them to get over it. And I didn't feel like that's where I should have been at the end of this one. Especially if you consider Fincher's Se7en and even Fight Club, two movies that really put you in the characters' shoes (whether or not you like being there). I would be interested in hearing what others thought about this one, and I'd probably interested in seeing it again to re-evaluate. Cool. Share your thoughts.

Lives of Others & The Queen - I never made it to either of these. They are both sitting in my Netflix waiting list. What can I say?

Sweetland - Änna and I also got to this one a couple minutes late. Weird.
Sweetland was beautifully shot and pretty fun/easy overall to watch. Actually, it was a lot funnier and lighter than I thought it would be. What I'd heard about Sweetland led me to believe that it was a drama about a man who pays for a mail order bride, but then isn't allowed to marry her because it turns out she's German (WWI time), but they end up living together anyway and are consequently dis-owned by the town - not allowed to buy/sell anything - and they end up withering away... All of which is true, except there are jokes throughout and you can substitute that last part for "- but they overcome all odds in the end and live happily ever after." So I wasn't expecting that, but the film doesn't come off as overly cheesy at all, in spite of how I made it sound. :)

So, I want to do better this month, but we'll see...

Movies to see - 4/02/07
300 (the Frank Miller graphic novel adaptation), Dreamgirls (at Riverview now), The Lookout (with Joeseph Gordon-Levitt who was awesome in Brick), The Host (South Korean horror with possible socio-political undertones), The Namesake (Indian - American culture clash), Shooter (Marky Mark has been good, but this might suck? Still fun?) & Reign Over Me (Adam Sandler, hit or miss?)... Oh, and I forgot Grindhouse! (The latest Tarantino/Rodriguez looks ridiculous. In the best kind of ways.) And, no, I didn't forget Blades of Glory. (I have no interest in seeing Farrel fall on his face. Oh, but I guess I mean that only figuratively.)