The Fighter

This movie did the boxing genre of movies proud, plain and simple. It wasn't action packed, it didn't have very many twists and turns that threw the viewer for a loop, and the story was nothing new. But....keeping all of these things in mind, the film was great. Each actor felt right for their respective parts. Mark Wahlberg killed as Micky Ward, the down and out boxer with a last chance at greatness. Christian Bale was scarily convincing as his brother, Dicky, whose drug problems ruined his own once promising career and now threaten to destroy his and Mick's friendship. Melissa Leo plays the loving but equally screwed up mother of the two, and Amy Adams plays Micky's love interest and future wife quite well. I can't argue with the critics' attacks that the movie is really pretty damn predictable. But I still found it captivating. I liked the fact that the fights didn't try to be a Rocky IV impression with ridiculous punches that could kill an ox; they were realistic and stuck to real boxing. This is a tough genre to be a part of and nail it; Raging Bull did it, and I believe these guys did it too. By the way, I'm gonna try to see all the Best Picture nominees so next up is Winter's Bone!

The Dude Abides...

Who knew that such a nonsensical story could be so hilarious! This movie is great, really in every way that a comedy should be. As you may have noticed I bolded "should" because often comedies, though they may still be funny, rely on only one form of humor to get them through the entire film. Not this one. I think that this is truly one of the Coen Brother's best and constantly most underrated movie. The characters are so  over the top, with the Dude's belligerent and yet somehow charming friend, Walter, or the Nihilists, who continuously interject themselves in a funny and violent way into the life of the dude himself. And then there's the Dude himself, played by the honorable Jeff Bridges. He truly defines the word, Dude, or his Dudeness as he remarks various times within the story. He's not a typical hero; every twist in the story is befallen on him, and he seems quite unwilling to take part in most of it. Either way, the acting was perfectly offbeat and the movie itself is such a fresh take on dark comedies that you just gotta love it.

Charade: Waaaaayy ahead of it's time

So last night I was volunteering at the Saratoga Senior Center which consisted of watching a movie with a couple friends and four older women; as you can see, very tiring work....Anyway we watched the movie, Charade, starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn. I was honestly floored by the film. It wasn't so much the plot that amazed me; it was a standard story of murder for money and the ensuing mystery over who was the murderer and where that money was. No, what really got me was the actual techniques implemented in the movie, the camera angles, the music, the modernistic scenes of violence that were used. This movie was so modern for its time, and I think truly brought about a new age of murder mysteries. It had a "Hitchcockian" feeling to it with the constant changes in lighting to set the mood and the eerie music to enhance scenes, and yet, the chase scenes and the filming just seemed new and different in some way. This film deserves a lot of praise for its progressive style and this scene (WARNING: It will ruin the movie for you if you plan on watching it!) exemplifies the distance that the director put between it and other mysteries of the past.

King Kong (The Remake!)

Some hated it, some didn't. That's all there is to it. I like it.....mostly. Ok, the sets were pretty hard not to be amazed with. I was absolutely mesmerized with the set when they first set foot on the island and have the encounter with the island natives. And the dinosaur scene was intense to say the least. But I can see where critics are coming from in their general distaste with the film. The director, Peter Jackson, glamorized the old tale, something he is known for doing in most of his films. A lot of people feel that the emphasis took away from the story and was too over the top. Maybe it was; the scene with the life-size, man-eating bugs was hard for me to watch. But honestly, I think if this tale were to be told, this would be the way that it should be, with an element of gruesomeness to it, some serious drama, and an overwhelmingly mystical island. The acting, I thought, was actually pretty good. Jack Black really keyed in to the role of the completely self-involved, money hungry producer. And Naomi Watts was excellent as the innocent struggling actress who caught the eye of the large beast.