Monday, January 03, 2005
My weekend is over. Saturday Joe and Chris came over and we all played some Halo 2 online for awhile, and then watched I, Robot. Dropped Chris off and then watched Swingers with Joe (reviews to follow). I had a hard time getting decent sleep at this point, I'd go to bed at my usual time, but I'd be lucky to get 3-4 hours of sleep both occasions. On Sunday I went to Ground Round again with Corey and Calos to watch the last regular season's worth of games. 49ers lost again, no surprise there, but they did manage to hold on to a 7-0 lead for a little over a quarter. Say it with me...number one pick!!! Rooted with Corey to see the Saints beat the Panthers, but to make it into the playoffs they needed the Jets to beat the Rams, but the Jets lost in overtime. Corey looked pretty down about it, but oh well, at least his team finished off the season with 4 straight wins to boost team morale.
After the games got done I headed over to Target and picked up some X-Mas clearence goodies, that were 75% off. Like a whole bunch of extra wrapping paper, and a cheap poker set. Now my friends can say I actually have a decent set of cards next time they want to play poker. Finally got me a much needed new pair of shoes to boot that happened to half off too, so huzzah for me saving money. Shortly after I got home I damn near collapsed out of the total lack of sleep for the weekend and slept unti about midnight. Got up and watched a couple more films. So without further ado, lets get onto my mini-reviews.
Finding Neverland
This reminded me a lot, and almost took the entire same direction as Shakespeare in Love did several years back, but instead mixed in more kids trying to pull off the classic Peter Pan tale with Johnny Depp calling all the shots. I'm sorry, but I just can't follow these films, I did for SiL to a minor extent, but my attention span for these movies with older settings isn't all that spectacular. There were some parts where I was temporarily interested in like the last half hour with the final little play, and I did like the ending. But dealing with the subject matter, I really can't hand out an honest score for this film.
I, Robot
Despite all the intentional product placement and shilling from Mr. Smith, this ended up being slightly better than what I was expecting. For some reason this film kept on making me think it was a lot like Minority Report. The robots brought some innovative fight scenes to the screen that were a breath of fresh air. I hate to admit it, but I love Smith's classic "allergic" one-liner already. Good for what it was, with some surprisingly good storytelling and overall a bit better than I anticipated, so I'll go 7.5/10
Alfie
Now this is my kind of movie. Jude Law portrays a street-smart savy bachelor named Alfie who bounces in and out of several relationships due to his fear of commitment. He narrates to the camera quite a bit while the background settings follow in perfect motion as if they don't even notice it ala Wayne's World. I was hooked within moments to see how fast a relationship would go for Mr. Alfie and the many unexpected twists that caught me by surprise. But the most surprising of them all, they actually made the older Susan Surandon to look semi-hot again. Damn good film that I was into through and through, with an unexpected, but welcomed ending. 10/10
Swingers
I bought this by recommendation of Kubryk, as he listed it in his top 5 comedies of all time. And after seeing it I was floored at how good it is and now am instantly dubbing it a classic must-see for all. I don't know if I'd classify it as a traditional comedy tho, but a rather serious one instead. Now I've seen Jon Favreau plade some great supporting roles in the past (Rudy, The Replacements), but I have never seen him in a starring role before. I was later surprised to see he wrote the screenplay for this masterpiece too.
Jon portrays a blue-chip comedian struggling to make a name for himself after recently moving to LA and having a horrendous time getting over a 6-year relationship. Seeing him and his fellow clubbers attempt to hit the night-scene provides many memorable moments. Especially the near gang-battle that almost erupts after they leave one club. The dialogue is what steals the show here, Vince Vaughn especially does a superb job delivering his lines and is hilarious in his often drunken escapades as he keeps trying to persuade Jon on how he's on top of his game and to keep pursuing the ladies no matter how korny his pick-up lines get. I lost track of the amount of times Vaughn labeled him "money."
Even though this is an all-star performance by the entire cast on almost all levels (including a pre-Office Space Ron Livingston portraying another one of Jon's pals), the thing that stands out the most here is one of the best endings I've ever seen. The movie is on a role, and it only seemed to me like I was still expecting at least another 20-30 minutes left of the flick, and the ending just came from out of nowhere and floored me, and yet it seemed like such a great and fitting way to conclude the movie that I wasn't ticked off whatsoever. I don't think I can think of another unanticipated ending like that one at all. Hats off to everyone involved, I'm going the full monty here too. 10/10
After the games got done I headed over to Target and picked up some X-Mas clearence goodies, that were 75% off. Like a whole bunch of extra wrapping paper, and a cheap poker set. Now my friends can say I actually have a decent set of cards next time they want to play poker. Finally got me a much needed new pair of shoes to boot that happened to half off too, so huzzah for me saving money. Shortly after I got home I damn near collapsed out of the total lack of sleep for the weekend and slept unti about midnight. Got up and watched a couple more films. So without further ado, lets get onto my mini-reviews.
Finding Neverland
This reminded me a lot, and almost took the entire same direction as Shakespeare in Love did several years back, but instead mixed in more kids trying to pull off the classic Peter Pan tale with Johnny Depp calling all the shots. I'm sorry, but I just can't follow these films, I did for SiL to a minor extent, but my attention span for these movies with older settings isn't all that spectacular. There were some parts where I was temporarily interested in like the last half hour with the final little play, and I did like the ending. But dealing with the subject matter, I really can't hand out an honest score for this film.
I, Robot
Despite all the intentional product placement and shilling from Mr. Smith, this ended up being slightly better than what I was expecting. For some reason this film kept on making me think it was a lot like Minority Report. The robots brought some innovative fight scenes to the screen that were a breath of fresh air. I hate to admit it, but I love Smith's classic "allergic" one-liner already. Good for what it was, with some surprisingly good storytelling and overall a bit better than I anticipated, so I'll go 7.5/10
Alfie
Now this is my kind of movie. Jude Law portrays a street-smart savy bachelor named Alfie who bounces in and out of several relationships due to his fear of commitment. He narrates to the camera quite a bit while the background settings follow in perfect motion as if they don't even notice it ala Wayne's World. I was hooked within moments to see how fast a relationship would go for Mr. Alfie and the many unexpected twists that caught me by surprise. But the most surprising of them all, they actually made the older Susan Surandon to look semi-hot again. Damn good film that I was into through and through, with an unexpected, but welcomed ending. 10/10
Swingers
I bought this by recommendation of Kubryk, as he listed it in his top 5 comedies of all time. And after seeing it I was floored at how good it is and now am instantly dubbing it a classic must-see for all. I don't know if I'd classify it as a traditional comedy tho, but a rather serious one instead. Now I've seen Jon Favreau plade some great supporting roles in the past (Rudy, The Replacements), but I have never seen him in a starring role before. I was later surprised to see he wrote the screenplay for this masterpiece too.
Jon portrays a blue-chip comedian struggling to make a name for himself after recently moving to LA and having a horrendous time getting over a 6-year relationship. Seeing him and his fellow clubbers attempt to hit the night-scene provides many memorable moments. Especially the near gang-battle that almost erupts after they leave one club. The dialogue is what steals the show here, Vince Vaughn especially does a superb job delivering his lines and is hilarious in his often drunken escapades as he keeps trying to persuade Jon on how he's on top of his game and to keep pursuing the ladies no matter how korny his pick-up lines get. I lost track of the amount of times Vaughn labeled him "money."
Even though this is an all-star performance by the entire cast on almost all levels (including a pre-Office Space Ron Livingston portraying another one of Jon's pals), the thing that stands out the most here is one of the best endings I've ever seen. The movie is on a role, and it only seemed to me like I was still expecting at least another 20-30 minutes left of the flick, and the ending just came from out of nowhere and floored me, and yet it seemed like such a great and fitting way to conclude the movie that I wasn't ticked off whatsoever. I don't think I can think of another unanticipated ending like that one at all. Hats off to everyone involved, I'm going the full monty here too. 10/10
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