A Movie A Week: Week 4 - Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Movie: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Theater: AMC Discover Mills 18
Snack: Hot dog and Coke

This was a catch-up week for me.  I've been wanting to see it since it came out in December but hadn't gotten around to it until this week.  This does highlight one of the advantages of digital projection; instead of seeing a film print that was noticeably degraded after more than a month of screenings, I saw a digital projection that was as pristine as it was on the first screening.

I've enjoyed the previous Mission: Impossible movies, though I have to admit I remember absolutely nothing about the second one.  The main draw of "Ghost Protocol" for me was the director, Brad Bird.  He's directed a number of animated films of which I've been quite fond; "The Iron Giant" in particular being a favorite of mine.  This film was Bird's live-action debut as a director, and you have got to admire the man's ambition tackling something this big the first time out.  More impressive is that he manages to pull it off.  The story moves along at a lively pace and even incorporates a bit of continuity from previous movies.  The film held my attention from start to finish and there weren't any of the lulls that so often happen in the middle of movies like this.

Tom Cruise is still a convincing action hero, even as he approaches his 50th birthday.  Meanwhile, Jeremy Renner continues to build a nice career for himself with a good performance here.  Simon Pegg is a welcome addition to any movie as far as I'm concerned, and I am so glad the powers that be decided to bring him back from the last Mission: Impossible.  Overall, the film is a well-crafted and immensely fun entertainment.

A Movie A Week - Week 4: Red Tails

Theater: AMC Discover Mills 18
Snack: Hot dog and Coke

The critics have not been kind to this movie.  It's currently sitting at 35% on Rotten Tomatoes.  Maybe critics were looking for a weighty drama about the Tuskegee Airmen.  This is not that movie, but it is by no means a bad movie.  I found it to be a fun, if conventional, blockbuster-style film.  The dogfights, particularly, were exciting.  I thought the performances were generally pretty good, though whoever gave Cuba Gooding, Jr. that pipe as a prop probably regretted it.  The man could not stop playing with the thing and it was a very distracting whenever he was on screen.  Between actors and director, there were quite a few veterans of "The Wire" involved in this film, which is a good think as far as I'm concerned.

The story was fine, a good entertainment.  However, the dialogue was a bit on the hammy side.  To me, it also felt like this movie had a late-'80's/early-'90's vibe.  I can't put my finger on why, and it is neither a good nor a bad thing as far as I'm concerned, I just found it interesting.  I think the critics have been unfair to "Red Tails."  It's not a great film, but it is an entertaining one.

A Movie A Week - Week 3: The Iron Lady

Theater: AMC Discover Mills 18
Snack: Hot dog and Coke

I had hoped, when I decided to go and see "The Iron Lady," that I would be seeing the story of the rise to power of a significant 20th century political figure.  Or maybe the story of a woman's rise in a traditionally male world.  These were not really the stories this movie was interested in telling.  Instead, a lot of time was spent chronicling the mental decline of Thatcher in her later years.  Between that and scenes from her marriage, there didn't seem to be much time left to spend on her time in government.  Unfortunately, I just didn't find the story that was told to be all that compelling.  Honestly, it played like paint-by-numbers Oscar-bait.  Margaret Thatcher was a controversial figure during her time in office who aroused both passionate opponents and equally passionate defenders.  Here, though, it was as if the filmmaker was not sure how she felt about Thatcher as a political figure and so chose to just gloss over that part of her life.

The acting was uneven in places.  Streep was fine, of course, but I found the performance of the actress playing young Margaret Thatcher to be a bit overwrought.  Problematic performances combined with an overblown musical score make the whole production seem rather ham-handed.  Surely there is much richer dramatic material to be found in the life and career of Margaret Thatcher, if only the filmmakers had tried harder to find it.

A Movie A Week - Week: 2: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Theater: Regal Mall of Georgia 20
Snack: None

I've never read the John le Carré novel or seen the mini-series starring Alec Guiness, so I walked into this movie cold.  I think I may have benefited a bit from not knowing the details of the plot beforehand, I was learning things as the characters were and I was riveted.  I would be interested to hear the reactions of those who were familiar with previous versions of the story.  What I did know going in, was that it stars Gary Oldman (who is awesome) and that it's about Cold War spying (which is fascinating).  This isn't action-movie, James Bond type spying, this is the talk-y, think-y, spying-as-chess-game type of spying.  The story had my full attention for its entire running time.  The performances were fantastic across the board.  Particularly noteworthy were the were Oldman, of course, and Benedict Cumberbatch, who I mainly knew from the BBC's recent "Sherlock" series and who I almost didn't recognize thanks to the dramatically different look he sports in this film.  I also have to offer special praise to the filmmakers for taking such a complicated story and managing to fit it into a little over two hours without making it hard to follow.  I always felt like I knew how one scene connected to the next.  To sum up, "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is a fine film with some great performances; well worth seeing.

A Movie A Week - Week 1: The Adventures of TinTin

I have decided that I want to make an effort to see more movies in the theater in 2012. I was inspired by the comments of one of the hosts of the iFanboy podcast who had set a similar goal for himself last year. I feel like I've been getting a bit lazy about going to the movies. Oh sure, I'll be going to see "The Dark Knight Rises," "The Avengers," and "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" in theaters, but every year there are great movies that pass me by because I can't get myself out to the theater to see them and I forget about them by the time they come to Netflix. So, I've set myself the challenge of seeing at least one movie a week in a theater in 2012 (because, really, the theater experience is a different, and I think better, experience than the home viewing experience). Without further ado, on to week one:


Movie: The Adventures of TinTin
Theater: AMC Discover Mills 18
Snacks: M&Ms and a Coke

I have no preexisting connection to the TinTin comics to drive me to see this movie. It was the creators involved that made this movie so enticing. The behind the scenes creative talent links this film to such greatness as The Lord of the Rings trilogy (Peter Jackson, producer), the Indiana Jones films (Steven Spielberg, director), Doctor Who (Steven Moffat, writer), and Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, writer). With that kind of pedigree, how could I not want to see this movie. Fortunately, I feel like the movie lived up to the expectation of excellence this creative team inspired.

I do have a complaint, and that is with the animation style. I am not a fan. Specifically, I do not particularly like the strange merge of animation and live-action that has been scene previously in films like "The Polar Express" and the Jim Carrey-filled version of "A Christmas Carol" from a few years ago. There's just something vaguely creepy about the look of the characters. It's not all the time, but every so often it pops up and is really distracting, particularly when you see the realistic hands and cartoony face on a character. I think I would have preferred a more purely animated approach to this uncomfortable hybrid. That said, this all bothered me less and less as the movie went on and I got caught up in the story, which was a lot of fun. There is not a wasted frame of film and the story moves along at a brisk pace with some truly inventive action sequences. I found "The Adventures of TinTin" to be a great time at the movies and well worth the effort to see in a theater.

Declaring Myself

I am back.

I am here with a specific intent.

I am here to declare my intention to participate in NaNoWriMo for 2011.

What is NaNoWriMo, you ask?

Well, mysterious voice in my head, it is National Novel Writing Month. The details are here.

Every year it rolls around and I toy with the idea of giving it a try, but always I find some excuse to not take part. This year I'm going to try. I may not complete a novel, but my writing needs a jump start and having a definite goal seems like a promising way to get that boost. So I'm dusting off an old story idea that I've never really gotten very far with and just writing. The polish and research can come later. The goal for now is to just write.

So, you may ask, how did the first day go? Well, I fell a little short of the 1,667 word daily goal I need to hit to reach 50,000 words by the end of the month. As of day one I am at 235 words. It's a start and it is 235 more words than I wrote yesterday. That is progress.

I'm Okay, You're Okay

I've got hand it to Roger Ebert, he's got a real knack for posting things on his blog that make me want to post on mine. This time it's a post about the response to his "Thor" review. I'm always baffled by how mad some people get when someone doesn't like the movie or book or band or whatever that they love. It's natural to want to share the things you love with other people, I'm certainly guilty of pushing favorite movies or TV shows on friends. And in my younger, less rational days, I might have been just as militant about my passions, but as I've gotten older I've realized that everything doesn't have to be for everyone.

It so happens that I enjoyed "Thor". Roger Ebert didn't. That's cool. I know how I feel about the movie, I don't need it validated by someone else's opinion. That's not why I read Ebert's reviews and blog. I read it because I find how he writes and thinks about film to be interesting. That doesn't mean I have to agree with every word he writes.