verbicide | obsessively obsessing

I've seen a fuckton of movies recently. Cutting everything for length, but no real massive story destroying spoilers.

How to Train Your Dragon

Thank GOD for ffwd. The scenes with the kid and the dragon were cute. Also, the dragon reminded me of Annouk. But the rest of it was a total snore. Dreamworks is no Pixar.

Tangled

I am not sure what I thought of this one so much, because I saw it in a theater with my nephew, who was a bit antsy. It was cute enough, I didn't care for the songs (and still mourn the loss of Howard Ashman), but Zachary Levi is cute and the story wasn't bad. I was a little bored though. Maybe on a re-watch without a bored 3 year old it'd be better.

Salt

This was sort of a random watch. I didn't expect to think much of it, but ...I really enjoyed the hell out of this one. Angelina Jolie is hot and fun to watch. I was genuinely unsure for a good length of the movie if she was a double spy or not. And I liked how they resolved things at the end. I didn't care one whit about how it challenged physics or reality, because it was just fun to watch her being such a badass! And Ebert agrees with me, so there! Maybe it's because my expectations were also low, and the last bunch of movies I'd watched (The Kids are All Right and The Town) were unsatisfying?

Rabbit Hole

I'm going to be repeating myself a lot, because there are a lot of movies I just didn't care to see (except apparently now, for the Oscars). But this was one story--a story of two people who are struggling with the loss of their child--that I just felt I didn't need to see. I hate the recent output of crappy romcoms and haven't been too impressed with the comedies either--and so what's left of quality seems to be super depressive heart-wrenching stories. And my heart doesn't need to be wrenched.

But--damn. What fine performances by both Nicole Kidman and Aaron Eckhart. And outside of a few directorial decisions, I thought it was well paced, well done. Really believable. And I was tense at the thought of Eckhart's character cheating and wasn't sure where Kidman's character was heading with that teenage boy--but both answers were strange and satisfying and interesting, without pissing me off.

And I was grateful for the ending, which wasn't simple and pat and cheery, but did offer some hope for these people and their lives. Which, I also found believable. Not every tragedy has to end in a permanent downward spiral. I thought the movie sort of wasted Sandra Oh. Not enough of a meaty role for her. And not to keep quoting Ebert (though, I will), I like what he says here about it:

"I know all this sounds like a mournful dirge, but in fact, "Rabbit Hole" is entertaining and surprisingly amusing, under the circumstances. The film is in a better state of mind than its characters. Its humor comes, as the best humor does, from an acute observation of human nature. We have known people something like this. We smile in recognition."

And also:

"Apart from anything else, "Rabbit Hole" is a technical challenge. It is simple enough to cover the events in the story, not so simple to modulate them for humor and even warmth. I knew what the movie would be about, but I was impressed by how it was about it."

Blue Valentine

I saw this tonight with Pete, and I thought it was going to be great performances that were hard to watch. And while a few moments were cringe-worthy, I really enjoyed the hell out of watching it. Especially, I think, the flashback scenes. I think those were so evocative of how people feel when they first fall in love --it was hard not to think back to those moments in my own life. I found so much of it relatable. And sadly, I could also relate to the scenes about what it's like when you stop loving someone and don't know what the fuck to do. In some ways the character really reminded me of my first boyfriend, and potentially, the bullet I dodged in not marrying him when he proposed.

It was depressing for sure, but the light parts really broke it up and keep it from being unbearable. Also--amazing aging special effects. They really managed to transform Gosling.