Another slow week in DVD. Blockbuster and Netflix have been lagging in sending me new releases even when everything I have has been returned for a few days.
Plus, my time has been kind of divided with playing The Old Republic. I'm really digging playing a Sith Lord. Imagine that...
Also, I'm on a bit of a high right now due to the 49ers amazing win on Saturday. That was one of the best playoff games I've seen. Then, we get lucky and Giants get an unexpected win in Green Bay and now the Niners have a home game for the NFC championship. Who would have guessed that the road to the Superbowl would go through San Francisco?
Poor Rooney Mara. She didn't get the Golden Globe tonight (which she deserved) and next week she's going to watch her Giants lose to my Niners next weekend. There's always the Oscars, cutie pie.
I just finished watching the Golden Globes and I was pretty happy with the results for the most part. There were so many awards that I would have been happy if they had gone with any of the nominees that it's hard to be disappointed. The only thing that bummed me out is that they bring Ricky Gervais out, and then after his opening monologue, hid him backstage. He was barely on the show this year. I know he fought for control over what he was going to be able to say, but it just seems like he was held back somehow. I really wanted to see him get boozed up and talk some shit, but it didn't happen enough to my liking.
Anyway, on to the movies...
Moneyball
I haven't watched it since seeing it the theaters. It's has a great script and great performances. It's a baseball movie that I think even people that don't care about baseball can enjoy as there's really not a lot of actual baseball in the movie. It's more of a behind the scenes movie. It's even easier to like if you're an old-school A's fan like myself. If you are, then you'll enjoy this just for the nostalgia and watching part of the 20 game win streak again.
One of the year's better films and probably one I'll pick up on Blu-Ray once the price drops a bit.
4.5 Death Stars. Rent it or buy it. I don't think you'll be disappointed.
What's Your Number?
I was kind of disappointed in this. I figured with Chris Evans and Anna Faris, you'd have a slam dunk romantic comedy. While I liked both of them in the movie, it's just too middle of the road. It's not super funny, or raunchy. It's just kind of 'meh'. This is one of those romantic comedies that you know how it's going to end from the beginning. That's nothing new for romantic comedies, but it still could have been done better. I think of something like Friends With Benefits that just had a better script.
I will say that Anna Faris has the nicest calves in Hollywood right now. She's apparently aware of this, too, as there's barely a scene in the movie where she isn't wearing a dress, or short shorts or in her underwear. Not that I'm complaining though.
2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars. I don't think it's a complete waste of time, but more of a missed opportunity.
Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
Due to Guillermo del Toro's involvement in this, I really wanted to like it. There are parts I did like, but there were too many things about the movie that I didn't or took me out of the movie.
At first I didn't like Bailee Madison's character, especially how she interacted with Katie Holmes, but she grew on me and I think it's more that Katie Holmes' performance was weird.
Basically the movie is about fairies. You learn in this movie that fairies are assholes like like to mess with people and they want kid's teeth. Why do they want children's teeth so bad? You know those aren't too hard to get, being that they fall out of EVERY kid, and at pretty much the same age. I mean, there's the whole tooth fairy thing. Seems like they could have gone with that kind of angle, but they didn't.
Okay, here's where I get all spoilery, so just skip to the end if you haven't seen this yet...
Then, you find out they don't like light, but yet you consistently see them in the daylight walking around and nobody seems to notice them but the little girl. There's a scene where she's being really distracting during an important dinner and you can see that's something is messing with her under the dinner table, yet not a single person, out of like 20, takes any notice of this or attempts to look under the table. This just didn't seem real to me. If I saw a kid apparently playing tug of war with something under the table, I'd check at some point to see what it was.
I really had an issue with the end. There's a part where Katie Holmes gets her leg broken and it's one of those 'oh shit' moments, but then when I watched the scene again, I realized that it couldn't have happened if you know anything about how rope works. Then, she gets sucked down into a pit under the house and nobody goes and looks for her? You know where the cave with all the fairies is? Why not level the house get a backhoe and dig out the cave. Do it during the day, so that the fairies can't do shit.
To make matter worse, nobody seems to care that Katie Holmes is gone at the end of the movie or have any kind of emotion about it. What do they tell her family or the authorities?
Police: So you're filing a missing person's report. Can you tell us what happened to her?
Guy Pearce: Oh, she fell into a pit.
Police: Where? We should go get her now!
Pearce: The pit is under my house...
Police: What? Did you go after her?
Pearce: No...
Police: Did you hire someone to dig up the pit to get to her?
Pearce: No, I didn't see any point.
Police: So, what did you do then?
Pearce: We boarded up the house and condemned it.
Police: What!? We're sending a car to come pick you up now. Stay where you are.
2.5 Death Stars. I only give it 2.5 of cause it was kind of creepy and had some good moments, but there were too many things about it I didn't like to give it a higher rating.
Catch .44
I thought this was a mess of a film that tried to be smarter than it actually was. If you want to see Forest Whitaker make an ass of himself doing a bad Cuban accent, then this is your movie. And what's with Bruce Willis doing small roles in shitty direct to video films lately? Does he owe the IRS money? Is he being blackmailed or owe someone a favor? The cast of this movie is actually why I bothered even watching it, but the story is awful.
It's one of those movies that starts basically from the end, and then goes back and shows you all the stuff that lead up to that event, except just not done very well. It's a waste of a good cast.
You could call this movie "Everyone Gets Shot" and that would be a better title. Plus, they used bad CG blood, which I can't stand and I refuse to believe that CG blood is cheaper or more effective than just using squibs and fake blood.
1 Death Star. Don't bother with this one. It's not worth it.
Higher Ground
The directorial debut of Vera Farmiga, who also starred. I got a really weird vibe from this movie at the beginning. I think because they decided to age Farmiga's character like 20 years in about 20 minutes, without giving you any idea that's what was going on.
It did kind of grow on me as the movie went on, but ultimately, I have a hard time recommending it to people. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned this before, but I'm not a religious guy, so religion based movies don't always interest me if they don't grab me from the beginning.
It's basically about Farmiga's character growing from a child to marrying her high school sweetheart, to growing apart from him and finally starting to question her religion and marriage. It's well acted, but it's one of those movies that I'll forget that I've seen a week from now.
2.5 Death Stars. Again, it's well acted film, so it's not that it's not worth watching, it's just that the subject matter isn't for everyone.
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