After last weekends dismal movie showing I lined up what I thought would be three great shows.
Lions For LambsI started off with Lions for Lambs, and I have to admit I am a Tom Cruise fan. Every movie he is in I get excited about. Valkerye is slated for a 2008 release and I am really looking forward to that, but in the meantime I have Cruise in a political story.
The movie also stars Meryl Streep and Robert Redford doing acting and directing roles. The story revolved around Washington’s disillusioned understanding of the war in Afghanistan and what they think is the right solution on the other side of the world. This was a formula for a great movie, but it failed to impress me.
I am not sure what was wrong, perhaps the movie was too short. It was ninety minutes and could have easily been over two hours to flesh out the separate stories. Perhaps then I would have been more invested in the Afghanistan story. Instead of being amazing it was simply lackluster.
I am not sure what else I could say, it wasn’t a terrible movie it just missed the mark on several areas.
Eastern PromisesNext on my list was Eastern Promises. I knew little about this movie except Viggo Mortensen was great and that the director was receiving accolades for it. Every review I had heard was spot on about this movie.
I watched the movie with sub-titles on and it helped when Russian was being spoken, but it would not be detrimental to not have them available. The movie had a great story revolving around a diary found on a girl who died during birth and what a family will do to keep the secrets safe.
Everything about the movie was great. Mortensen played such a violent and cold character but his actions revealed a hidden agenda and even if he cut off someone’s fingers the night before he could still be compassionate the next day.
I thought Mortensen would have a difficult time shedding the Aragon character from the Lord of the Rings trilogy but this proves he can play something other than fantasy.
Fun fact: Eastern Promises featured the most intense naked fight scene since Borat. Instead of fighting Azamat Mortensen’s character was taking battling two Checchan’s in an epic knife battle.
I?m Not ThereI’m Not There wrapped up my movie session and it was more than I expected it to be.
I am a fan of Dylan’s work but I am also very naive to his history. I’m Not There is a movie inspired by Dylan’s music and stories of his various lives and it was brilliant.
I thought having different actors play the same person would be awkward, but if I were to have a movie written about me I would be honored to have six actors play various parts of my life.
Obviously the soundtrack was excellent with well placed Dylan songs. The movie was artistic with stunning visuals and beautifully set up shots. The actors cast into the six stories were really impressive. Marcus Carl Franklin did a fantastic job considering he was in a movie with actors like Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere and Christian Bale.
White Stripes: July 25, 2007 PosterCate Blanchett’s depiction of Dylan’s performance with electric guitars being equal to opening fire on the audience was genius. The electric performance reminded me of a poster Rob Jones created. The White Stripes recently performed the same day Dylan went electric and Jones homage to that in the concert poster.
All in all I feel it was a good weekend for movies. With Oscar season around the corner there will be a few more to watch but I feel there will be some nominations for a few of the movies I saw this weekend.
