Movies
I feel like I’ve been watching a lot of movies lately. It seems like I go through phases watching a lot of movies at times and other times watching very few movies at all.
Last week for dinner and a movie night we watched an Italian movie called Malèna. I picked it out without knowing much about it. I was looking at the Italian section at Citizen Video, because I was going to get Bicycle Thief, but it looked a little too sad. Malèna turned out to be a bit of a downer in some ways, but really funny at other times. The father in the movie is hilarious (in a very stereotypical Italian way). We all laughed nearly the entire time.
I also saw Wall·E last week. I was pretty unimpressed. I think I had too high of expectations. Come on, I mean, a romantic comedy about robots? How could that be anything but amazing. I think it was thoughts like that, glowing reviews and recommendations, and not being able to find anyone to say anything bad about the movie, that built up my hopes and expectations just a bit too much, so the movie could never possibly live up to what I dreamed it would be. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Jeff Garlin as one of the voice actors though.
I watched Gonzo over the weekend and loved it. Both the story and the way it was made we great. I liked how much time it devoted to his early life, and his late life, but it didn’t dwell too much on the years between.
Last night I got to dinner and a movie late, I missed dinner and the start of the movie due to some prior commitments. There were about three times as many people there as usual (which was super cool!) and a totally crazy random movie. We watched Zardoz. I had some trouble following it at times, maybe because I missed the beginning, or maybe just because it was so crazy. It sort of came together in the end (sort of) — according to Paul, it was the movie John Boorman always wanted to make but couldn’t, until he made Deliverence and it was a hit so the studio let him do whatever he wanted. Sean Connery was in it, in a totally crazy role. It had some amazingly quotable lines and great costumes.
After the movie finished we watched the 10 minute versions (because really, that’s all you need) of Vertical Limit, The Core and Snakes on a Train (thanks to Tansco). I had never seen any of those in their entirety, and still feel like I don’t need to see a minute more of any of them.
