Random Movie Selection

I've seen a couple of movies on television recently and decided to put a few comments out on each of them:

The Island - Michael Bay, king of the 30 second shot, strikes again with yet another movie that is high on style and low on substance. This movie puts on airs that its intellectual sci-fi about a society rebuilding itself after an apocalypse. The Island steals bits from all sorts of sci fi, but mainly pulls from Logans Run and Minority Report. Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johanssen play the suckers-I mean lead actors in a movie that doesn't call for much acting as much as running. For some bizarre reason, Ewan McGregor's mole on his forehead gets more prominent lighting than anything else in the movie. I mean, I've seen the mole in other movies of his but in Michael Bay lighting the thing takes on a life of its own. Some sci fi themes come up but are quickly dropped in favor of chase scenes and explosions. If you have a chance to see this...don't.

The Dreamers - Bernardo Bertulucci loves to make movies about people in isolated and emotionally damaged states having a lot of sex, The Dreamers is no exception. A movie about an American student in 1960's France hooking up with a twin brother and sister who play sex games and obsess on new wave cinema. The main reason I watched this was to see Eva Green, who will be the Bond girl in Casino Royale. Green gives a good performance as a sexual tease head case, I'm looking forward to seeing (probably less) of her in Casino Royale.

The Upside Of Anger - Joan Allen gives a terrific performance as a wealthy wife and mother of four daughters whose husband leaves her for the secretary. Allen delivers a full performance, bringing across a character who feels like a real person with different moods. She is unafraid to show the ugly side of her characters anger and bitterness, but doesn't overplay it to the point of caracature. Other actors and stuff happens but none of it matters, it's all Joan Allen on this one.

Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - Tim Burton gets his whimsy on in this almost pointless remake of the Gene Wilder classic. Teaming up again with a Michael Jacksonish Johnny Depp, the movie plays fairly close to the original except for the oddball style that Burton has patented. It's an OK movie, I just didn't think it beat the original.

Red Eye - At the time of its release, it seemed like the girl-in-danger-on-a-plane movie with the lesser pedigree (I think Jodie Foster's Flightplan came out around the same time). But where Flightplan took it's implausible plot seriously, Red Eye deliberately throws logic out the window. A heroic Rachel McAdams fends off the terrorist leanings of a villianous hitman played by Cillian Murphy. The first half plays out like a Lifetime movie of the week, with Murphy psychologically and physically terrorizing McAdams. But when McAdams physically fights back, the movie's kitch factor kicks into high gear. None of the actual movie makes much sense, but watching these two battle it out on a mental and physical level makes it very watchable. For a wannabe Lifetime movie without the bad courtroom ending, it's pretty good.