Sunday 17 August 2008

Weekend movies marathon

Weekends were meant to be for the movies, or in my case, catching up on my collection of DVDs. I think that my personal pirated DVD peddlar, Raja, is very, very happy with me. I spend at least RM100 to buy his DVDs every month. My choice for last weekend's movies marathon are:

Lars and the real girl
A story about Lars, an introvert guy who has a whole load of intimacy and insecurity issues that lead him to buy a sex doll for his companion. Lars named the doll 'Bianca' (who incidentally looked a lot like Angelina Jolie!) and brought "her" everywhere he goes. Because everybody in his town loved Lars, they decided to humor him in this delusion. Ryan Gosling is brilliant as the withdrawn Lars and notable supporting casts are Emily Mortimer who played the sweet and well intentioned sister in-law, Patricia Clarkson as the local doctor/shrink, Paul Schneider as Lars's brother Gus. The movie is slow at times and a bit on the dark humor side, but it showed the main character slowly and surely finds his own self. Only watch this if you are prepared to follow the story through because the ending is quite sweet.

Penelope
The overall feel and theme of this movie is a lot like 8tv's series"Pushing Daises". In Pushing Daisies, the main character have a special gift in reviving dead people and like Penelope, regards this as a curse. Penelope's curse is that she was born with ears and nose that looks like a pig! Not until she finds true love with "one of her own kind" i.e. the blue bloods. So her mother tries very hard to match make her with all the blue bloods that they could find, right until they meet with Max Campion, played by James Mc Avoy. This story is very fairytale-like. I would've like it better is James McAvoy used his scottish accent rather than using an American accent, sorta losing the romantic factor in my opinion and he was suppose to be play a blue blood. I've yet to watch him in "Wanted" (Angelina Jolie is so overrated!), but he was very intense in Hallmark's remake of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

Juno
This is a really cute movie in terms of dialogue and humor but the issues faced by the main character in the movie is heavy and real. It's about teen pregnancy and giving away the baby to a suitable adopting parents. I really love the characters dialogue especially between Juno, her dad, step mom and best friends. I doubt it in real life you can talk as cool as that. Like when Juno's dad and stepmom (played by Allison Jenney) referred to Juno as " stupid and irresponsible daughter" not in an angry tone but rather resigned. I have to say that I'm a bit dissappointed that Justin Bateman's character turned out to be an ass (spoiler alert!). I loved him in Arrested Devlopment, always trying to be the responsible and sane person in the series.
You Don't Mess with the Zohan
Either you'll love it or you hate it, that's what the reviews said. And it's not because of the Israel-Palestine factor (don't wanna dwell on that). With all the hype about this movie, I expected more from Adam Sandler's movie but I was dissappointed with Mr Sandler. For one thing, his accent in the movie is really atrocious - you can tell that the script are American words but spoken in bad middle eastern accent, nothing much on the storyline, the slapstick comedy is just stupid (banging old ladies in hair saloon!?!!) and what's with his crotch bulging out of propotions??!! Don't expect too much from this movie.
Other DVDs that I plan to watch this coming weekend: Hancock, Wanted, Sex and the City.

3 comments:

la Signora said...

On JUNO: made pregnany popular among teengirls.i read somewhere in america, a bunch of teenage girls made a pact to get pregnant in high school.nevertheless, the movie itself is cute.loved the frank-dialogue.

On YOU DON'T MESS WITH THE ZOHAN:a jew playing a jew is always interesting in my book.plus, much needed humor although i hate sandler's guts.

On LARS AND THE REAL GIRL:i wanted to download the movie the other day, after getting rave reviews about it from friends who watched it.so watch this space!

On JAMES MCAVOY:Loved him in THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, loved him in ATONEMENT, loved him in WANTED.What can I say, 'em scots rock my knickers.Trying to make husband develop a scottish accent.

Ash said...

Happy belated birthday, Kak Nuwal!! :-) May Allah bless you and your family.

Beautiful Life said...

Thanks a lot Ash!