{"id":13022,"date":"2010-05-10T08:29:17","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T15:29:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kith.org\/journals\/jed\/2010\/05\/10\/13022.html"},"modified":"2010-05-10T08:29:17","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T15:29:17","slug":"movies-lately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/2010\/05\/10\/movies-lately\/","title":{"rendered":"Movies lately"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I've been on a sudden movie-watching spree for the past week or two, after several months of averaging about one a month.<\/p>\n

I've watched:<\/p>\n

\n
Reds<\/cite> on 25 April<\/dt>\n
See review<\/a> from two weeks ago.<\/dd>\n
How to Train Your Dragon<\/cite> on 1 May<\/dt>\n
See review<\/a> from a week ago.<\/dd>\n
No Country for Old Men<\/cite> on 2 May<\/dt>\n
Really liked Tommy Lee Jones as the sheriff, and I like that all of the main characters are smart and observant and tough, but was bewildered by the ending, even after reading a whole bunch of online commentary about it.<\/dd>\n
Donnie Darko<\/cite> (Director's Cut) on 5 May<\/dt>\n
Too weirdly slow and off-kilter and mildly surreal for my tastes, though I might've liked it a bit better if Jake Gyllenhaal hadn't spent the whole movie looking vaguely drugged. Good cast, but largely wasted; for example, I was pleased to see Mary \"Laura Roslin\" McDonnell as the mom, but she just wasn't nearly as good as in BSG<\/cite>. Drew Barrymore as the wacky English teacher was definitely my favorite character in the movie. Best line (from her, talking about Graham Greene): \"It gives me no pleasure to deny you the right to read one of the great writers of the 20th Century, but alas, I have not yet been elected queen of the universe, so I must obey the rules and so will you.\"<\/dd>\n
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory<\/cite> (2005 version) on 7 May<\/dt>\n
There was about ten minutes of charming and fun and quite funny movie in this, unfortunately mixed with a whole lot of awful. David Kelly as Grandpa Joe is thoroughly delightful; I enjoyed much of the opening (except for the Indian prince and chocolate castle business), and much of the ending, but I could've done without everything in between, and I found Depp (who I often like) really offputting.<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Dragon<\/cite> was by far the winner in this bunch.<\/p>\n

Oh, and I seem to have neglected to post about Hancock<\/cite>, which I finally saw on 28 March. I liked it quite a bit; it was charming and often funny. The previews made it look like the whole movie was one long \"drunken asshole superhero smashes stuff up\" joke, but there's a lot more to it than that. And there were a couple of surprises that I totally didn't see coming. There's a bunch that's left weirdly unexplained, but overall I'd place it among the better movies I've seen lately.<\/p>\n

The movies I now have out from Netflix, awaiting my attention, are: Blade Runner: The Final Cut<\/cite> (I bet to someone who hadn't heard of it, that would sound like a slasher movie); High Noon<\/cite>; and Big Trouble in Little China<\/cite>.<\/p>\n

Have also seen some assorted TV: the pilot of Friday Night Lights<\/cite> (which surprised me a great deal by being as interesting as everyone says); the latest episodes of Glee<\/cite> and FlashForward<\/cite>; the aforementioned Dr. Who<\/cite> episodes.<\/p>\n

I suppose all this helps explain why I haven't gotten various important to-do-list items done yet.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been on a sudden movie-watching spree for the past week or two, after several months of averaging about one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","category-television"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/jed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}