In Honey's continuing effort to keep me from becoming one with the cocoon , we have seen a bunch of movies in an actual theater over the last month and a half.  I'm not including movies we rented from Netflix because those can be enjoyed from the comfort of the cocoon and the whole point of this post besides the movies themselves is my feeble attempt at movement which is also known in my small world as exercise.  So on to different muscles groups besides eyelids for blinking, jaw for chewing, fingers for page turning, right arm for fork lifts.  There was real leg muscle exercise going on while walking to the car, then into the theater, then to my seat and back home again.  How I managed to stay awake through a movie with that sort of intense workout is mind boggling, but I somehow managed.

Our first foray to the theater was for a post Christmas viewing of Valkyrie .  I don't know why this movie got such luke warm reviews.  Even though you know how this ultimately ends it was exciting to see how the attempt was planned and executed.  At any point in the planning they could have been caught.   There were many people involved and the technology at the time was unreliable.  Just the fact that there were so many attempts made on Hitlers life shows that many were willing to overcome their fears to right a terrible wrong.  Normally, I'm not a vengeful person who would wish harm on others but at the point where Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (Tom Cruise) plants the bomb, my mind was hoping against historical fact that this time it would actually work and eradicate Hitler.  

The second movie we went to see was Gran Torino .  Is it me or has Clint Eastwood perfected the crusty politically incorrect old white guy?  He's kind of a hybrid of Dirty Harry and Archie Bunker (a Korean war veteran) trapped in a declining neighborhood where he begrudgingly becomes entangled with his Asian neighbors.  There is plenty of humor as Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood) and his neighbors become friends.  There are more than a few uncomfortable moments as "races" collide and violent gangs try to inject their will on the community.  There is a tragic climax as Walt tries to stop the violence from engulfing his young neighbors.  The only thing I found lacking in this movie was the sound quality and I'm sure it had everything to do with my hearing loss and Clint's low pitched grumblings.

I went to see Twilight by myself because I had read the books and Honey didn't have any interest in teen romance with Vampires.  He doesn't even believe in Vampires though he does a good Bela Lugosi impression that has me pulling the blankets tightly around my neck.  But, this is vampire fiction we are covering here and vampires are now good guys and love interests.  While the movie follows the book with a minor adjustment to the story, I would suggest reading the book first because there is more depth in the characters than a two hour movie can adequetly cover.  I also suggest a time slot other than mid week matinee where you might have other movie watchers in the theater with you.  Not that I really minded seeing a movie by myself but again I am new to the good vampire concept and sitting alone in a small darkened theater gave me visions of being bait for vampires like in the bar scene in "Dusk Till Dawn" or the club scene in "Blade".  The only thing that kept me from going into paranoid overdrive was that the theater was playing music from one of those High School Musical movies which was causing me to look over my shoulder into the projection room to make sure they hadn't imported my niece for a new round of audio torture.

Doubt was our next film.  We saw this one at the Westwood Theater and Cafe where you can do dinner and a movie in one shot for $30 and that includes drinks and popcorn.  This one was based on a Pulitzer winning play.  Meryl Streep plays the head nun/principle of a Catholic school (or whatever you call the head nun).  Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the Priest.  Tempers flare between these two when their styles and personalities clash.  Then a seeming innocent situation results in an accusation against the Priest.  Is the nun trying to get rid of the Priest because the accusations are true or because she resents the changes the Priest is imposing?  Honey and I debated this for days after the film until we caught  Phillip Seymour Hoffman in "Before the Devil Knows You're Dead" on Showtime.  In that movie he and his brother plan to rob his parents jewelry store but his mother ends up dead during the robbery.  Based on the character from this last movie, Honey is convinced Hoffman was guilty of the accusations from "Doubt."  How's that for logic?

If you aren't into deep thinking then Taken is right up your alley.  Retired spy (Liam Neeson) gets to put his skills to use when his 17 year old daughter gets abducted in Paris for use as a sex slave.  Edge of your seat excitement with car chases, light martial arts, and half a third world country of Albanian pimps with machine guns who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.  Is this what really happened to Natalie Holloway?   Between sex slave abductions, kidnapping for ransom ( "Proof of Life"), abductions for murderous fantasy ("Hostel" ) or Somalian pirates, I'm giving up foreign travel.  I know there is a big market for unemployed middle aged women, like myself, but one can never be too careful now a days.

Our latest adventure is to see the film Defiance .  The story of the Bielski brothers escape into the forest during World War II.  Over a thousand people survived for over two years in the forests hunted by Nazis, practically starving, overcoming disease and illness.  A good story of fighting back against insurmountable odds.  The only thing I found annoying was in some places they provided subtitles to understand foreign dialog and in other places they didn't, leaving many in the theater looking to their neighbor shrugging their shoulders.  Still worth all the exercise to see it.

tags: movies  defiance  taken  doubt  twilight  gran  torino  valkyrie  

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit