Movies I have seen recently

This should come as no great surpriseÑ  one reason I like making movies-videos is because I like GOING to the movies.  Yes, I like going out of my house, walking or driving to a theater that shows movies, purchasing a ticket (although I do wish they weren´t so expensive in the U.S.), sitting down in the theater and watching a movie.

So in the six weeks that I´ve been in California, I´ve been to the movies five times, seeing a total of four different movies.  (I went to one of them twice.)  These four were J. Edgar, The Descendants, Hugo and Melancholia.  Of the four, the one I liked least was Melancholia.  I didn´t mind the fact that it was obviously scientifically questionable, but I DID find its constant attempts at Deep Meaning to be pretty tiresome.  I also didn't much like our heroine.  I didn't DISLIKE her, but, well, I guess you'd say she left me kind of cold.

But she WAS very pretty, and I notice that Lars von Trier was able to get in a good, solid nude scene as well as just a touch of sex--both always good selling points with the general public.  Didn´t have much to do with the plot, but oh, well.

The one I liked best was J. Edgar, although I wish Clint Eastwood had given us at bit more sense of the harm that Hoover did.  He certainly mentioned it but didn't make it as vivid as he could, and perhaps, should have.  What I really enjoyed about this movie was the character study, and his handling of the material (including his handling of time) I thought were well done and we ended up with a sense of a complex person, which indeed J. Edgar Hoover was.

My second to favorite was/is Hugo.  Very nice acting on the part of the young hero, fun and interesting things about the early filmmaker (sorry, I've forgotten his name!), beautiful sets and locations, and I liked all the characters (including the portly gentleman who thought to purchase a companion dog for the menacing pooch of the lady he wanted to romance).  It didn't have the weight of J. Edgar, however, and I found myself wondering why Martin Scorsese put in that undercurrent of menace.  We've all heard of gratuitous violence, but I found this to have gratuitous menace.

And then, there was the Descendents.  Again, I liked it.  I liked most of the characters, and the fact that it was made clear that all of them were flawed.  I liked the fact that the central character does the right thing for the wrong reasons.  It wasn´t a weighty movie, but a nice one with a nice message.  Perhaps we spent a little too much time watching people become emotional in front of the comatose wife, but I can forgive that.

Now, for my NEXT movie, I´m planning to go see A Dangerous Method, and after that, The Artist.  Want to join me?

OUR NEXT BLOG will be about our upcoming Release Party and our Screening, both in the San Francisco Bay Area.