watch 50 movies in 2008

43 bolt
was a pretty good disney animated movie, almost as good as a pixar

44 juno
very interesting quirky relationship

45 treasure of sierra madre
watched on netflix instant mode, and it was good, but lost most of the glorious John Huston black and white landscape. Fascinating story of how greed works.

46 maxed out
watched also on netflix instant, also story of how greed works, but in a different, credit card company way

47 charlie barnett
high school fish out of water story, but still pretty good

48 central station
interesting childless woman and lost boy movie in Brazil, that doesn’t follow Hollywood formulas

49 penelope
tried to make christina ricci not cute, but didn’t really work.

can’t count sex & the city movie, fell asleep after the part where they were more interested in dresses and shoes than anything else.

40 once – watched in Chicago from laptop, and it was nice, but moved very slowly. irish music story that almost had love in it.

41 cry baby – johnathan waters beginning to get ready for hairspray, but not quite there yet. Rikki Lake is there already.

42 edward scissorhands – much more intense for the kids than I remembered. Most of the story is nice, but the climax was traumatic.

Over the summer sometime, watched Fly Away Home about the girl who leads the geese in the ultralight. Very nice feel-good movie. Jeff Daniels is nice as the dad.

Very much liked the “turn the noir genre on its head” film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – don’t remember hearing much of anything about this Robert Downey Jr. movie when it came out. Val Kilmer was great as “Gay Perry”.

JA double-feature weekend.

Watched Emma (Gynneth Paltrow) on Sat with wife & 9yo daughter. Watched Becoming Jane Austen on Sun.

Liked Emma more than I remembered. Becoming dragged in comparison, but does make me want to find out more about how Jane Austen’s life really went.

Saw some more movies in the theater.

Wall-E had a disturbing vision of the future (because it is so like the present)

Kit Kitteridge tried to put a happy face on the Depression, and mostly succeed, but it was a little close to modern day to see all the “foreclosed” signs in the movie. Especially since we seem to be above selling eggs.

Enjoyed this musical. Didn’t realize it had “no business like show business” and “got the sun in the morning and the moon at night” as well as “anything you can do, I can do better

The kids watched Muppets from Space, and I saw parts, but not all.

Hadn’t seen Batman Begins before, and was glad I saw it before Dark Knight (even though you didn’t need to).

Both movies were much more ambiguous and brooding than the old-style 70s DC comics which were truth vs evil. This is more conflicted versus amoral.

Catching up/re-watching some oldies with the kids.

Watched all of Field of Dreams and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Watched bits of Oklahoma!, Hello, Dolly! and Muppets from Space! (since these movies must all have exclamations) but I’m not counting half-watched films.

Looking back at the queue, also watched Borat & Enchanted since last update. Liked Enchanted much more than Borat. Even had a friend (thanks, Tiana) send me the release for Borat to see how he could have gotten away with all that.

I liked it – type A NYC chef suddenly becomes responsible for her neice. But, I didn’t love it, the events happened but didn’t really flow. Couldn’t believe that everything fell into place so neatly.

Looking ahead –
Enchanted – Oklahoma – Borat – Cold Comfort Farm
possibly Wall E

I remember loving Zero Mostel in this 60s musical. Watching it again, it was funny, but it didn’t have me rolling on the floor laughing like I think it did many years ago.

Buster Keaton as the confused old running man is great casting.