Recently in Film Category

Went yesterday afternoon with friends to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the Savoy 16. (This required finding a sitter willing to wrangle four kids at once: Jake, Sam and the friends' kids.)

It was a pleasant confection, fun to watch but not rewarding of too close an examination. A bit of overlap near the end with the X-Files movie of some years ago, which made me cackle a bit.

I'm sure there will be another Indiana Jones film starring Harrison Ford and Karen Allen, possibly two; and then they'll restart the franchise with Shia LaBoeuf and crank out another three or four - the last of which will be so bad they won't be able to get funding for any more.

Jennifer & I went to see The Bucket List this afternoon.

For some reason, the voiceovers bothered me. And seeing Morgan Freeman in a bubble bath wasn't on my bucket list....

Jennifer & I went to see Walk Hard this evening, at the Savoy 16.

A truly demented film. It made me think of the Seinfeld episode: "There's good naked, and there's bad naked...."

Jennifer & I took the kids to see Bee Movie at the Savoy 16 this afternoon. It didn't go well.

Sam lost interest in the movie fairly quickly, then got mad when we wouldn't let him run loose in the theater: so I took him out in the lobby and did my best to keep him entertained.

The theater doors fascinated him, and he tugged on each & every one, trying to get in. (Fortunately, he's not strong enough yet to open any of them.) He was particularly interested in the doors leading to American Gangster, and went back to them again and again.

I told him that's not a movie for two-year-olds, but that didn't stop the remarkably single-minded Mr. Sam.

Bee Movie wasn't Sam's first time at the movie theater. We've also taken him to:

• Shrek the Third (May 28): watched the whole thing, didn't squirm or complain very much.
• Barnyard (April 8): watched for half an hour, got bored, went with Papa out to the lobby.
• Charlotte's Web (December 31, 2007): watched half the movie, got bored, went with Papa out to the lobby.

...so I'd say he's one-for-four. That's pretty good, if you're a baseball player....

IMDB says there's a movie version in the works of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged, due for release in 2008.

Supposedly Angelina Jolie is  to star as Dagny Taggart, which makes me rather glad IMDB also says the project is 'indefinitely delayed'.

(Way back in 1980 or so, there was talk of a television miniseries based on Atlas Shrugged, with screenplay by Rand herself. That never happened, either.)

Met some friends at the Savoy 16 this morning, for the 11:25am showing of Shrek the Third.

Unlike previous attempts (e.g., Barnyard and Charlotte's Web), Sam actually watched some of the movie this time. Not all of it; I spent the last third trying to keep him entertained and/or distracted. But at least he was willing to stay in the theater.

Interesting movie. Better than Shrek 2, but that's not saying much.

Shrek has settled in for a long & lucrative franchise, which means that plot and character development aren't very important any more: instead, we get ninety minutes of familiar characters working through familiar gags, with a new episode cranked out every three years in time for the summer movie season.

There will surely be a Shrek 4. Look for it in May, 2010.

Jennifer & I took Jake and Sam to the 11:00am showing of Barnyard at the Savoy 16.

Alas, Sam's attention span isn't quite as long as the average animated feature, so he and I spent the last hour out in the lobby. (Rather like Charlotte's Web on New Year's Eve.)

Mr. Sam is a creature of habit: he wants his lunch at noon, and doesn't much care where he is at the time. Fortunately, we always have a portable and long-shelf-life Sam meal in his backpack. (No milk, though. He didn't seem to mind.)

Jennifer & I went to see Premonition yesterday.

It's a curious film: a woman (nicely played by Sandra Bullock) comes unstuck in time, and starts alternating between the days just before and just after her husband's (rather messy & violent) demise. Along the way, various icky things happen to various characters, various alarming secrets are revealed, and just about everybody finds some reason to be miserable.

There seems to be a fairly big hole in the plot, involving - of all things - stickers on a window. (Discussion of which is in the first comment, so as not to spoil the film for anyone who's planning to see it.)

I get the feeling that if we rented the DVD (when it's available) and watched Premonition more carefully - maybe taking notes - I'd understand the plot better. But I suspect I'd also find even more holes in it.

Perhaps one viewing is enough.

For some reason, we've been watching old movies lately.

A week or two ago, we watched Raiders of the Lost Ark (since Santa brought Jennifer a nice boxed set of all three). I've seen this movie uncounted times in the last twenty-six years, but there are two things I learned about it this time:

• Alfred Molina has a bit part ('Satipo'). I knew him from more recent movies (The Da Vinci Code, Spider-Man 2 and Chocolat, to name a few), but never recognized him in Raiders of the Lost Ark until Jennifer pointed him out.
• In the big scene at the end, the fella in the robes & hat who presides over the ark-opening ceremony (and comes to a bad end - a messy bad end), that was Belloq. I'd been wondering for a long time why the Nazis just happened to have a priest in their secret submarine pen on a tiny Greek island; it makes a bit more sense now.

And tonight we finished watching E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (I suppose Spielberg wanted to use the short title, but figured nobody would know what the movie was about). The observant Jennifer again pointed out something I had failed to notice on my own: one of Elliott's friends was played by a very young C. Thomas Howell (who later starred in The Hitcher and Soul Man, two movies I saw way back in the eighties).

Ah, nostalgia.

(Also appearing in E.T.: a thirteen-year-old Erika Eleniak, later known as Playmate of the Month, June 1989. Or so the IMDB web site says; I don't recall seeing her in the movie, nor her name in the credits.)

We went to the 12:20 showing of Charlotte's Web this afternoon, at the Savoy 16.

Sam got a little squirmy & bored halfway through, so he and I went out into the lobby until the movie was over. I guess we'll have to rent the DVD when it's released.

(I checked my watch: the 12:20 show actually started at 12:38. Yes, they ran eighteen minutes of commercials and previews before getting around to the movie.)