Only because I flew. (There's a fifth movie too - The Warlords - but it ain't within those crucial 48 hours...)
United business and United first were good experiences. Shouldn't they be great though?
Anyway, I saw three movies on the flight: Superbad, Resurrecting the Champ, and Stardust. The first day in New York, I saw I am Legend with PNGF.
Superbad - things I learn from the inflight entertainment magazine - Seth Rogen started writing the script when he was 13. THIRTEEN! The man is a genius. Wondering who he is? He's the fat guy from 40 year old virgin... or the guy from Knocked Up. The great thing about him is that he doesn't even have to try to be funny. Nothing like Jim Carrey. Rogen is just his usual self and the script (written by him) does everything funny. Superbad is a hilarious movie and I'm glad they didn't make any cuts for the airline version. At least given what I saw I don't think there were any cuts. I was actually wondering if any kids were watching. Thankfully not. I can't explain how funny the movie was... it's just very juvenile and very funny. Highly recommended.
Resurrecting the Champ - Josh Hartnett and Samuel Jackson give adequate performances in this movie about a falling sports reporter finding light and then finding out life. The usual Hollywood shit, really. I'll point to one part of the movie when the reporter told his son that he is good friends with John Elway and he son was so proud of daddy. This was, of course, a lie and that daddy said it only to make his son happy. The movie tried to make a neutral judgment on such lies. Why bother? All of us lie a little bit, mixing in some truth (he did meet Elway before) and folklore to please our friends and family. I don't think one needs to justify it. Recommended if you have time, and especially if you are a fan of Samuel Jackson. By the way, the female lead was the girl from Cold Case, though I never really placed her...
Stardust - A Claire Danes sighting! Not quite recommended. Ops, I leaped into consultant mode with Answer First. This was okay. Robert De Niro had a short cameo - as usual, he gives a half ass job for roles he don't really care about. Oh, and a Michelle Pfeiffer sighting! Interesting to see how aging actresses play an ugly woman role. Did I say not quite recommended?
I am Legend - This Will Smith special reminds me of Mission Impossible 2.0 and 3.0 - all movies that just show off the lead actor but offer nothing more. Will Smith gives a great performance as the sole survivor in New York City. Even though the movie sucked, he does portray the loneliness very well. However, that's about it. It's kind of eerie to see a deserted NYC while in NYC. The movie was basically Dawn of the Dead... zombies running amok in the city. Nothing special really; not recommended.
The Warlords - (Why isn't there a Chinese IMDB!?) A very grim movie by a grim director. Peter Chan Ho San has made a career out of small budget movies that touch on basic human love and some tear jerking. He doesn't disappoint even this was a depressing war movie. The depiction of realities of war was similar to that in Cold Mountain - very bloody, very real, very depressing. With all the turmoil around the globe, it makes one think of how small one person really is despite their own imaginations that they are greater than everybody else combined (Thank you, Bush). We all are subjects of reality. Reality, unfortunately, is not a subject for us.
2 comments:
I am Legend is actually a pretty classic horror novel that has actually been filmed twice before this (though this is the first time the film used the original title), and it was a pretty big influence on George Romero's zombie films, including Dawn of the Dead (though I expect you were referring to the remake). I had no interest in seeing a Will Smith version, but from what I understand from you and others who have seen it, it was quite changed. In the book, there are two types of infected people, the shambling vampire/zombie types, and a more intelligent type who are creating a new society. But at first he doesn't know about the latter. The reason he is legend is because he's basically the boogie-man to them, he comes while they're sleeping and kills them. Turns out, when there's a worldwide disaster and there's a new society, the one guy from the old world is the monster.
I enjoyed Stardust (another film based on something I read years ago). After all these recent movies parodying fairy tales, it's nice to have an actual fairy tale.
I did 6 movies in 48 hrs :) :
Once, The Man from Earth, Tao of Steve, Superbad, Sideway, Juno
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