Recently Watched...

The other day, I was asked what movies I'd seen lately, and guess what, I drew blank. The truth is, we watch so many that they're starting to blur together. So I decided to keep track of the movies I see, write little blurbs about them, and post some of these blurbs from time to time. Below is the first installment:

Where Eagles Dare (1968)
Clint Eastwood, Richard Burton. Written by Alistair MacLean. An intricate WWII spy/adventure story. Spies, double spies, unexpected turns of events, etc. Really well written, each step is thought through in advance. Not my favorite genre, but I liked it. It kept me on my toes, and damn, Clint Eastwood used to be cute!

In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
Mystery/fantasy/horror, felt a little like a Steven King knock off. Light and cheesy. But since it’s a John Carpenter’s movie, it had a nice look to it and was fun to watch.

Monster (2003)
Sad, sad, sad. They really made me sympathize with the heroine. And her little shit of a girlfriend was just that, a little shit. (Of course, I might feel differently once we watch the documentary about Aileen Wuornos, who inspired the movie.) I was blown away by Charlize Theron, whom I previously only seen in dainty light-weight roles. And it’s not just her look that are different here, it’s everything – the way she moves, her speech, her posture, her mannerisms. (That Oscar was well deserved!) Here’s a little trivia for you: she is from South Africa, her first language is Afrikaans, and yet, no trace of an accent (or as Movie Dictator points out: no flattened vowels).

In Debt We Trust
A documentary about America and credit card debt. Nothing I didn’t know already, but I liked the interviews with the “typical American folk” about their ways of dealing with money, e.g., a young woman explaining how she’s working on eliminating her debt by carefully managing a bunch of 0% credit cards, or a married wife/mother who tells us she’s from a well-off middle-class family and is used to certain standards – translation: feels entitled to spend above her means, even though she’s got two kids and her husband is the only one with a job. This could’ve been a good/basic film about debt, but its makers went overboard with “cute”/annoying songs and visual jokes. I think they were trying to make the whole thing light and funny.

First Snow
A tightly-wound little film with Guy Pearce playing a slick cock-sure salesman who has a strange encounter with a fortune teller. A simple but intense (and in the end rewarding) movie about fate.

S-Diaries
A Korean chick-flick/slapstick comedy. Odd. One of those movies that switch direction half-way through. In part one, a young woman breaks up with her boyfriend and, prompted by the breakup, reflects back on her previous relationships. In part two, she decides to take revenge on each of her old boyfriends (except for the last one): she calculates how much money she spent on each and starts sending them bills and generally harassing them. In the end, we’re told it was all about her trying to find herself. It’s all well and good, but lady, whenever you decide to spend money on someone, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it to feel loving, or virtuous, or long-suffering. You’re doing it out of altruism. Which is to say, don’t ask for refunds in the future. (I know, I know, it’s just a movie.)