Let me start by saying that Nathan didn’t need to justify painting his house as blog material, because selling the house is on his next ten week goal list. So he can write a blog about me coming over and scuffing his floors with the soles of my shoes if he wants.
I helped some friends move about three weeks ago, and they did a dinner and movie night last night in thank you. Home cooked meal and a couple of rented horror movie. My idea of a fun time for sure.
I figured I could do some quick reviews.
First of all a few weeks ago I watched “Finding Forrester” with Sean Connery. I really liked this movie. It was a “school movie” if you know what I mean by that. All about the interplay between student and the teacher that seems to have it out for student, but I think they did it well. Sean Connery plays a writer, based on JD Salinger I think, who meets and underprivileged kid who shows a high aptitude for writing. They bond, of course, and each faces personal challenges. If I have any complaint about the movie it’s that they didn’t showcase the craft of writing enough. I loved the scenes where they were discussing it on some level. One of my favourite parts was when Sean Connery sits down and just starts typing a mile a minute. He tells Jamal (played by Rob Brown) to start writing. Jamal tells him that he’s thinking. And I pulled this exact quote from IMDB.com: “No thinking – that comes later. You must write your first draft with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is… to write, not to think!”
I watched “Legends of the Fall” recently. For as much as I like Brad Pitt, I’d never managed to see this one. I’ll be honest. I’m more about his edgier roles, but this was a good movie. It hit all stops on the sprawling epic front. It’s like all of a sudden his on a ship on the ocean, and it’s like, “Really?”
A quick sub review. I saw Inglourious Basterds recently enough. I posted something up to Facebook which said, “Chris McGinty watched “Inglourious Basterds” tonight. They should have called it “World War II: The Re-imagining.” Good stuff though. I love the fact that Tarrantino never makes anything feel rushed. At all.” The reason I bring this up is because Brad Pitt is in it, and his character demands of his men that they each bring him 100 Nazi (pronounced similar to Patsy) scalps or die trying.
Back to Legends. As part of the sprawling, the three brothers go to war, and there is a scene where Brad Pitt scalps German soldiers, not Nazis, but German nonetheless. There was probably no scene that was my fave in this movie, or even scenes that vie for fave status, but it was well acted movie with a good plot.
The first movie I watched at dinner last night was “Zombieland.” I actually saw the movie in the theater when it first came out. I really enjoyed it. It’s funny. It’s got reasonably believable characters in a certainly fantasy setting. It has a lot of good action in it. Watching it a second time, a rarity for me and movies, I enjoyed it just as much. If you like “Shaun of the Dead,” you should go ahead and watch this. You’ll probably like it.
The second movie was “Paranormal Activity.” I enjoyed it. Worth a watch. I’m sure it’s not for everybody the way it was shot, but it was better than “The Blair Witch Pr…” I’ve never seen Blair Witch. Maybe Sean Connery was wrong about not thinking while you write. Anyway, I want to deal with something that warrants a “SPOLIER ALERT” warning. There are two endings to the movie, and I guess the one they used was a little more of a standard horror film ending, and it was alright; a fitting enough end really given that she thinks the ghost is angry about him using the camera and recording equipment. The other ending is kind of creepy, and from that perspective I really appreciated it. My problem is that police come into the house and she has a knife, and since she’s in shock she doesn’t drop the knife, so they shoot her. I seem to be the only one who finds this dumb. Police are trained to disarm people, aren’t they? I guess I can see an officer panicking if rushed, but she’s in shock, she’s not possessed as she was prior to their arrival. There would be no reason for her to attack or seem to attack, and so a shooting would seem unlikely. But it seems to be accepted that it would happen like that. Is this the result of watching too many movies, or do shootings actually take place of this nature? Either way, I’m glad they went with the horror standard, even if it wasn’t quite as creepy. I feel it at least made better sense.
Anyway, that’s been my movie watching for about the last month. And incidentally, dinner was great. I think she got the recipe online. If so, I’ll find out where and link it.