Movie review

For the first time in a long time, I had seen 4 of the 5 films nominated for Best Picture, thanks mainly to the fact that our group of friends goes to the movies pretty much every Sunday night. Last night we saw Vantage Point. It was mildly entertaining, but I could have happily saved the $12 and watched it on a future long haul flight. The movie was an action-comedy for Sarah, who was sitting next to me and, therefore, had to deal with me jumping every time someone was shot and/or something exploded. I don't think it's a plot spoiler to note that the movie replays the same sequence of events from different perspectives, hence the title, so by the 3rd or 4th time through you would have thought I'd have prepared myself for the impending <boom>, but apparently not. My favorite part of the film was during the final run through (where you finally get to see all the pieces put together, just in case you hadn't figured it out) when the people behind us sighed, "oh jesus christ." That about summed it up. It was kind of like Groundhog Day without the charm of Bill Murray.

Saturday night we watched Eastern Promises. [Side note: our Netflix queue has been slightly depressing lately - Volver, Hotel Rwanda, Happiness - thank god we finally got rid of the Last King of Scotland (amazing movie, absolutely worth seeing, but not what you'd call "uplifting").] So good, a must see I'd say, but it also contained one of the most graphic fight scenes I can ever remember. Viggo Mortensen's stark nudity is sullied by a gruesome brawl in a Russian bath house. I'm glad I didn't see this one on the big screen, it was bad enough in my living room.

I'm glad Viggo got the Oscar nod; I haven't seen There Will Be Blood yet, but I'm sure Daniel Day-Lewis is amazing, as always. Javier Bardem was one creepy ass bad guy, and I'm glad he cleans up well because I couldn't handle seeing him in character again. I'm also happy that Tilda Swinton won for her role in Michael Clayton because she was the best part of that movie, but she looked like an anemic Corpse Bride last night. Paul said, "She's a real actress, not a movie star," but so is Helen Mirren and she always looks amazing. I know Tilda is a bit lanky and androgenous, but she didn't help herself by putting on a velour trash bag. Ah, awards season - between that and American Idol 3 nights I week I should have plenty of material for some time.