What Am I Watching?! Is a weekly column where I write about the various movies and television shows I’ve been watching throughout the week. Divided up into three sections, I'll be writing about what I've seen in theaters, on video, and online.
Theaters
Last week I made my What Am I Watching post MONiff-specific. Even though by the end of that festival I felt drained of my desire to sit in a theater, the feeling only lasted a few hours. Before long I sat down to watch Dreamwork’s newest animated feature, The Croods.
I thought the trailers for the movie looked absolutely terrible, but then the reviews started coming in and were fairly positive. A good friend of mine actually adored the film, and since it was playing at one of the theaters I work at (and I wouldn’t have to pay to watch it) I decided to give it a try. I have to say I was surprised at how enjoyable it was, and even though the celebrity voice casting was distracting (mostly just Nicholas Cage and Emma Stone), the film actually has an emotional center to it. I would have liked to been able to watch it in 3D, but even so the animation is fast and energetic, but also inventively silly in the way good Saturday morning cartoons like The Flintstones used to be.
I also watched The ABCs of Death, the recent horror anthology, at the other movie theater I work at. Last year I got really excited for both this and V/H/S, which I felt was fairly disappointing. While The ABCs of Death isn’t a masterpiece, it does have some very memorable segments wedged in between some decent ones and a couple terrible ones. My favorite segments included “Dogfight” (Marcel Sarmiento), “Libido” (Timo Tjahjanto), “Toilet” (Lee Hardcastle), “XXL” (Xavier Gens), and “Young Buck” (Jason Eisner). Both “Dogfight” and “Young Buck” are compact, stylish music video-type segments, “Libido” is an insane, twisted nightmare of sex and torture, “Toilet” is a great bit of claymation terror, and “XXL” is a disgusting gore-fest with something to say that doesn’t feel preachy.
I also caught Evil Dead this week. A couple of friends and I went together, two of us having seen Raimi’s original Evil Dead trilogy, one having no experience with them whatsoever. We all enjoyed the movie to a point, agreeing it was little more than an excuse for some gore and violence. I’m not sure it convinced my friend to seek out the original movies, but that’s his loss. Really this remake isn’t anything exceptional, and I found myself confused at all the uproar over how violent it is (this has earned a solid R, rating nothing more). I did really find the film’s set up intriguing: instead of heading to the woods for a weekend of sex and drugs, a group of close friends come together to help one of them quit heroin cold-turkey. It’s simple enough, but it’s a refreshingly realistic reason to get these kids together in the middle of the woods.
Lastly, I caught Jurassic Park yesterday in 3D. This must be the fourth time I’ve seen JP on the big screen, but I was still excited, particularly since I’d been hearing such good things about the 3D. Sure, the 3D is solid, but it doesn’t add much to the overall experience. The film is already a blockbuster masterpiece, added effect or not. If you’re a fan of the film, run out and catch a matinee.
Video
The first movie I watched this past week on video was the recent comedy Thin Ice, though I watched the director’s cut, titled The Convincer. I had a mild interest in this film when it was playing at the local theater last year, and then I got the Blu-ray in the mail from Swap A DVD. The disc had been sitting on my shelf for a while when I came across the Wikipedia page for the film, which directed me to this article from The Star Tribune about producer Elizabeth Redleaf. The controversy surrounding the re-editing of the film, plus the fact that Redleaf and her company have produced some pretty outstanding movies was enough to make me finally sit down and watch the movie.
Boy, what a dud. Like I said, I watched the director’s cut first, with the intention of watching the theatrical version later, but the movie is such a bore that I’m not even going to bother. Starring Greg Kinnear, Alan Arkin, and Billy Crudup, and written and directed by the Sprecher sisters (Clockwatchers, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing), the film is a comedic caper about a greedy insurance salesman caught up in a theft involving a potentially million-dollar violin. Crudup is the only real reason to watch the film, delivering an unhinged and hilarious performance. It’s too bad he’s stuck in an otherwise dull film. The last five minutes or so are enjoyable, but only because of the way Sprecher explains the entire plot, tying all the loose ends up. This isn’t the kind of film you can watch a second time and see all the twists and turns being played out right in front of you; nearly every twist here depends on you not seeing a key piece of information. Still, the final explanation contains a few winks to the tricks the characters and filmmakers have been playing. It doesn’t make up for the rest of the picture, but it’s a solid ending.
The only other movies I caught on DVD were The Matrix, which I felt held up surprisingly well, and The Exploding Girl, a solid little independent drama starring Zoe Kazan. I actually enjoyed her in last year’s Ruby Sparks and had been meaning to catch up with this since its release in 2009. The Exploding Girl is a much smaller film than Ruby Sparks, but anyone eager for more of her work after seeing that film should seek this one out.
Online
Dammit, I need to start watching some actual movies on Netflix! Other than an episode of Buffy, my account has been just sitting there, costing me money. Once school is through and I’m stuck without a job, I’m sure I’ll be making the most of all those streaming titles. Oh well.
That’s it for me, what have you been watching this past week?
