November Media Consumption: Movies

Lots of movies and lots of TV and not so much reading in November. The holidays do that to me.

Inside Man (2006) - I'm sure the unedited version of this movie is repulsive, but it was pretty cool without all the f-bombs. Clive Owen leads a team of normal-looking men and women in a bank robbery. Denzel Washington plays the colonel from Kentucky Fried Chicken (wait, that may have just been his costume). Jodi Foster is some kind of professional blackmailer and the dad from The Sound of Music, in an ironic twist, took advantage of Jews during the holocaust. The bank robbers have jumpsuits and masks for everyone (including themselves) who is in the bank at the time of the robbery. They spend an entire day drilling a hole in the floor, keeping all the employees and customers of the bank hostage, and they only take the contents of one safe deposit box. Captain Von Trapp's safe deposit box. The robbers send out one or two hostages at a time and Colonel Washington interrogates them. Soon everyone is out, including all the robbers except Clive Owen. But they can't tell which ones are robbers because everyone is dressed the same. Get it? "Inside Man"! Clever ending, but I won't give that away. So, unless you have a strange aversion to Denzel Washington (like Brian's weird friend, Mike), I'd recommend it.

Oceans 13 (2007) - I will watch anything with Matt Damon in it. Twice. Lots of holes in this one, but the fun stuff makes up for it. Brad Pitt dressed like a hippie and saying, "I don't gamble, sir, and neither should you." The Mormon twins going to Mexico and starting a revolution. How can I like Casey Affleck so much and dislike Ben Affleck? And yet I do. I love the scene where that little guy explains to Damon, Clooney, and Pitt how to play Blackjack. Tee he he. And good riddance to that Julia Roberts.

A Lot Like Love (2005) - Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet (meh - to both of them, really) play a couple who cross paths several times over the course of six years before they figure out they are in love with each other. It's a sweet idea, except for the sleeping together every time they do cross paths (ick). Sometimes she's just ended a relationship, sometimes he has. He inadvertantly inspires her career path (photography). They make each other laugh. He helps her get back at her ex-boyfriend by taking her to a New Year's Eve party. I think that was my favorite scene. They couldn't find each other at midnight and he runs through the crowd and catches her just in time to have a New Year's Eve kiss. Can you tell I watched this while Brian was out-of-town? Anyway, watch it when your husband isn't home to make fun of you.

Akeelah and the Bee (2006) - A cute little girl in a dump of a public school in Los Angeles is wicked good at spelling. Her principal, Charles Demarr ("I've been at this high school for six years. I'm no dummy.") gets Laurence Fishburne to coach her and take her to the top of the spelling world. Angela Bassett plays a lawyer or a doctor or a cougar. No, she plays Akeelah's stressed out single mother who likes to smoke and be rude. Akeelah finds herself fitting in with the smart kids from the spelling bees and connecting with her dead father as she trains for the big bee. Laurence Fishburne gives her a few boxes of flash cards and tells her goodbye and good luck a few weeks before the national spelling bee. Jerk. Akeelah enlists the help of all the people in town to help her get ready. I won't tell you how it ends, but I hope you can guess. (H-a-p-p-y and no I won't use it in a sentence.)

The Usual Suspects (1995) -
One of my all-time favorite movies. Five career criminals are sent in for a line up on a crime none of them has committed. But now that they're in the room, they decide to "pull a job" together. Kevin Spacey's character, Verbal Kent, is crippled. He wants to do the job with the other three, but they'll only let him come if he can get Keaton (Gabriel Byrne) to join them. The first job is hugely successful, so of course they have to do another one. The second one goes badly and they end up wanting to find out who set the job up and kill the guy. That's when they discover they were all put together on purpose by a guy named Kaiser Sose. We get this story from Verbal, who is the only one to survive the third job they do for Sose, and who is telling the story to Agent Cullion at the police station. Great ending. Maybe the best ending. I had to introduce this movie to my little brother, Aaron, while he was staying at my house. Any excuse to watch it again. (P.S. I've never seen the unedited version, but from my limited ability at reading lips I think it's probably pretty bad.)

Quantum of Solace (2008) - If you are a die hard James Bond fanatic and you think Daniel Craig is the worst Bond of all time, stop reading now. I really liked Casino Royale and mostly because of Craig. Quantum of Solace was fine - the violence got to me this time. I'm so used to seeing movies on my tiny TV that seeing all that punching and shooting up close and in surround sound made me a little queasy. I like that Craig's Bond doesn't do things smoothly and doesn't seem to have an exit strategy ever. He'll just jump from anywhere and crash into anything chasing after a guy. We watched about an hour of Die Another Day on the same day we saw Quantum of Solace. I love Remington Steele, but he was ridiculous. He runs like a cartoon. Die Another Day is dumb. Halle Berry is dumb in it. They actually had a villain with a giant laser. Yeah, I'll take Daniel Craig any day over that nonsense.