More Movies
We’re still on the Soderbergh kick after reading that article on his films in Slate.
The Good German (2009) I fell asleep by the end, and didn’t care that I missed it. My husband filled me in so I didn’t have to go back to watch it. It’s a gorgeous-looking black-and-white homage to post WWII movies, with Clooney as an army reporter visiting Berlin, Blanchett as a femme fatale, and Tobey Maguire as a smarmy kid. Clooney and Maguire’s performances felt unnatural, and the complications of the plot made me tired, not interested. I love The Third Man and Casablanca and many of Soderbergh’s films, but I didn’t even much like this. Uneven and disappointing.
The Informant! (2010) Matt Damon is an agribusiness executive in the 90’s who volunteers to inform on his company for price fixing. It’s clear from the beginning that things aren’t quite right, but the gradual reveals, the cheery music, and comedians playing straight men (Joel McHale, Patton Oswalt, Buster from Arrested Development) all contribute to an entertaining film and character study.
Thor (2011) Our DVR received finally crashed. If we got a new one, it would be HD, so it didn’t make sense to have an old TV, so we got a new HD one, and it didn’t make sense to have HD tv but not Bluray (you’re all following this rationalization, right?) so we got a Bluray player, and had to get a movie on Bluray to test it out, and I picked Thor, because I was interested to see if I found Chris Hemsworth as hot in HD as I did in the theater. Yep. But I’m finding the whole Bluray/HD thing disconcerting, and not sure if I’m ready for this, but ready or not, here it is. Thor is a good B movie, capably directed by Kenneth Branagh, who draws heavily on the themes of his Henry V. Kat Dennings steals all her scenes, Natalie Portman is fine, Loki is a tremendous villain, but Thor’s Valhalla crew are dead weight.
October 3rd, 2011 at 3:20 pm
I have to admit I’m kind of tired of George Clooney.
October 4th, 2011 at 7:34 am
Amy, I think it depends on the movie. I enjoyed re-watching Out of Sight. But didn’t like him in Good German, and turned down my husband’s suggestion to re-watch Up in the Air. It’ll be interesting to see how his next movies do.
October 4th, 2011 at 10:19 am
Ha! I think we did something similar when we got our fancy flat screen TV and PS3 (which is a bluray player). Having one without the other just didn’t make sense (though at this point, it’s a bit chicken & the egg regarding which one we got first).
Thor is one of those movies I would happily watch again, though I was hoping Netflix would have it on streaming (it seemed appropriate since they did stream Prince of Persia for a while)… I’m not sure I’d buy it because I don’t actually know how many times I’d watch it.
October 4th, 2011 at 8:14 pm
Steph, I’m married to a geek who’s happy to watch all the little teaser bits for the upcoming Avengers, plus I’m happy to listen to Kenneth Branagh on the extras.