A Good Year

Russell Crowe has been in a ton of great movies but for some reason I hate him as an actor. I can recognize his talent and I know he spends a great deal of time picking a movie script and making the best film he could possibly make but for some reason I just can’t stand him.

This has nothing to do with the fact that he is reportedly a huge asshole outside of the movie business. I could not care less if he throws his cell phone at people in hotels or if he makes fun of his co-stars. I am just not interested in his personal life. HOWEVER when ever I see his face up on screen I have to either turn off the TV. or change the change the channel.

Anyways back to A Good Year.

The story sounds interesting, rich man with no social life outside of his office has an uncle who dies and leaves him everything including a vineyard where he spent most of his childhood learning about life and about love.

Actually, it doesn’t sound interesting at all.

Here’s the ending.

He chooses the girl and he keeps the vineyard. He decides that money isn’t everything and decides to revolutionize his life.

There I saved you $10.

Harsh Times

Harsh Times was written and directed by David Ayer who also wrote Training Day. I really enjoyed Training Day but at the same time thought it was a little over rated. Giving an Oscar to Denzel Washington was a little much. I had not really heard much about this movie so I decided to do a little bit of research on it. What I found is that this movie was made in 2004 and had been shelved and re cut several times.

2 years later with the success of Christian Bale and Eva Longoria, two of the films stars, they decided to release it and capitalize on their growing popularity.

Whenever I read this about movies it makes me very skeptical. This movie now has to work much harder to win me over because I am going into this movie thinking that this movie was made to be a direct to Dvd release.

I think I may enjoy it though because the action looks interesting and the premise although very similar to Training Day seems like something I could enjoy.

All in all I would say watch this movie this weekend or wait for it to come out on Dvd…

Just watch it.

The Return

All the internet movie critics are jokingly referring to this movie as The Grudge 3.

I have seen The Grudge and thought it was dog crap but mildly scary and I avoided The Grudge 2 so I would be the last person to ask about this movie.

Bottom line it is Sarah Michelle Gellar and there are dead people.

That doesn’t feel very festive.

Avoid this movie.

Stranger than Fiction

I really want to see this movie.

The idea of making a character self aware is great. This by no means is the first movie to make it’s characters aware of the fact that their every thought and movement are being written by a supreme being but I think that by adding Will Ferrell to the mix it adds something extra.

When I first saw Will Ferrell on SNL I thought the was the most annoying piece of untalented shit there ever was. After I heard he had made a couple of movies I was completely enraged that out of his cast on SNL he was going to be the breakout star.

Then I saw A Night At the Roxbury and as lame as that movie was it was funny.

In the past two years he has just been in hit after hit after hit and he has even found time to be in a couple of small independent films working out his acting muscles.

I am going to hate myself for the next sentence but I really will watch anything with Will Ferrell and according to the box office I am not the only one.

True story: The producers of Talladega Nights needed only one sentence to get that movie green light.

“It’s a movie about NASCAR staring Will Ferrell.”.

I really hope Ferrell doesn’t disappoint with this movie because Jim Carrey as talented as he is really sucks in a lot of the movies where he ignores his talents and plays a serious character.

Except for Man on the Moon.

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus

I really like Diane Arbus’ Photographs.

I had been a fan of her work for a very long time even though I had no clue who she was or what her story was.

Her pictures are sad and creepy but at the same time very heartfelt and genuine.

I am interested to see what drove her to take pictures of the unreal and socially less desirables.

Plus Nicole Kidman loves to get naked in her movies and that is always a plus with her.

Some examples of Diane Arbus' work