I've learned how to laugh and I've learned how to pray
… from the Inside Out.
The last ten to fifteen years has been hard on a movie lover in America. Michael Bay became a thing. Judd Apatow became a thing. Sequelitis became an even bigger thing than it already was, and sequels, as we all know, aren’t as good as the original, which is bad when the original wasn’t very good in the first place.
So, these days, I wait for two things — Christopher Nolan and Pixar.
It’s February 2nd, Groundhog Day, the day when we have a rodent predicting our weather instead of the usual … well, fill in your own joke here. For the last 20 years, it’s also the day when we watch the movie of the same name. I’ve loved Bill Murray since his original stint on Saturday Night Live (the upgrade from Chevy Chase to Murray was like getting rid of your Kia and buying a Porsche), and Groundhog Day finds Murray at the top of his Murrayness.
What if there was no tomorrow?; there wasn’t one today!
It is a deceptive movie.
What do you do if you’re in charge of a franchise loved by tens of millions of people around the world and you’re about to bring it to the silver screen once again after a long absence?
You create a script of wooden dialog, direct actors to horrifically wooden performances, and create perhaps the most (validly) maligned CGI character in history, of course.
But let’s talk about Les Misérables, instead. (I know, two Les Mis posts in a row. As the saying goes, write what you know.)
Even people not paying attention (and that’s most of you) know I’m a Les Mis geek.
In Sandra Bullock’s new movie, The Blind Side, her character Leigh Anne Touhy has a scene where she has just fixed up the guest bedroom for Michael Oher, the 17-year old black young man her family has taken in off the street. There is just a hint of a look of self-satisfaction on her face — she’s doing a “good deed.” As Michael looks around the room, slack-jawed, he says, “I never had one before.”
“A bedroom of your own?” Leigh Anne asks, expecting a “yes,” thus confirming her good deed.
“A bed,” Michael replies, and you see in her face that Leigh Anne’s world has just been turned upside down.
My wife and I went to see Seven Pounds a couple of weeks ago. If you haven’t seen it and plan to, stop reading now and go see it. No, seriously stop reading now. You need to go into this movie blind. (Frankly, you should never watch another trailer again as long as you live if you really want to enjoy movies, but this particular movie even more so.)