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Note: I would have linked to these movies at the Internet Movie Database, but IMDB has installed an asinine Flash ad that pops up on top of the page. You cannot escape the ad — it scrolls with you — and you have to wait until it runs its course, then click on the white area beside the Flash app. Where the hell is Jakob Neilsen when you need him? So I’m not sending you there. If you want to look up these movies at IMDB, be my guest: but you’ll have to do it the hard way, without any help from me — the IMDB doesn’t deserve my help.
We saw Juno tonight, a movie up for several Academy Awards this year — and deserving for far more nominations than it received. I have to be careful here, for this movie borders on chick-flick territory, and if I say the wrong things about it, I’ll be drummed out of the guy club for good…
I must say that it was one of the most intelligent movies I have seen in years. Ellen Page deserves Best Actress hands-down (but she won’t get it). The acting was excellent, the photography quite good, and the script was dynamite. Here’s one guideline for movie excellence: when you leave the theater and find yourself still caring about the main character, it was a good movie.
This movie is my sleeper of the year, and it’ll take far more Oscars than anyone thinks.
Also in the theaters, a flick we saw last week, was No Country For Old Men, the latest effort from the Coen brothers. This critically-acclaimed yet highly criticized movie does exactly what you expect from a Coen brothers film: it rivets you in your seat and takes you for a ride.
Now please keep in mind that I like Coen brother movies; I haven’t seen one yet that I didn’t like. This movie is excellent, gripping, and stunning. In keeping true to the Cormac McCarthy novel from whence it came, the Coens have been ripped for not providing a more “Hollywood-esque” ending for the movie. I’m not going to spoil it here, but the movie does not end as you’d expect.
And that, in my mind, is a good thing. Just go in knowing that this movie, like most of the Coen brothers’ efforts, has a little gore and a little violence, with a twisting plot and lots of the unexpected — without being predictable. The story is gripping and intense without going totally overboard out of reality or hog-wild with special effects. Tommy Lee Jones, who only gets better with age and experience, is excellent, bang-on, and absolutely perfect in his role, yet is eclipsed by Javier Bardem playing a complete psychopath.
So that leaves one more flick for me to see, and it is, unfortunately, a chick flick (from what I hear): Atonement. I have to go, sorry guys — I’m committed to it: I’ll bear with as best I can.
