Tuesday, September 21, 2010

But I'm telling ya- I didn't get a lot of character names today. "Then Ben Affleck did this.."

After watching two movies my friend and I were at Walmart when he asked me if I knew the one that goes "Do you know how much a polar bear weighs?"

I did not know that one.

"Enough to break the ice."

After the requisite second for me to understand what had just happened- ah, awesome! I repeated the whole thing out loud and surprised myself with how much I enjoyed that one.

"Oh no- you're going to use that, aren't you?"

It sure is cheesy enough that I'm liable to share it. Enjoy.

We saw two movies: 'The Town' and 'Easy A'. I figured I'd enjoy 'Easy A' more, it being lighter fare, a dessert movie, but it didn't quite work out that way.

The Town was great, I definitely recommend it- in as much as the characters were self destructive messes they were realistic self destructive messes. I actually know people who sound like this... I mean in what they say, I'm pretty sure I don't know anyone who tawlks in dat Bwaston axcent. Ah, writing accents is hard. Unless you're Chaucer, but that's no fair, that guy lived surrounded by tons of different accents. I assume. I think I remember him travelling around. Wait, I'm confusing him with James Joyce. Uh, I'm sure guys whose patrons paid him in barrels of booze got around too.. got around the countryside I mean.

Yeah, there were a couple of times when I could have used some subtitles for the language, but generally I was good. Understanding-wise. (Could I make this anymore convoluted? Wait, yes- "Could make I this convoluted more so?" There we go, I've clearly done my job today.)

The thing that they especially succeeded at was getting across why our main character is so sympathetic- he is his own greatest enemy (I don't know Isaac, the FBI guy was certainly up in his grill as well) he hates what he's doing, but he feels intensely beholden to his crew who are his surrogate family, and of course there's that element of him thinking that all he's good for is bank robbing- he blew his chance to get out of that life with a professional hockey team (he was abusing drugs at the time) and bank robbery is also what his father is serving several life sentences for. He's worried the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and that's even while he's looking at his father, looking at his friends and seeing what train wrecks they are or are going to become.

What I'm saying is you should definitely check out this movie.

Easy A, on the other hand was kind of a mess. There were a couple of clever call backs, but I almost get the feeling that the actors were just improving a lot, stringing the plot along, and just fell into those gags. I'm not saying they weren't scripted, it's just that that is the impression I get.

The story could have been far tighter, I wasn't nuts about the framing device of a confessional web/video-blog (which used a ton of cliches and doesn't get any points for admitting those cliches were there), particularly considering the culpability of social networking for making the kind of gossip spreading possible, it's like fighting fire with fire, generally a dumb idea.

I would have liked it if there was more point in having Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter be mentioned- oh, it was very relevant to the movie, at least as far as anyone who only knows the Scarlet Letter's story from this very movie- but from the way they tell it it's like the difference between Olive (the star of Easy A) and Hester Prinne (I think that's how it's spelled, the star of the Scarlet Letter)is that Hester actually WAS guilty of adultery.

I could be forgetting the book, but Hester didn't know her husband was alive, the guy had been gone so long, and the minister she hooks up with wasn't married. Since she didn't give up the other party to the townspeople- fair enough that they brand her WOW THAT WAS A SERIOUS BOLT OF LIGHTING! I just jumped in my chair.

uh anyways -that they brand her an adulteress- she COULD be one- but it's more the stigma of her having a child, you can't talk your way out of that physical evidence.

I just felt that Easy A wasn't quite in tune enough to even bother with the Scarlet Letter comparison.

Also: everyone was crazy. If people are really that hypocritical and gossipy and surface oriented then that just is totally outside of my life experience. Not to say I don't see that stuff, just that as far as I can tell if you don't want anything to do with that world you can just walk away, where Easy A seems to be saying that you get sucked into that world regardless of what you want.

It's not all bad news: in as much as many of the characters engaged in cleverly phrased cutesy irreverance (this is your fault Juno! You know in the real world if three people who all talked like this were in a room together the planet would kerplode! I reserve the right to define "kerplode" at a later date.) Thomas Hayden Church made it work- that guy rocks. And good news- if you find Emma Stone, Amanda Bynes, and that girl from 'Phil of the Future' at all attractive, they're in this movie!

***

I just (an hour ago) saw a commercial for a kindle book reader thing: the guy is asking how the girl can read her e-book thing in this light- why it's a kindle of course! $139. "I actually paid more for these sunglasses."

I'm sorry, how much did you pay for your sunglasses, exactly? At least this commercial wasn't trying to make me fear for my life.

Hey I'm watching the first Terminator movie while writing here: what IF the guys that travel to Avatar's Pandora are the remnants of Earth after the whole Skynet/Terminator fiasco? That way the Avatar sequel could have a Terminator running around on the planet and I would actually go see that movie.

I am not nuts about my sentence structure today. All over the place it is. That one was on purpose.

***

Had like a texting conversation with a friend from work the other night- it's gotta be a bad sign when I'm surprised when someone shows an interest in me and my life.

Actually that reminds me of something. A while back I was hanging with some people and as I was about to head out I was basically called back for good-bye hugs. Now maybe if there was a bit more gender diversity in this group there'd have been no problem, selective hugging could have happened (just a theory, I could easily be wrong), but for whatever reason that I haven't grasped yet I KNEW if I hugged one person I'd get roped into giving a hug to EVERYBODY whether I wanted to or not. Not being able to articulate this delicately, sure enough, everyone got a hug.

***

I'll let you go now, my head hurts a bit, which is about the scariest thing around. Next to GIANT THUNDERBOLTS!

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