Wreck-it-Ralph

I originally saw this before I started my Movie Pass subscription, so this was my second viewing. Brittney was in a “I don’t watch kids’ movies” mood when we first saw it, so she skipped it. Her mood changed and so I took her to see it.

No surprise: she loved it. Because it’s awesome. I’ll also mention that the iOS app for the movie is pretty cool in its own right.

See it. Play it. Wreck it!

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Hitchcock

I really had no idea what to expect from Hitchcock. My familiarity with Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t very extensive. I’d seen several of his movies, though by no means all, and I do recall seeing episodes of his TV show when I was a kid (in repeats, of course). But my knowledge was, at best, of the pop-culture type — ’80s pop-culture.

What drew me to the movie was simply its two stars, Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren. I’ll confess that having Scarlett Johansson didn’t hurt — she’s one of the actresses that draws me to movies for reasons both trite and subtle.

In my MoviePass log, I marked this as “Extra” (as opposed to “Personal” or “Family”), which means that I very likely wouldn’t have seen it were it not for my MoviePass subscription. I track this so that I can see how much value I’m getting from my membership.

(Speaking of which, two months in, and with an anticipated $10 non-Extra movie on tonight’s agenda, I’ve saved $43.77 and seen an additional $36 worth of Extra movies.)

Getting back to the point, I enjoyed the movie and am glad to have seen it. My only complaint is that there wasn’t a Hitchcock-esque twist. The wink-and-a-nudge-to-the-audience was fun but didn’t quite make up for the lack of suspense. At least it didn’t commit the sin of failing to have a perfect ending that I specifically anticipated. In this case, I have no idea how the appropriate suspense could have been achieved, I just wish the writer had done so.

All-in-all, I’d say it’s worth seeing if you have any sort of affinity for the subject matter (including Psycho) or the actors.

Killing Them Softly

What to say… watching Brad Pitt always seems to be entertaining. James Galdolfini was disappointing, though I blame the writing — his acting was fine.

I couldn’t escape the feeling that this was a very week shadow of Goodfellas. It didn’t help that Ray Liotta was there to remind me of what it could have aspired to be. I guess that’s all I have to say.

Correction, I do have more to say. I walked into the wrong theater at first and didn’t realize it until about 10 minutes after the start time. I don’t think I missed much more than the previews, and at least there were 4 or 5 people in the correct theater as compared to no other people in the wrong theater. (It was showing pre-show commercials the whole time I was there — probably 25 minutes.)

Thus far, and speaking as if I haven’t already seen more movies, this is the worst of the five movies I’ve seen with MoviePass.

Red Dawn

Red Dawn was the first movie I saw simply because I didn’t have to pay an incremental cost for it. I had a spare couple of hours while my daughter was at an event and made use of it to see this movie, despite my particularly low expectations.

To my surprise, I actually enjoyed it. It wasn’t great by any means, but I wasn’t bored or particularly annoyed. It probably helps that I really don’t remember much about the original version.

I find it somewhat interesting how some movies trigger a resistance to my ability to suspend disbelief, and others don’t. I’ve noticed before that if a movie (or TV show) attempts to explain something, and does a poor job at it, I’m likely to be very annoyed. On the other hand, if no real explanation is attempted, it’s much easier to simply accept the premise.

How does that apply to this movie? Well, there’s never really any attempt to explain exactly how or why the precipitous events occurred. Partly, this is because the characters themselves simply don’t know. Mostly, however, I credit the writer and/or director for avoiding any temptation at a narrative explanation.

Rise of the Guardians

It had been some time since we saw a movie as a family, mostly because Brittney had been going through a phase of disdain for American-produced animated movies. Despite this, she was excited to see Rise of the Guardians. Unfortunately, some odd timing led to Marci and McKenzie seeing it at one theater in the morning while Brittney and I saw it a bit later at a different theater.

All of us enjoyed the movie, though it did require a fair amount of glossing over some obvious story problems. The action and suspense are well done and the characters are relatively sympathetic with nice dashes of humor.

I use the Run-Pee app to check if there is any reason to stay after the credits and this movie is one of those where that paid off. Brittney and I were trying to tell people to stay, but the wait was pretty long and most people left. Even Marci and McKenzie missed the bonus scene in their viewing. Nothing really significant happens, but it’s entertaining enough to justify the wait.

After the movie, Brittney declared that she had regained her interest in this type of movie and now she wants to see Wreck-It-Ralph.

This post is part of my series of mini-reviews of movies I’ve seen via MoviePass. This is post is not sponsored in any way and I’m simply using the fact that I’m paying for a MoviePass subscription as extra motivation to write these reviews.

Lincoln

I recently subscribed to MoviePass, a monthly subscription to unlimited¹ movie theater admissions. For this reason, I’m likely to see more new movies than I used to, which led me to decide to post brief reviews.

I’m arbitrarily restricting this project to movies I see via MoviePass, though I reserve the right to change my mind. (I’m seeing The Hobbit on Saturday without using MoviePass, but assuming I enjoy it, I might see it again with MoviePass.) On with the review!

Marci and I saw Lincoln about a week ago. I went in without really knowing what the movie was about beyond it’s titular subject. After seeing it, I’ve come to the conclusion that this vagueness is by design. If the title had been “The 13th Amendment” or “The Means Justifies the Ends”, I’m not sure the movie would have had as much appeal.

That’s what it’s about: the struggles, manipulations, lies and extortion that went into getting slavery officially abolished from our fundamental legal document.

It’s not for everyone. I think that enjoyment of the movie is predicated on enjoyment of observing the nitty-gritty ugliness of the political machinery that shapes and reshapes the foundations of our “great experiment”.

I enjoyed every minute.

¹ Actually, there are several limits: only one admission per day, only one admission per movie, ticket must be same-day, you have to be physically at the theater to use the app to enable the purchase, the theater has to accept Discover, 3D and other enhanced viewings aren’t supported