Movies galore

Today I remembered the camera. And forgot the cable to link it to the PC. Chop.

So more written nonsense for you lot. A brief collective movie review, if one could call it that, of the movies I've seen in the last while. Would love your thoughts on them too.

Surrogates

This was not a bad movie. It wasn't great, but it was enjoyable enough. We saw it because TSC and I both adore Bruce Willis (Not sure why, admittedly). The concept of the film is that in the future world, people have bought perfect surrogate bodies that they control from their homes. While the surrogates go to work, party hard and do anything else their owners imagine, the real people hide at home behind closed doors, chubbier, more wrinkled and generally less attractive than their airbrushed "surries". Then a murder takes place and a person is killed through his surrogate. This changes everything. And, of course, Bruce is required to save the day.

It's an interesting idea, although difficult to translate into a mere two-hour film. The don't-be-too-dependent-on-tech moral is very clear, but the gaps in the created world and the storyline are annoying. It's entertaining, but not as memorable as it should be.

500 Days of Summer

The tagline, "This is not a love story. this is a story about love," says it all. The film follows Tom, a greeting card writer, and his feelings for Summer, the girl he believes is "the one". An offbeat, sweet indie film, the movie portrays Tom's journey in a non-linear but entertaining manner. Great music, laugh-out-loud funny moments, heart-breaking emotional scenes and a gorgeous scene straight out of a Broadway musical made me love this movie.

Sherlock Holmes

We saw the premier of this movie at Montecasino. Blergh. What a load of hype for nothing. For a film by Guy Ritchie, the director of my favourite movie, Snatch, as well as Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (we will ignore the fact that he also directed Swept Away starring his looney ex-wife, Madonna), it was a disappointment. I also adore Robert Downey Jnr, but found that he mumbled his way through Sherlock's lines so that for half of the movie, none of us could understand what on earth he was saying. It felt like the movie went on forever. And I'm sure there will be a sequel. Which I will not be watching.

Avatar

Let me say upfront that this movie is not about the plot. You know within the first few minutes of the three-hour epic exactly what will happen. But that's not the point. The glory of this movie is the rich new world that has been created - Pandora. I could cast aside cliched script and ignore Sam Worthington dropping his American accent (he's an Aussie) so long as I could gaze on the phosphorescent plantlife and be transported into the world of those tall blue humanoids for a bit longer. Technologically, this movie has given us a leap in film-making technique that we last saw with The Matrix. Despite a predictable storyline and stock characters, this film does what sci-fi is meant to do - transports us into a new world.

The Visitor

We saw this last night. It was really good. And then it ended. Abruptly. In the middle of the most important bit, I think. But maybe that was the point. *sigh* Let me backtrack. It's about this man, a widower and lecturer, who arrives in Manhattan for a conference to find two immigrants, Tarek and Zainab, living in his apartment. They have been leased the place in real estate scam. He reluctantly allows them to stay as they have nowhere else to go, and then becomes involved in their lives and ultimately Tarek's struggle to avoid deportation.

Despite my annoyance at the ending, I would recommend seeing it, even just so that I have someone to discuss it with ;-)

Those of the films I have seen on cimema recently. Any other recommendations (and don't tell me Couples Retreat).