More screenings (trying to catch up)
War of the Worlds Poor Spielberg. He just can't help himself. Despite the cheap 9/11 audience baiting tactics, I was kind of going for it in patches. Because, well, he
can stage a good scene. But that ending --Oy. He really is pathetically addicted to
not disturbing the audience. Even within the context of a horror movie. It's just so frustrating in its enthusiasm for pandering. [spoiler] Everything must always be "A-OK" no matter that you've witnessed 1/2 the population being exterminated*. Not even one hair on the heads of any of our heroes will be damaged. Even the teen-age son who was standing right where a massive mile long explosion happened. Wish fulfillment fantasy at its most pandering ugh. The family even looked like they'd stepped out of a catalog at the end when they came out of their brownstone. Not a hint that anything terrible had recently happened. Nice hair. Clean pressed clothes. Happiness. Happy family!
Happy! Happy! Happy! Never mind about those millions of murders and the world's greatest cities being a pile of rubble. Forget it. You'll be A-OK! C-
*why is this movie PG-13? What does one have to do for an R nowadays? Seriously. I'm not much of a fan of the MPAA but this is one of their worst calls ever. People being blown to bits several times in full screen. body parts. massacres. dead bodies. destruction. mob violence. This is a hard R even. It's an easy call.
Bewitched This must be as embarassing for Kidman as
Laws of Attraction was for Julianne Moore. Both are super actresses. But even the greatest actors are just not suited to all genres. You can feel her effort and the calculation in every frame here which is totally NOT appropriate for light fizzy comedy. She just didn't know where the jokes were at all. I can't imagine who this movie is for really. A total mess. D
CrashNot exactly subtle (which I'd heard) but also kinda good (which i didn't believe until I saw it because of the 'unsubtle' tag) if only because it's overemphatic, underlined thematics are graced by humanism (no villains and no heroes -hooray!) and a uniformly good cast; Terrance Howard shines brightest in my mind but for the first time I saw Sandra Bullock as an actress with real unfulfilled potential. It wasn't fulfilled here (not much to do) but she seemed to know what to do once handed something worth doing. So hopefully some interesting director will give her a real role soon. Save her from Miss Congeniality 3! B
