jod* and I took last week off and caught up on a ton of movies:
House of Sand and Fog - Ben Kingsley, Shoreh A., and the kid who played their son were all really good. Jennifer Connelly was just all right in it. Ron Eldard, formerly of Rob Schneider's pretty horrible "Men Behaving Badly" was okay in it, too. I cried, but then, I'm a sap.
Melvin Goes to Dinner - Not too bad a little movie but not like a great or even nearly a really good little movie either. I expected more as Bob Odenkirk and David Cross involved. What are you going to do...
It was okay. Lots of talk, annoying but well-drawn characters, etc. Blah, blah, blah.
Matrix Revolutions - Blech. So confusing and stupid and overwrought--yuck, yuck, yuck. I liked the first in the series just fine and felt compelled to see 2 and 3, which both pretty much sucked.
Kill Bill vol 1 and 2 - see the other separate, earlier review. Great!
Pieces of April - I really liked this. I cried again and was compelled to talk out loud to the screen, which I rarely, if ever do. Patricia Clarkson is great. Katie Holmes was good. Well-acted and -written dysfunctional family flick.
Matchstick Men - Yay for Nicholas Cage doing the kind of roles that make him a good actor! With this and Adaptation, he's starting to restore my faith in him. Alison Lohman was really good in this and in White Oleander. Sam Rockwell was a good wise ass as usual.
Wonderland - Good, good movie. Val Kilmer and the whole cast were quite strikingly good, even Dylan McDermott, whom I find brick-ish for the most part. Points for Janeane Garafolo being in the movie, albeit in a very small role. I like the way they handled the 2 conflicting renditions of events that both involved the very messed up Johnny you-know-what.
The writing is on the wall though--it's getting time for us to get a DVD player. We wanted to rent "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind," but at Hollywood Video, it was only available on DVD. We're trying to hold off until Christmas, but it's not looking good. We want to get a DVD player/recorder when the prices drop some more.
I enjoed Melvin Goes to Dinner more than you did, but then I'm a huge mark for Bob O. I even dig his beer commercials. Anyway, interesting fact about "Melvin": I gave a copy to Sweet Meat for Xmas, and, yes, he claims to have "shed a tear" toward the end.
Wait a minute, that's not really intersting, is it? Sweet Meat's tearful movie experiences officially stopped being noteworthy sometime after tears welled up during "Earnest Goes to Africa."
Oh well, I hear that the pretty chicks dig it, anyway.
