Last weekend was a great one for me. Me and the wife spent the entire time together running around having fun. And of course fun for me is watching a bunch of movies.
The first thing we did was wake up early to catch an AM showing of The Dark Knight. I’ll keep this one brief because the last thing we need is another review of The Dark Knight. There’s about four million other blogs telling you it’s the greatest thing since whatever was the last greatest thing.
I will tell you this. I liked TDK a lot. It’s grand in size, and epic in scope. It has great performances across the board. Yes, Heath Ledger was the best Joker we’ve ever seen. All that. And to boot head on over to the imdb.com and you’ll find out it’s the best movie ever made. Seriously!
I wish I felt that way. I didn’t walk out of the theater thinking it was the best movie ever made. I don’t think I walked out thinking it was best movie of the summer. I enjoyed it, it was intense, it was always interesting, but it was not perfect.
Personally I didn’t like the Harvey Dent to Two-Face transformation. Aaron Eckhart does a fantastic job in the role but to me it felt like his crusading District Attorney character was shoe horned into Two-Face. It reminded me of Topher Grace as Venom in Spider-Man 3. We just didn’t need it. There was already a ton of things going on. Quite honestly I was hoping the filmmakers had forgotten about the whole Two-Face things and we’d just get Dent as Dent.
So in the end yeah TDK is great. But it’s not the greatest movie of all time.
Also not the greatest movie of all time, but one this is a lot of fun is Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Perhaps it was the right movie at the right time for me. Jessica and I drove up to West Palm Beach for the 21st Birthday party for Respectable Street Cafe, a club we go to all the time. They were having a block party with a ton of bands playing headlined by Flock of Seagulls. Exciting! So we head up there around 10pm and I figured most of those bands would have been done by then, but no. They hadn’t even started. So after getting drunk of two beers and starting to sweat profusely I figure there has to be a better way than standing out here in all this heat.
Fortunately Respectables is located right near a movie theater. A nice movie theater. With air conditioning! So around midnight Jessica and I hoofed it a few blocks over and caught a midnight screening of Hellboy II. So I was grateful to be inside and in the proper mood for fun.
And fun is exactly what this movie delivers. It was the kind of fun that while there was certainly a major plot going on (something a prince from the supernatural world wanting to start a war with us harmless humans) it almost didn’t matter. I was more interested in Hellboy’s (Ron Perlman) issues with his girlfriend Liz (Selma Blair) and the workings of the agency they work for (the wonderfully named Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense) than the actual main plot. But was okay. Because anytime it was time to get down and fight some evil elves or whatever that was fun too.
Capping things off the wife and I took a Sunday afternoon showing of Momma Mia. This was the biggest crowd of the weekend. The show was sold out and Jessica and I were the only two people under 65.
In case you aren’t familiar, Momma Mia tells the story of young woman about to be married. She doesn’t know who her father is, but finds three possible suspects by reading her mother’s diary. So she does the logical thing and invites all three to her wedding. This is all told the only way a story like this could be told: through the music of Abba!
All in all, Mommia Mia is a like a party that YOU’RE invited to. Certainly a lot of fun, though I felt that for a musical it didn’t really have any great dance numbers. Some okay ones, but a little lackluster in that department. Castwise everything is more than fine. Meryl Streep (looking every bit of her 59 years) delivers a lively performance as Donna, the mother of the bride who finds three old boyfriends mysteriously popping up in her life.
As for the three would be dads I find the casting a bit interesting. Oh sure Pierce Brosnan and Stellen Skarsgard fit the mold just find. But I couldn’t help but think that the third piece, Harry played by Colin Firth seemed just slightly out of place. Firth looked younger than his counterparts, and in fact seemed younger than all of the adults in the film, including Streep and her two counterpart pals (Julie Walters and Christine Baranski). A quick trip to the imdb.com shows that Firth is the only one still in his 40s (47).
I think the best proof that Momma Mia is a good time for all is the fact that my Abba hating wife has suddenly had a change of heart. Now she wants to buy the soundtrack. Lucky me!
I would tell you about the nice breakfasts and go kart riding but quite honestly it’s taken long enough for mt to finish this post.
The Radio Dan Show: DVD Commentary For The Radio
Jessica finds some DVD commentaries to listen to while at work and then speculates on making her own with Dan. Plus Reality Casting and the box office report.
Click this link to check it out:
The Radio Dan Show: DVD Commentary For The Radio
- Show episodes
on July 14, 2008 at 4:01 am Leave a CommentTags: box office, DVD commentary, Hellboy, UHF, Weird Al