I've spent this past week finally improving my movie watching from the past month. I did start reading
Shutter Island, but I haven't really got into it yet because of I've been more interested in movies. Basically I'm only a few chapters in so far.
I've been catching up on some of the newer movies from 2009 that I've been missing this year. I can honestly say that I haven't really been missing much at all with that. I had been really wanting to see
the Soloist because the trailer looked amazing, yet the film itself wasn't all that great. I mean it wasn't bad or anything, but I felt extremely let down after that trailer for it. My main problem with it was the editing, which I felt was very poorly done. Robert Downey Jr. was pretty good, but Jaime Foxx was pretty amazing. Foxx's acting alone is what made me give it some of the score that I gave it. I watched
Fast and Furious as well, and techincally speaking it's a worse film than
the Soloist, but I liked it better. It's a whole hell of a lot more fun, and that's what it is supposed to be. I've pretty much liked every film in the series so far, and I think they get a lot of undeserved hate. It's meant to be fun movies, and that's what it is. Also, to top all of it off, I watched
Knowing as well. It's definitely my least favorite film of the year so far. Very bad dialouge, medicore acting, and alright CGI. It was a very good concept, but poorly excuted. Also the ending was completely weird, I mean it wasn't techincally bad, but just all around weird.
I've been watching some other films that I've been wanting to see for awhile, too. I watched
Naked earlier this week, but I'm still not sure how I feel about it yet. I honestly can't rate it, because I didn't get most of the film. I'm not even sure if there even was a point to it at all, but if there was, I think the film was just too intellegent for me. It just left me confused mainly, and I don't even think I can think of anything else to say about it. I watched
Little Children today earlier as well. I liked it, but a lot like
21 Grams, I think it was just too much like real life to actually enjoy it. The last 10 minutes, though, it really picks up and gets up pumping to see what happens next. It was a tad bit slow, but I still thought it was pretty great. Jackie Earl Haley was the best out of the cast in it, but why does he always chose roles that is an outcast from society? I mean he was a child malester in this, a psycho vigilante in
Watchmen, some insane dude in
Shutter Island, and he's playing Freddy Kruger in the
Friday the 13th remake. I guess he's just great in these roles, which is he. I finally watched
Dogma finally yesterday, too. I honestly didn't find it that funny, but I still loved it, because it was insanely epic. Epic is really the only word I can think of to actually describe it.
I finally got around to watching a lot of my past favorites this week as well, because I started working on my new top 100 again. I watched
Die Hard first and that's one movie I will always love. I don't see much point in getting into talking about it, because everyone already knows whats so great about.
Hot Fuzz was next and it's never exactly been a favorite of mine, but I still think it's great. The final 20 minutes is possibly the best action scene that I've ever seen in any movie. I got around to re-watching
L.A. Confidential for the first time, and it still held up great with a re-watch.
Pulp Ficiton was after that, and while it's not quite in my top 10 anymore, I still love it almost as much as when I saw it for the first time. Maybe because it had been so long since I last watched it, but it flew by so fast this time around, and I was surprised because it went by pretty slow the last time I watched it. Lastly, I re-watched
Snatch for the first time today after buying it yesterday. Even though I did only watch it last week, it was still pretty great. I can see it making it somewhere near the bottom half of my top 100.
My offcial ratings for the week:
Die Hard -
(John McTiernan, 1988)
Hot Fuzz -
(Edgar Wright, 2007)
Naked - N/A
(Mike Leigh, 1993)
The Soloist -
(Joe Wright, 2009)
Fast and Furious - +
(Justin Lin, 2009)
L.A. Confidential - +
(Curtis Hanson, 1997)
Pulp Fiction -
(Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Dogma - +
(Kevin Smith, 1999)
Snatch -
(Guy Ritchie, 2000)
Little Children -
(Todd Field, 2006)
Knowing -
(Alex Proyas, 2009)