Sundays are for Movies

I've watched a few in the last month and a half:

Eragon was adapted from a book that was written by a 15-year old boy. It a fantasy about a young boy who finds a dragon’s egg and soon finds out that he has been destined to become a dragon rider who must defend his world from an evil king. It was good, but I have not read the book and I was told that it is very different from the book.

Curse of the Golden Flower has deceit, revenge, romance – It’s a real entertaining film, set in the time of the Tang dynasty. The emperor has ordered the royal physician to drug the empress and make her go insane, the empress has a lover, who also happens to be the lover of the royal physician’s daughter…It can be a little hard to keep up. Set the language to English. It was good.

The Bank Job is based on a true 1971 bank robbery. Some small time bad boys were enlisted to rob the safe deposit boxes of the bank, where the true treasure was evidence implicating high officials and members of the Royal family. It was a good renter.

The Band’s Visit is about the Ceremonial Police Band of Alexandria, Egypt, who travel to Isreal for a performance. No one meets them at the airport; so, they set out to find their destination on their own and wind up in the wrong town. They have to spend the night with some of the locals, and each faction learns a little about the other’s culture. It was good.

Autumn Hearts: A New Beginning is set in the 1980s. It is about three concentration camp survivors who reunite and put a few past demons to rest. Susan Sarandon, Gabriel Byrne, Max von Sidow and Christopher Plummer star in it. It was pretty good.

Thumbsucker is basically about growing up. A 17-year old, not very popular – socially or academically - high school student still sucks his thumb as a coping mechanism. He gets diagnosed with ADD, is prescribed medication and becomes an overachiever. It was a bit on the quirky side.

Set in England in the early 1980s, Son of Rambow is a film about two boys from different backgrounds who join forces to make a movie. It is really, really good.

Baby Mama is pure, entertaining fluff, but it did have a message underneath it all. Tina Fey plays a high-powered career woman who is unable to conceive. Amy Poehler plays her baby mama – the surrogate she hires to carry her baby. It was pretty funny.

Persepolis is the big screen adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s bestselling autobiographical graphic novel that gives us a glimpse of what it was like growing up as an outspoken Iranian girl during the Islamic revolution. It was pretty good. In the set up menu, you can choose to watch it in English or in French.

The Astronaut Farmer was a cute, feel-good, family film about a man who has always wanted to build a rocket and launch it. Billy Bob Thornton and Virginia Madsen star in this good renter.

Young@ Heart is a cute documentary about a choir made up of 70 and 80-year and they sing works by modern groups such as the Ramones, the Clash – They are not happy to sit on their rockers and listen to elevator music. I liked it.

I saw a couple of films in theaters:

Towelhead is hard to watch. It is a film about a young teenager, now living with her strict Lebanese father, who becomes rather obsessed with sexuality. The film is set in Houston during the first Gulf War. There is pedophilia involved. The recognized names starring in this film are Toni Collette, Aaron Eckhart and Maria Bello. It's not for everyone.

I was able to catch The Dark Knight finally. While I thought Heath Ledger did a marvelous job as the Joker - and truly, what a tragic end for him - the movie was nothing special. Christian Bale did a good job as Batman - but the material - not so good. I think I lost interest with the Batman movies after the seeing the second one.

MK out.