Sunday, February 12, 2012

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and More

I don't really know how I feel about Extremely Loud and incredibly Close. Oskar (Thomas Horn) is an eleven-year-old boy who lost his father (Tom Hanks) in the 9/11 tragedy. Sandra Bullock plays his mother. We only see his father in flashbacks. Oskar is on The Spectrum, and maybe the actor's affectations are meant to illustrate this fact, but I found the little boy quite annoying. The father and son had a very close and loving relationship; so, it is understandable that the boy is angry. He finds a key in his father's things and sets out to find the lock that it opens, believing that it is something that his father meant for him. John Goodman. Max von Sydow and Viola Davis also star. The acting is good enough. It is mostly entertaining. I just went away with more questions unanswered. It was a little better than alright.


In The Iron Lady, Meryl Streep delivered another flawless performance playing Margaret Thatcher, but to what end? The movie gave us snippets of the former British prime minister's early life and rise to power, but it didn't offer any meaty information. Most of the film was shown as flashbacks of the now, as depicted, demented Lady Thatcher's memories. Jim Broadbent stars as her husband Denis. As devisive as she was politically, maybe Lady Thatcher didn't lead as juicy a life as some of our US presidents have; so, there wasn't much to the story. The acting was superb, but the movie wasn't all that great.


Many people do not know what to make of The Tree of Life. There are scenes of the Big Bang Theory in action as organisms spring to life and then there are people and this family...There is talk about nature and grace...What do all these things have to do with one another? Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien (Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain) have three young sons and they live in Waco, TX in the 1950s. Sean Penn plays one of the boys all grown up, and we watch him try to figure out the meaning of his life through flashbacks as he examines his past. I liked the movie because it was calming and soothing in some odd way. We may never figure out why we are here, but we would be happier if we just made peace with it all. I liked it.


MK out.

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