The Movies In Review

In the last week I have seen three very different movies: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Julie & Julia and District 9. These really are all over the place but I'm going to put on my movie critic's swim cap and dive in.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1046173/
Wow. Okay, let me begin by saying the nice things I have to say about this movie. Channing Tatum is hot. He's not a little hot either. He's a whole lotta hot. Ever since The Mummy I've had a crush on Brendan Fraser and he's in it too (for all of about 10 seconds). Okay, well, now that I have the good things about the movie out of the way... Yeah. It was that bad. Don't get me wrong, some of the effects were kind of cool but the acting was astoundingly bad. Sienna Miller did a so-so job as Ana/The Baroness (lame-o plot line) and Mr. Eko from Lost was in there too. It was just really terrible, horrible acting. I guess the Eiffel Tower was axed because you still can't mess with American buildings or symbols without some furry and the French are easy whipping boys. Okay, I can accept that. Still. I know I don't fit into their target audience - 13 year old boys who are just beyond needing mom's permission to buy their tickets - but wow. Thank goodness for matinee pricing.

Julie & Julie
I really liked this movie. It's a bit of a "chick-flick" and I certainly like to cook so those things certainly didn't hurt it's appeal for me. Also, it's made me want to pick up a book or two about the life of Julia Child. I'm not letting the cat out of the proverbial bag when I say that Meryl Streep is an amazing actress. At some point early in the movie I forgot that I was looking at an actress playing Julia Child instead of Julia herself. The food is certainly as much a character in the film as the actors. However, while watching the parts about Julie Powell's life, I found myself wishing that I was learning more about Julia Child. Not that Amy Adams did a bad job, the story just didn't grab as much as Julia Child's portion. It was definitely a movie that let you leave the theater with a smile on your face and it gave me a much needed escape.

District 9
It's movie with only a handful of actors (and none that you've ever heard of before) and a somewhat unconventional plot. I found myself pretty involved in the story and really feeling for the aliens. It was shot in documentary style, kind of like Cloverfield but I liked this one much better. It's hard to identify with the aliens at first, but the audience gets to know one or two pretty well and that's when I got hooked into the whole story. Sharlto Copley was amazing and the CGI effects were really quite good. It has an ending that sets the hook for a sequel and that always bothers me a little, but it was a solid movie and I liked getting immersed in the story once the action really kicked in.

So there you have it. My tribute to Siskel and Ebert, Gene Shalit, Rex Reed and all of the other movie critics out there. Except I'm right. :)