Very excited about the premiere of Lost tonight! And you bet I'll be back to posting tl;dr strings of random thoughts on each episode that only a few people will read! Couldn't be looking forward to it more!
But before that omg movies.
In the Loop (2009): Funny political satire that is pretty clearly having a go at the events leading up to the beginning of the Iraq War. There's obviously some goofiness that plays around with people's perceptions of the events surrounding the declaration of war, but there are also some interesting digs not only at the realities of declaring war but also the roles people play once war is really going. And since this is a British movie, there is also boatloads of mortifying situations meant solely to bring the most profound embarrassment possible upon the characters.
Public Enemies(2009): Solid movie, and I like the route taken to not really glamorize John Dillinger and show him as a pretty cold, ruthless guy who just lived to rob banks. The movie also stays away from glamorizing the FBI agents who doggedly pursued Dillinger for more than a year. The drama suffers a bit because of the cold, matter of fact tone of the movie, but it's not such a big deal. Also, and it's not Christian Bale's fault, but my siblings and I couldn't take him seriously as a tough FBI agent because we kept making allusions to his Batman voice, haha.
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005): Watched for purposes of Rifftrax. More proof that going the "Darker and Edgier" route doesn't automatically make something better. I wrote about this before, but the biggest thing missing from the prequels is that sense of adventure and excitement that infused the original trilogy. You know what my favorite sequence in any of the Star Wars movies is? It's not the attack on the Death Star, it's not the fight between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in Empire -- it's the chase through the asteroid field when the Millennium Falcon is desperately trying to escape the TIE Fighters. Now there's a scene that is chock full of adventure and excitement.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Lagann-Hen (2009): This movie does what Gurren-Hen could not: Successfully adapt the TV anime into a movie form. Gurren-Hen is a glorified clip show, where the only characters you could possibly care about are the main characters. Everyone else just randomly hops along for the ride and gets no development. The only good thing about the first movie is the final battle; otherwise, it is pointless. But Lagann-Hen is a fully realized story packed to the brim with everything that makes Gurren Lagann so much fun. And the final battle is out of this world. Loved it.
District 9 (2009): Good movie but kind of disappointing in the end. It starts off in a really interesting way by paralleling (in some obvious and other not so obvious ways) the arrival, and eventual settlement, of aliens in South Africa with the apartheid system (the movie's events begin in 1982, when apartheid was still going strong in the country). However, all that interesting stuff eventually fades away when the movie goes for a more standard sci-fi action route in the final half hour or so. It's good action, mind, but disappointing nonetheless since the movie starts in such a different, exciting way.
On the queue for this week: Who knows?
Total Movies: 16 (The Taking of Pelham 123, The Station Agent, The Final Destination, Silent Movie, The African Queen, Departures, Moon, Bound, Solaris, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rifftrax), Wristcutters: A Love Story, In the Loop, Public Enemies, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Lagann-Hen, District 9)
