I will admit up front that I am a TV person. I will sit down and watch a dozen episodes of a TV show before consenting to watching a film. It's not that I hate movies. I just usually don't sit down and watch them. Going to the movie theater has become so rare in the past years that it takes a real movie event to drag me out (see: Harry Potter). I always tell myself it's because scheduling is always a nightmare and the tickets are too expensive nowadays PLUS I can always rent the thing when it comes out... But somehow I never do. All those great movies that came out in recent years--yeah, I've never actually watched them.
The worst part is that I have a Netflix account and I didn't skimp out on the disc deal either. Well, I've decided to fix that. I've decided to start crossing off movies on that To Watch Before I Die list. Between renting, borrowing and streaming, I've managed to watch all four of these films in the past three days.
(500) Days of Summer was wonderful, as I expected. Zooey Deschanel's character was unforgivably frustrating, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt was amazing as always. I loved the production and the writing, as well. This movie must be added to my collection. I was surprised by how entertaining I found Breakfast at Tiffany's. I guess I'd never quite understood what kind of movie it was. I know Holly Golightly is Audrey Hepburns's iconic role, but I really liked George Peppard in the movie. When you think about it, both of these movies have quite a lot in common, no?
The next two, Ondine and I Capture the Castle, were late night streams. Ondine was good, if a little confusing at times. I think the term 'indie film' is really just code for 'mumbling on camera' sometimes, so that coupled with the freaking Irish/Scottish/Romanian accents made it a little harder to understand what everyone was saying. It was a good movie, though. I Capture the Castle turned out to be one of those 'How have I not seen this before?' kind of films. I'm a sucker for period pieces and this one was just beautiful. Funny and sad and gorgeous and awkward and hopeful all at the same time.
Hmm, I'm seeing a common thread here: There is a general lack of neatness in all of these movies. How authentic of them. Life is messy, after all.
500 Days of Summer is one of my favorites. I always like the messy and scene by scene style (partially why I love Love, Actually as well...plus Colin Firth). The book I Capture the Castle is pretty good too...trivia: Same author wrote 101 Dalmations :)
ReplyDelete"Love Actually" is one of my favorite movies as well. I did love the scene jumping thing in "500 Days". I'm actually very scene-oriented when I plan my writing, but I never seem to jump between them when I actually sit down to write. They all flow from one to the next, thus making it seem like we've followed the character around all day...which is kind of the case. I need to work on doing something about that.
ReplyDeleteI thought the name Dodie Smith sounded familiar! I mean, I'd heard of the "I Capture the Castle" book before obviously, but I would have seen it on the "101 Dalmations" book instead!
Isn't it sad that we have these little bits of trivia taking up space in our heads? It's ridiculous how many author and title names I know even though I never have and never will read their books. Customers at work are always amazed that I can pull these facts out of thin air, but then again it's like, "You're not exactly the first person to ask me for 'Slaughterhouse Five'."
"'The Hobbit' you ask? I've never heard of this book. Let me look it up."