Mmm Mmm Couch Time
Feb 25th, 2008 by Alex
Last week was busy since there’s a show approaching. We open in two weeks. I love movies. I think they’re the best way to escape from this world. It was so nice to settle down on various couches among great company and watch a few movies.
Idiocracy is funny, especially when with a group of people. Beyond funny, it’s a rather brilliant cultural satire. There will be people who don’t understand the nature of satire and who probably won’t appreciate its subtlety. On the other hand there will be people who can’t understand it and will love it do to its slapstick and over-the-top nature. The production team did it right; there are tons of little details that you probably wouldn’t catch unless you watched it a dozen things: the names of the products for ads (on virtually every surface), the size of Costco’s product offerings, the markings on the Presidential RV, etc. There was so much going on that I feel another viewing would be beneficial.
Girl in the Cafe is a cute drama. It’s cute because the protagonist is a bumbling Brit akin to Love Actually. Forget the movie comparison, nobody has it together like it is in the movies. There’s no script. We all stutter and can’t seem to get ourselves together. I appreciate movies that capture that, so you can’t help but root for Lawrence (played by Bill Nighy) throughout. It does deal with some serious subject matter as well, but lightly enough that it doesn’t feel like a documentary. Oh yes, and Kelly Macdonald — who I last saw (and now remember) playing Diane in Trainspotting — has a kick-ass accent. She’s from Scotland.
Though not a big fan of the Beatles, Across the Universe is really well done, so I’m surprised that it didn’t get more attention. I remember the press making waves before it was released, but almost nothing about it afterwards. Maybe the Beatles-this Beatles-that hype was just that, hype to makes news. In any event the arrangements are all new and well orchestrated, the songs fit the storyline well without feeling like they were squeezed in. In the bonus materials the director or producer was going on about how they wrote the storyline around the songs, so that makes sense. The cast of fresh young faces is a nice change. One thing, it’s long. The lingering question remains, how much did the studio have to pay Michael Jackson for the rights to all of those songs. The King of Pop — in what was an absolutely brilliant investment back in 1984, even for $47.5M — owns the publishing rights to the majority of the Beatles catalog.
This week has the potential to be just as busy, but I’m thinking I’m going to make time for myself to cook some even if my schedule doesn’t really allow it.
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I want to see “Across the Universe” really bad. I saw “Stardust” this weekend and loved it.
yellojkt: Hadn’t even heard of Stardust, not even after checking out IMDB. There’s photos of Robert DeNiro, yet he isn’t listed in the billing. What’s up with that?