Working as a well tuned machine, Aimi dealt with all the booking details and I moved stuff around the house and got it all done early before any more drama happened [ominous foreboding] So Sunday turned into a Movie discovery day, trying a few of the ones you usually look at and think…”meh”… just in case they were actually any good.
They were not
First up was Jerry Maguire, one that everyone has seen (it seems, except me) and from which countless movies have stolen Jerry’s (Tom Cruises) ridiculous & iconic line “show me the money” and Dorothy’s (Rene Zelwegger) line “you had me at hello” thats been ripped off more times than a bikini models hairy legs. Now having watched it, I feel that way too much emphisis was given to Tom, I dont consider him the main character in the movie. Rod Tidwell played by Cuba Gooding Jr was the main event in my opinion. It would have been a lot more interesting to see how he was struggling to get to the top of his career with an agent he felt loyal to, but had recently let him down, and the inevitable soaring achievement where they ended up best buds and uber rich. Cuba did an amazing performance and won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, which he entirely deserves, he was amazing. And while Tom is obviously a good actor, it reminded me of my Drama lessons in 2nd-ry school where we all just ended up shouting at each other in increasingly over dramatised scenes. Now I’ve seen it, I can claim to know where the lines come from, so don’t need to watch it again.
On the subject of films I don’t need to watch again, Aquaman was terrible!!! Aimi and others have warned me, but really the story was so contrived and crammed in, it should have been 3 films.
- Arthur/Aquaman (Jason Mamoa) as a teenager discovering his powers with the jedi master-esque Vulko (Willem Dafoe) as his mentor. The revelation of his mothers death and then Vulko’s perceived betrayal and abandonment to return to serve his half brother Assumed King Orm (Patrick Wilson) when his father dies.
- Aquaman developing into a hero to help protect sailors, save ocean mamals and reduce polution, he could have gone up against some evil corporation pumping sewage into the ocean or something, and the twist could have been them supplying weapons to his half brother. Cliff hanger, red head, Mera (Amber Heard) love interest begins as she used to be with Orm and turns against him to warn aquaman and mankind of the war that’s starting.
- The showdown between Aquaman and Orm to stop the building war between land dwellers and seamen *snigger* for control of the seven seas, with the majority of the movies story line they played out. But lets skip the shit National Treasure rip off treasure hunt in the desert which seems to have been shoehorned in there for no reason.
While I’m aware that the film is aimed at kids, there were bits that just seemed to force the humour. At several points, Jason turns, ostensibly to the camera, to make a one liner that, while delivered well doesn’t seem to fit in the movie. There was also some crap use of language… Land Dwellers… come’on call them Earth Stalkers or Sky Breathers… something cool that makes the audience feel bad ass. There was also a point in the middle of an epic fight were Jason turns to his enemy and calls him a “putz”… what a lame insult even to use in a kids film. Call him a “wannabe Justin Timberlake lookalike with too much gel in his hair” it references the real *sigh* Land Dwellers bringing us in on the joke, and because the Atlantians have never heard of Justin, will be bamboozled by the insult which is even more funny.
Lastly the story (because it was rammed in) progressed at such a terrifying pace from one fully green screen’ed set to another, it was hard to keep up with where they were. Lighthouse, underwater, submarine, palace, ring of fire, Italian village, desert, caverns, trench, lost world at the center of the earth (that for some reason had breathable air)… It was amazing from a visuals perspective, but way too many places. It was distracting to the story. It was like every single animator used their final university animations exhibition piece and just jammed them all into one movie. Colourful, amazing (but unbelievable) animation, but ultimately too busy with an undeveloped story.
On the plane to Cancun I decided to watch Oceans 8…. After Oceans 11 which was AMAZING, Oceans 12 was good and Oceans 13 was meh. So I wasn’t expecting much from Oceans 8 and while there were some fun bits and what some would be satisfied with as a twist at the end, it was enjoyable but probably never watch again. Main reason it manages to pull its skirt up to get this mediocre review is that its full of pretty hot actresses, all wearing glorious ball gowns and smokey eye makeup throughout. Sandy B – as we call her, always does a great job acting, I dont think there is a film that I haven’t enjoyed her in.
There seemed to be a point made of the cast being all women and the fall guy and the mule being men. This follows a general trend in films over the last couple years to emphasize women in the industry, which I fully understand. Great films seem to have a lot of male actors starring as the lead, seeing more female leads in great films would be nice. But this film makes it as a point, literally, and somewhat feels forced. Although, not as forced as the recent Ghost Busters or the ridiculous directors decision in End Game to have all the female heros line up and charge the baddies, just to ram it home that women can kick ass too…*eye roll*. This film is all women and they all walk out at the end wearing the diamonds (spoiler alert) which makes perfect sense…. Apart from the 1 random small asian dude that does some acrobatics for about 2 mins of the film as the token male hero in the story and is then never seen again…. Even tho they have a summing up chit chat all together (to explain the plot for the hard of thinking)…. And even tho he actually did the majority of the stealing in value terms…. And he provided the plot surprise at the end of the film, making it more worth watching…
So the next film on the list was just a bit strange throughout and then finally when you think the big reveal is about to happen, it’s so barmy that you just give up and feel let down. Wild Mountain Thyme is a poetic film that bleeds awkwardness from the start, all the way thru and leaves you wondering if the main character Anthony (Jamie Dornan) is meant to be a blade of grass short of a field. Indeed, Rosemary (Emily Blunt) is also a bit off and seems to bounce from topic to topic like they are on fire. Maybe that is how rural Irish speak with each other, but it’s exhausting to follow, particularly because they do a great heavy accent that is hard for a posh southern nob like me to pick thru.
This effort made the plot hard to follow so that only after conferring amongst ourselves, did we work out… Girl likes boy, boy likes other girl, other girl spurns boy and in his embarrassment pushed girl into mud, everyone grows up and girl now owns strip of land where she was pushed, making it awkward to get to boys farm, boy bit of loner and not likely to wed and produce heir, father of boy wants to keep farm in family so thinks about bequeathing it to american cousin, girl and boy have lots of awkward interactions, father decides to let boy inherit just before he dies, boy and girl have more awkward interactions but eventually get together after boy reveals big secret (which is shit) for which he was spurned, boy and girl are together and keep farm in family, THE END.
It’s sort of interesting to see the characters develop thru the film, but it’s all leading up to this secret. He keeps pushing her away to the point where its so awkward and blunt she flat out asks if hes gay. Finally when it’s revealed (I’m not going to say what it is here so you have to endure it too) it just makes you wonder what the fuss was about and why they bothered making a film about it. Overall, the language used and rural Irish-ness showcased was interesting and enjoyable, the story would have been great, except for the let down secret.
Lastly and, while not a serious film, certainly enjoyable, was Monster In Law. Where a hysterical older TV hostess Viola Fields (Jane Fonda) has been let go from her talk show and finds out her beloved son Dr. Kevin Fields (Michael Vartan) has “settled” for a substandard marital partner in Charlie (Jenifer Lopez) who temps in so many jobs she has no career. Viola now has the time to get in the mix and try to drive her, soon to be daughter in law, crazy in the hope to end the marriage before it begins and this film is about all the antics that ensue.
We didn’t finish watching this one but the film had gotten to the height of drama as the deceits were being exposed and threats to tell the – stuck in the middle – son what was going on. The acting was easy, the scenes were easy and fun and the scenarios are the natural exaggeration of the worst fears of any bride to be in a disaster movie. While not spectacular acting, it’s not meant to be and you can relax into the easy comedy.
We didn’t watch all of these films in one sitting, it was over a couple days but the reason we only watched half of Monster in Law is because we had a power cut! Not only are we going on holiday tomorrow, and have had to move ALL our stuff from upstairs to downstairs, ready for decoration, but now we had a power cut. A bit of calling Western Power and looking out the window told us it was basically only our little road that was dead so I went and got the candles set up. It was very romantic snuggling up in the dark until I realised that this meant we didn’t have any power to run the boiler… maybe I’d have to get the log burner going… the log burner in front of which was stacked up all our belongings….