Couch Potato

This past weekend Julie went to her parents’ house for the weekend so she could spend some time with her niece, and I was left in the middle of New Jersey with nothing to do but watch movies. Please note this is not a complaint. After she left on Saturday I watched

Before Sunset - I love Before Sunrise. What a romantic movie! And I’ve never forgotten Celine’s realization that most men—regardless of their age—tend to picture themselves as teenagers, while most women picture themselves as older than they are. Is this a universal truth or just bullshit? I don’t know, but I do know that when I picture myself, I see myself as I was in high school and college, not as I am now. Anyway, although Before Sunset made me realize just how much Ethan Hawke has aged in the past decade, I still loved it. I was particularly fond of the My Dinner with Andre-type “real time” format, which particularly suited this film because it allowed us to follow these two characters from their initial “Hey, great to see you again! How are you?” artificiality to their “Oh, god—our lives could have been so much different!” despair. And I loved the ending. If you like movies in which nothing much happens (in the physical sense) but a lot is said, I can’t recommend Before Sunset (and, I suppose it goes without saying, Before Sunrise too) enough. Not only is it a great movie, it’s also probably the most unusual movie sequel you’ll ever see.

Cellular - Better than I thought it would be, but not as good as it could’ve been. Nonetheless, I liked it a lot. So it turns out that Chris Evans, who was great as the Human Torch in the otherwise forgettable Fantastic Four, is a better actor than just about any other Paul Walker/Ben Affleck/Keanu Reeves/Josh Hartnett-type actor in Hollywood. Not high praise, I realize, but still. Kim Basinger, on the other hand, was as bad as ever, and honestly, when Evans’s character had to make the choice of either believing Basinger’s character (who reached him randomly on the phone and told him she’d been kidnapped) or not, I’m surprised he didn’t hang up on her—because even though I knew that, in the context of the movie, she really had been kidnapped, she didn’t sound at all convincing. Hard to believe this woman won an Oscar for a dramatic performance.

Noises Off... - I suspect that the original stage version of this “backstage drama” was much better than the movie. That said, I did enjoy it. Though I am usually a big fan of John Ritter, his performance wasn’t anything spectacular. Christopher Reeve, on the other hand, had surprisingly good comic timing. But Denholm “he once got lost in his own museum” Elliott stole the show as the hard-of-hearing drunkard. And of course Michael Caine could read a grocery list and I’d find him charming. I’d be hard-pressed to recommend this movie, but I will say that one scene (in which multiple actors stumbled onto the stage playing the exact same character) had me laughing out loud in rapid-fire succession, and that alone made it all worthwhile to me.

Love Actually - Ah, romance. I could swear I’d seen this movie once before, when it was called Playing by Heart, but I suppose there’s one big difference: Playing by Heart was filled with American actors and Love Actually was full of British ones. See? Totally different! But I jest. It was a dippy romantic movie and I love dippy romantic movies. Witness the angst of the guy who’s in love his best friend’s wife! The sweetness of the guy who learns Portuguese so he can ask his non-English-speaking maid to marry him! The pain of the guy who flirts with his hot secretary as his wife commits herself to the fact that her husband is a hopeless bastard! The humor of the two film star stand-ins who spend all day naked, simulating sex with each other, and who finally have their first date and a very awkward kiss (in fact, if I had a serious opinion about this movie, it would be that this particular storyline should’ve been longer, because Martin “The Office” Freeman is awesome; even if I did have to see him naked). The stories didn’t come together in the end nearly as satisfyingly as the stories in Playing by Heart did, but—oh, hell, who cares? If you’re a romantic sap like me, then this is the movie for you.

On Sunday I woke up at 7:30 to take an hour-long bike ride, just so I wouldn’t feel guilty about spending the rest of the day sitting on my ass. Around 9:00 I had taken up my post in front of the TV and began with

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World - This movie was totally nautical, and totally long. My dad would love it. Probably. He’s a huge fan of this kind of crap, loves the O’Brian novels on which this movie is based, and has the entire A&E series Horatio Hornblower on DVD. Or at least he should have it on DVD—he certainly loved it enough.... Anyway, I was kind of “eh” about the whole thing. Russell Crowe is a thug, and I suppose I just couldn’t get past that. I like Paul Bettany well enough but his sideburns looked ridiculous. Kind of like Matthew Broderick’s mustache in Glory. But the sea battles were cool, Captain Aubrey’s surly, muttering steward was hilarious, and there wasn’t too much blood flying around. And that’s that.

Velvet Goldmine - This was the only truly terrible movie I watched all weekend. I was expecting a kind of Almost Famous for the glam rock set, but instead I got some kind of stupid “mystery” surrounding a fictional pseudo-David Bowie character and almost none of the excitement that surrounded the glam rock culture of the late ’60s and early ’70s. There’s no doubt that Jonathan Rhys Meyers is the prettiest man alive, but he has none of the androgynous mystique of David Bowie circa 1972. He seemed more like Syd Barrett circa 1966 (not a bad thing, mind you, but certainly not appropriate to this movie’s subject matter). And Ewan McGregor as Iggy Pop? I don’t think so. As Lloyd Bentsen said to Dan Quayle, “You, sir, are no John F. Kennedy.” Also, what was with the whole “Oscar Wilde/dropped on earth by a UFO” bullshit? This movie was too pretentious for its own good! I think it’s safe to say that I hated this movie.

The Transporter - Luc Besson contributed to the screenplay, so that was enough for me. It’s weird that I would watch two movies starring Jason Statham in one weekend, though. I swear that wasn’t on purpose. And yet, the one thing I took away from watching The Transporter is this: “Hey, Jason Statham looks really good in a suit!”

Free Enterprise - I’m happy to report that watching this movie was in no way like looking in a mirror. I’m a hopeless nerd, yes, but not that much of a hopeless nerd. I don’t even really like the original Star Trek that much. Next Generation all the way! And the filmmakers’ assumption (albeit facetious) that they are the only two people on earth who remember Logan’s Run is totally insulting. That’s a great movie!

Blue Car - Although I was completely alone in my apartment while watching this movie, I yelled “Inappropriate!” at my TV screen no fewer than three times. This movie was disappointingly predictable. But the scene in which Meg sneaks a peek at her writing teacher’s supposed “novel” cut me like a knife. My life has been wasted! (sob!)

Primer: What Happens If It Actually Works? - If Velvet Goldmine wins the “worst movie of the weekend” award, then Primer wins the “huh?” award. As god is my witness, I have no idea what happened in the last 20 minutes of this movie. This bothers me because no movie has ever confused me as much as this one did. And I’m a fan of David Lynch! If anyone out there loved this movie (or even just knows what the fuck happened), please let me know because I have a shitload of questions for you—some technical, some plot-related. All confusing. Hell, I don’t even know if I’ll be able to phrase them properly! But I’ll tell you one thing: I don’t know if it’s because this was the last movie of the day before I went to sleep, but I suddenly became very jumpy when I turned off all the lights in my apartment. It wasn’t until I lay in my bed in complete darkness that I realized the movie had unsettled me quite a bit. And I’m not even sure what was going on in the last several scenes! Sigh. I feel stupid.

Other Movies I Wanted to See but Didn’t Have Time For:
The Interpreter
The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
The Transporter 2
The Tenant
Withnail and I
Derailed
The Squid and the Whale

Join me next week when I bore you with yet more pointless reviews of films that are several years old, and further prove that I don't really have much of a life!

Or better yet, don’t.