Friday, October 22, 2010

Well this is not working in the slightest! We've fallen to the worst enemy any blogger has, real life! Between both of our jobs Annika and I have not seen any movies together, or even separately watched the same movie.

Well, except for You Again, but I don't want to talk about it. The only reason I had to see it was because of my undying loyalty to Kristen Bell and everything she does.

I don't know what she has against me that she keeps forcing me to watch chick flick movies I would never in a million years choose to watch. Thank god for Burlesque coming out soon!

The other problem is that Annika gifted me Gilmore Girls Season 1 on DVD for my birthday, which basically means she gifted herself as well. Any time we have some time to squeeze in some TV watching, it's another episode of GG. And even that we are having trouble finding time for! It's been two and a half months and we haven't even finished disc 2 yet!

One day we will get back to our film club. One day.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Our movie watching schedule

Yeah that's just a tease, cause we don't have one! As you can probably tell by the fact that we watched one movie two weeks ago and haven't posted since.

We are probably going to settle into one a week, but Annika and I were both crazy busy last week with Fan Expo, representing each Mind's Eye the webseries and Polaris the convention.

Hopefully we can watch something again soon. I think we've scheduled Body of Lies as our next film. Watch with us and chime in once we post our thoughts!

Candice's Personal Challenge

I've been blogging about my personal challenge a bit on my LiveJournal and my Facebook, so why not here as well!

Besides the film club that Annika and I have started I also set myself a personal challenge last month to watch every movie we have in the house. Since then I've created a couple of exceptions. One, I don't have to watch the same movie each time I come across multiple copies. And two, if I've watched the movie within the last 10 months I don't have to rewatch it (unless I want to). Why 10 months? Well that's because I watched the first 3 Saw movies around Christmas time and really don't want to watch them again.

So I'll mark my progress here and if Annika feels like she wants to chime in on any of the movies in my challenge she will. We will probably watch some of them as part of our club as well, cause really I only have 24 hours in a day!

The first month of watching is here, in short form:

Unforgiven - very good, love Clint Eastwood as a director, but it took me time to quit rebelling against my dad and saying I hate Eastwood.

Bill Cosby Himself - super funny, made me want to watch old Cosby show episodes, loved his bit about people drinking and how most of the way through his joke he reminds us that these drinkers started the night "deserving" this night out.

Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare - God awful, totally dated, have you even seen Breckin Meyer's hair in this? And Worst. Kill. Ever. Freddy plays a video game?

Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master - had to wash my brain of the awful Freddy's Dead and so chose to watch a much better part of the series. I will go back and watch other ones throughout the next however long it takes me to get through every movie in the house, but I'd seen almost all the other ones pretty recently so this was the one I chose to watch.

Back to the Future 1, 2 & 3 - I was super excited to see this set on the shelf once I really started looking. That is until I started watching numbers 2 and 3. I know other people enjoy those movies, and I've heard some even say they prefer the sequels, but it took me days to get through them. They just didn't keep my interest and I kept drifting to doing other things while they were on.

Catch Me If You Can - released at the height of my "I can't stand watching one more Leo movie" and corresponding with my ongoing "I can't stand watching one more Tom Hanks movie" . Even though I loved Leo as a young actor and enjoy him quite a bit as a seasoned adult actor, he was all over the place for a few years and you couldn't have paid me to watch one of his movies, and that's exactly how I still feel about Tom Hanks. It has nothing to do with whether or not they are good actors, or the movie is any good or anything, it's just the hype that makes me feel ill. I enjoyed the movie immensely and may have more to say about it later, but still would not have watched it without my promise to myself. Now if only I can keep it when it comes time to watch Road to Perdition.

Spiderman 1, 2 & 3 - the first film is still incredibly watchable and even though I put it on in the background while reading marketing books for work I was still caught up in watching it. The second and third films are not as watchable. The second one took me three viewings to make it through to the end, and the third about the same number. James Franco and JK Simmons continue to be the best parts of the entire series. James Franco is just about the only watchable part of number 3 and I love his role so much in that one I would almost purchase it so I can watch him over and over again. Topher Grace is also great as Eddie Brock, I just love Topher and I really wish he had a better film to be a part of. I look forward to the day I pick up the house copy of In Good Company to watch since I haven't seen it yet.

Monday, August 23, 2010

The Informant

 I haven´t read the book, like Candice has so I have no comparison moment. I would rate it 7 out of 10. I never got bored throughout the movie. When it was over it felt like it just started. I was sucked into it the whole time! I didn´t mind the ending either. I recommend it to everyone! I am not a big fan of Matt Damon, but he was pretty okey in that one.


Here you go - my short opinion.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

The Informant

We watched our first movie this week, Steven Soderbergh's The Informant.

I have mixed feelings about this film. I dislike Matt Damon with a passion, and try to not watch his movies since I find seeing him onscreen makes me want to look away. I first heard of this movie at last year's TIFF, and watched the press conference, as I do for every movie whether I want to see it or not.

I was surprised to find it was actually based on the book The Informant by Kurt Eichenwald which I had read 3 or 4 years earlier and loved. And because I enjoyed the book so much I wanted to see the film.

I wasn't disappointed by the movie, and I went into it knowing that it was pretty much done with a dark comedy feel which is very unlike the book. But I guess because I feel very strongly about the food industry and big agri-business and their incredibly immoral behaviour concerning their customers, I was disappointed that the massive illegality of what ADM was doing was pretty much glossed over in the film. And because I feel very strongly about mental illness and bi-polar disorder, I was disappointed that the fact of Mark Whitacre's illness and how it may or may not have affected his choices was also glossed over.

I guess I feel like the actual subject of this true story was pushed aside to show only the facts, if that makes sense. It's sort of like it was more of an account of the details with no backstory or character exploration or even explanation of the law and the breaking of it.

It's been two days since I watched it and the movie is slipping out of my mind faster than usual.

On a scale of 1 - 10 I give this movie a 6. It was not bad, just about average, Scott Bakula was great but under used, and why was Joel McHale even in it if they were just going to stand him there like scenery?

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Exciting !!!!

Now this is Annika speaking. As Candice was saying we are going to have discussions about the movies we watch. English is not my first or second language but I have slowly mastered it to the level that I should be able to say what I want to say!

And one thing about me and movies - sometimes I have nothing to say. Its either a Yay or a Ney :)

Annika

What are we going to talk about?

While I'm sure we can both talk about films for hours on end, without any prompting, to keep our discussions from being completely insight free, here is a growing list of discussion points to keep in mind.

How was the acting?
How did we feel about the dialogue?
What was the general theme of the film?
Did the score enhance or take away from the film?
Pet peeves in sound editing, continuity?
Was the ending good?
Any great shots?