movies

Review: Transsiberian

Posted on by grahams

The Independent Film Festival of Boston opened yesterday at the Somerville Theatre with the new Brad Anderson film “Transsiberian”. Anderson has a pretty good record so far, with Next Stop Wonderland, Session 9, and The Machinist, so I was rather excited to see his new work.

Transsiberian follows Jessie (Emily Mortimer) and Roy (Woody Harrelson) as they return from an aid mission in China. Roy, as a huge train nerd, wants to take his wife on a bit of an adventure, so they take the Transsiberian railway from China to Moscow. They share a cabin with Carlos (Eduardo Noriega) and Abby (Kate Mara), a couple who appears to have some secrets. As you may guess, some bad things ensue during this week-long journey.

The previous paragraph sounds makes this film sound cookie-cutter, but I’m happy to report that every time I felt I had the movie figured out it threw me a great curve ball. There were times where I felt the pace bog down a bit, but just as I started to think about it I would get surprised by a twist. These twists didn’t feel contrived, they weren’t bricks over the head, they were subtle surprises that drew you further into the story.

The movie wasn’t perfect, but it was really good. Mortimer was clearly the star, and she delivered a fantastic performance. The supporting actors were all solid as well, although Harrelson’s character was more of a caricature, being the comic relief in a rather serious film.. Unfortunately, his levity felt shoehorned in at times… When the film ended, my first instinct was that it needed about 10 minutes trimmed, but I think this was a kneejerk reaction. In all reality, if it weren’t for the moments of feeling slightly bogged down, I don’t think the payoff of the twists would have felt as special.

After the film, the director, co-writer, and Sir Ben Kingsley himself did a very nice Q&A session, even in the face of some rather rude audience members who were talking over them and getting up and leaving en masse mid sentence. But the three of them gave pretty good, considered answers to all of the questions asked.

Independent Film Festival of Boston 2008

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Here’s what I’m seeing this year at the Independent Film Festival of Boston

Catching up

Posted on by grahams

My birthday was bad-ass, really went above-and-beyond to make me feel like my birthday lasted forever. She had already gotten me Rock Band earlier in the month, which we’ve been playing the hell out of. She also threw me a killer birthday party, where a bunch of people joined us for a bit of the game as well as the final “Greatest Action Movie Showdown of All Time” between “Die Hard” and “The Bourne Identity”. Coco has maintained for quite some time that Bourne was superior, but we all know the truth. I think everyone had a blast.

On my birthday, Corinna got me yet another birthday present, a Japanese Peace Lily. Admittedly, I was unable to identify the plant on my own, but as soon as she clued me in I started dying. I got a bunch of other gifts as well, including a meat manual and a few more seasons of South Park from the fam.

Other than that, the baseball season has finally fired up. The Sox opened the season in Tokyo a week ago, which meant for very early games here in the States, 6am. To help celebrate the Great Day, I woke up at 4:45am and whipped up 40-sum pancakes (from scratch) and 3.5 lbs of delicious bacon. 10-12 people joined us in watching the Sox win. Afterwards there was Rock Band to be played and we took a trip to Kelly’s Roast Beef for the goodness. Sorry if I wasn’t able to invite you, but our living room is only so big and it was tough enough managing three electric griddles…. I was pretty much at the limit of my pancake fabrication abilities (18 pancakes at a time).

Tomorrow I’m heading out to Austin for the nuptials of Nate and Lilly. I’ve never been to Austin before, and I’m expecting it will be more enjoyable than that of my other trips to Texas.

2007 Films in Review

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The Movies I Saw in 2007

Posted on by grahams

I have no idea how I am going to compile the “best of” list, given how many great movies came through this year.. As you can see, the new TV greatly increased the number of movies I watched at home from the past few years.

Over the next few weeks I’ll try to catch up with some of the movies I missed in 2007 and then post my “best of”.

The list is pretty much in the order I saw the pictures, and I tried to italicize films I had previously viewed.

Theatre:

  1. Children of Men
  2. Pan’s Labyrinth
  3. Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple
  4. Letters from Iwo Jima
  5. Smokin’ Aces
  6. Hannibal Rising
  7. An Unreasonable Man
  8. Zodiac
  9. 300
  10. The Host
  11. Hot Fuzz (2x)
  12. Les Ordres
  13. Grindhouse (2x)
  14. Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theatres
  15. Black Book (Zwartboek)
  16. Fay Grim
  17. The King of Kong
  18. Fido
  19. Rabbit
  20. Black Sheep
  21. Death Trike
  22. Monster Camp
  23. Spider-man 3
  24. 28 Weeks Later
  25. Incubo sulla città contaminata (a.k.a. Nightmare City)
  26. The Return of the Living Dead
  27. Sleuth (1972)
  28. Severance
  29. Crazy Love
  30. 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama
  31. Live Free or Die Hard
  32. Sicko
  33. Transformers
  34. Frownland
  35. Talk to Me
  36. Sunshine
  37. Interview
  38. The Simpsons Movie
  39. The Bourne Ultimatum
  40. The Ten
  41. Summercamp!
  42. Naked Lunch
  43. The Omega Man
  44. Superbad
  45. TRON
  46. Halloween (2007)
  47. 3:10 to Yuma (2007)
  48. The Rape of Europa
  49. 30 Days of Night
  50. Elizabeth: The Golden Age
  51. American Gangster
  52. No Country for Old Men
  53. Blade Runner
  54. Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead
  55. I’m Not There
  56. In Bruges
  57. The Golden Compass
  58. Lars and the Real Girl
  59. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Video:

  1. Clerks.
  2. Sssssss
  3. Mr. & Mrs. Smith
  4. Goodfellas
  5. Haiku Tunnel
  6. Heavy: The Story of Metal
  7. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
  8. Un Chien Andalou
  9. Tzameti (13)
  10. Cannibal Holocaust
  11. Oldboy
  12. The Evil Dead
  13. Evil Dead II
  14. Marjoe
  15. The Proposition
  16. The U.S. vs. John Lennon
  17. Moog
  18. Crónicas
  19. Marie Antoinette
  20. Hostel
  21. Getting Away with Murder
  22. The Hills Have Eyes
  23. Ghosts of the Abyss
  24. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
  25. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones
  26. Batman
  27. Superman Returns
  28. Serenity
  29. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith
  30. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope
  31. War Dancing (a.k.a. Dance to Win)
  32. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back
  33. Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi
  34. Hustle & Flow
  35. Fright Night
  36. Batman Begins
  37. Lord of War
  38. Red Eye
  39. The Nomi Song
  40. Beerfest
  41. All the President’s Men
  42. Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out
  43. Midnight Movies: From the Margin to the Mainstream
  44. The Bourne Identity
  45. Aliens
  46. The Omen (2006)
  47. Blow Dry
  48. Transporter 2
  49. Rize
  50. Apt Pupil
  51. District B13
  52. When Stand Up Stood Out
  53. Coffy
  54. Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III
  55. Patriot Act: A Jeffrey Ross Home Movie
  56. Halloween (1978)
  57. Poseidon
  58. The Queen
  59. Mission: Impossible III
  60. The Conversation
  61. Cars
  62. Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
  63. The Departed
  64. Henry Fool
  65. The Call of Cthulhu
  66. Damien: Omen II
  67. Fast Food Nation
  68. For Your Consideration
  69. The Iron Wall
  70. Volver
  71. Click
  72. Hard Candy
  73. Up for Grabs (2004)
  74. Kurtlar vadisi – Irak
  75. Slither
  76. The Meaning of Life
  77. Crash
  78. Jesus Camp
  79. Times Square
  80. This Filthy World
  81. Stranger Than Fiction
  82. Darkon
  83. Word Wars
  84. Ronin
  85. Redacted
  86. Primeval
  87. The Illusionist
  88. Closing Escrow
  89. Idiocracy
  90. Beer League
  91. Henry Rollins: Uncut from NYC
  92. Jackass Number Two
  93. The Birds
  94. Cocaine Cowboys
  95. Krieger und die Kaiserin, Der (The Princess and the Warrior)
  96. Children of Men
  97. A Smoky Mountain Christmas
  98. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation
  99. La Vie en Rose
  100. Amazing Grace

Review: In Bruges

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Last week I had the opportunity to attend a very-advance screening of next year’s “In Bruges”, which comes out in March.  I knew almost nothing about the film going into it, other than it co-starred Colin Farrell, which is never a good sign for me.  But I fell in love with this dark comedy within the first 5 minutes.  The story follows two hired killers as they lie low in Bruges, Belgium after a particularly high-profile hit.  Ken, played by “That Guy” Brendan Gleeson plays Ken is making the most of this unexpected Belgian holiday, even if Farrell’s Ray is completely bored and itching to return to London.  With no desire to give away the plot, let’s just say that things don’t go according to plan…

Any dark crime comedy has it’s share of hijinx, double crosses, and surprises, and often these can feel formulaic.  The plot of In Bruges seemed fresh and engaging, rarely evoking the “how many times have I seen this before?” sentiment.  If I had to pick one criticism of the film, it was that there were some ShakyCam shots early on that were a bit annoying, but after the first minute or two I stopped noticing.  We were sitting rather close in the theatre, as well, which may have contributed to the discomfort.