Theater: Knowing

Film: Knowing
Year: 2009
Director: Alex Proyas




Allie's Review
Rating: 3.5 out of 5

I thought Knowing would be everything that I love in a movie – disasters on a global scale, unexplained mysteries, creepy children... sounds awesome! Well, as much as I really wanted to love, looove, LOVE this movie, but unfortunately, it was only ok. The plot was really captivating at first. Some may say cheesy, but I'm flexible. I liked it. It kept my interest and the special effects were awesome! The disasters scenes were really intense. As the mystery unraveled, I was really wondering where things would lead to. I won't ruin the ending, but let me just say that there is something to be said for the unexplained, and no answer would have been better than a lazy or uncreative answer. Overall, good filmmaking, lame story telling.

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Jon's Review
Rating: 2.5 out of 5

When I first saw the trailer for Knowing, I told Allie it was Next meets The Davinci Code meets The Day After Tomorrow. In short, a disaster movie with a chain of disasters instead of just one (plus Nick Cage). Allie loves disaster movies (plus Nick Cage), so this comment actually worked against me. However, this film took a different route than I expected. Sometimes the dialog was corny, Nick Cage's acting was usually bad, some plot points felt rushed, but the twists at least kept me interested. I did feel that this movie (like many in recent years) explains away too much - I like a little mystery, and lately the trend in Hollywood sci-fi and fantasy is to leave no mystery at all and no question unanswered. To their credit, they were pretty thorough in that regard. The only question I had when I left the theater was "WTF?" And keep your eyes out for the biblical references. I probably missed a lot of them, but I could feel the overall tone heading that direction.

Netflix: Blindness

Film: Blindness
Year: 2008
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Whose Netflix Queue: Allie's




Allie's Review
Rating: 4 out of 5

The movie Blindness is about an outbreak of some sort of disease that causes everyone to go blind. In the beginning of the outbreak they start to quarantine people, and the leading lady (Julianne Moore) fakes blindness to be able to stay with her blind husband who is being taken away. The twist is that she doesn't end up going blind – for some reason she keeps her eyesight when everyone else looses their vision. She lives in this quarantine area, essentially a prison, with dozens of blind people, and eventually all hell breaks loose. I thought the movie would be more "Outbreak" style, with doctors and scientists rushing to find a cure for the disease... more of a drama/thriller. Oh was I wrong. It was a really dark, disturbing movie about survival. You'd thinking being the only one able to see would be a blessing, but it turns out to be more of a curse. There are several twists in the movie, so I won't ruin it for potential viewers, but they were really clever plot points and great twists. One interesting point is that no one is called by their names in the movie – the movie ends and you don't know any characters names. And there were some really great moments about family and community. My only complaint is that it was a bit slow in the middle, but it picks up again and had a really great ending. Definitely check it out.


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Jon's Review
Rating: 4 out of 5

This film sounds like another 'disease-disaster' movie; i.e., "Mommy I don't feel so good" followed by "You've all been quarantined" followed by "Mr. President, if we don't find this formula, everybody will die" followed by resolution and/or apocalypse. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Blindness is not that type of film. Yes, there is an epidemic, and yes people get quarantined, but the movie focuses instead on what happens when people live in small isolated groups - first the 200 or so in quarantine, and later the small, familial group that escapes. The message was fairly clear to me, that smaller groups are more beneficial for everyone involved, while a comparatively large, semi-structureless society will inevitably fall into chaos. I liked this film because the issues explored were not what I expected, given the premise that I read about.

Jellyfish

Here is a collection of pictures from Florida of all the freakin' jellyfish we saw! All their slimy dead bodies on the beach!! Ugg... they freaked me out.






I threw this one back in the water to see what would happen.... nothing.


BLUE?!?!


These were two of the BIGGEST ones we saw. That is my sister Megan's size 7 feet between the dead jellyfish blobby bodies.


This one was still alive, but Jon wouldn't let me push it back in!!


Creepy, creepy things, jellyfish.

Florida

Sorry for the delay in posts - Jon and I were out of town for a week in Pensacola, Florida. My sister Megan had a soft ball tournament down there for a week and we thought we'd go along for the ride! We had a really good time, lots of good food, and some nice warm weather. I'll get more posts (and cool photos) up as the week goes, but here are a few photos of my sister playing ball! She's the star pitcher! :)

Netflix: Teeth

Film: Teeth
Year: 2007
Director: Mitchell Lichtenstein



Tonight we have a guest film review - my dear Ashley! She watched Teeth with us on Monday, and decided she wanted to write a review too. I was going to write a review about the flim's themes of sexuality, purity, self understanding, and women's empowerment.... Ashley simply wrote a limerick.


"There once was a girl named Dawn,
With a nuclear plant in her lawn.
A boy touched her bajingo,
Oh shit, where'd his thing go?!
Her vagina has teeth oh dear gawd!"


'Nuff said.

Dance Dance Dance

So a while back there was an awesome internet video going around... A DANCING CAT!!




Today at Hot Topic I saw an AMAZING t-shirt!! It wasn't the right sizes or I was a second away from getting it for Jon.



I am amused.

<3

Love you, Ashley.

Theater: Watchmen

Film: Watchmen
Year: 2009
Director: Zack Snyder



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Allie's Review
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Jon has been dying to see Watchmen for a while now, so we caught an early afternoon showing on opening day. I'm a consistent fan of comic book movies, thought not really comic books, so I definitely expected to enjoy Watchmen. I really, really loved it! The film's strengths were so clearly the writing and the story. I was completely captivated by the story and it didn't miss a beat the entire time. I loved that they were superheroes without real superpowers – a nice little twist the slew of superhero movies these days. There was also some very creative directing and special effects in the film – some slow-mo type of stuff.

Even though most of the movie's actors weren't big names, most everyone did solid work. They all meshed together really well and played off each other nicely. I really became invested in the characters and they were all pretty believable.

The movie also had some pretty strong themes throughout – anti-war, anti-nuclear, justice, power, right and wrong... the list goes on!

My only complaint is some of the makeup was not the best. There were a lot of scenes at different points in time and the aging makeup was a bit creepy looking.

Oh, and also, amazing soundtrack!

Overall, a really solid, well done movie.

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Jon's Review
Rating: 4.9 out of 5

I had *very* high expectations after I read the comic, and I would say this film *almost* lived up to them. It is an excellent, amazing movie, but not perfect. The comic is very complex, layered, and exciting, and so was this film. From the opening scene, I was riveted. The plot and characters of Watchmen will draw you in and keep you in suspense until the credits roll. If you haven't read the comic, you will love it. If you have read the comic, you will love it - you will notice some differences, but I believe they all worked well. There really were so many great things about this movie that I can only list a few: the casting, the cinematography, the soundtrack, the story, the interplay of the characters, and so much more. I highly recommend it to anyone who's a fan of action, romance, mystery, science fiction, cold war poitical drama... pretty much everybody. If you like movies, you'll love Watchmen. I should warn you - it's a bit long (2 hours, 43 minutes), but most great movies are.