Caught an advance screening tonight.

I’ve never seen the stage production of Sweeny Todd…but I really, really liked the movie. Burton is an amazing director. Bloody as hell, but in an artful way, if that makes sense…

I spent the first 30 minutes thoroughly confused… I spent the beginning of the second act almost bored… I spent the last half of the movie fascinated at the portrayal of the story. I loved the storytelling more than I loved the story. The process of telling the story, from the editing to the timeline, made such interesting comments on the impact of perspective and the delicate nature of reality.

Got a chance to see this last night. As someone that’s familiar but by no means well-versed in the Cohens, I really enjoyed the effective mix of quirkiness and building tension, from which we never got a traditional satisfactory release, but in this case, that’s a good thing.
I respond pretty strongly to suspenseful movies, and I was absolutely terrified during this one. I was jumping nearly out of my seat, not because it was startling, but because of the lack of music, the amazing lighting, and the slow but consistent build of tension.

I saw this tonight at an advanced screening. I was not very engaged for the first third of the movie, but after that I really got into it. There were parts that I thought could have been done better, but by the end I really was enjoying it. I appreciate movies that don’t leave you with an easy answer.

I saw this film as part of the Seattle International Film Festival. Steve Buscemi was at the screening to introduce the film and do a q&a afterwards. Frankly, it was a pretty amazing film. What I loved about it was how huge it could be while being so small. I mean, the majority of the film was just Steve Buscemi and Sienna Miller in an apartment talking to each other, yet the story and the action were still captivating. I liked the fact that the Sienna Miller character wasn’t a direct mockery of any particular individual in current pop culture, but rather a conglomeration of many individuals such as Paris Hilton, Carrie Bradshaw/Sarah Jessica Parker, etc. I didn’t see the twist at the end coming, but I’m the type that doesn’t try and figure them out, so I never see it coming. :)

I would highly recommend seeing this film if/when you can. And I’m sure when it comes to DVD it’ll have a lot of fun extras about the original Theo van Gogh film.

I caught an advanced screening yesterday of Fracture and really enjoyed it. The story is a bit by the book, but the cinematography was really beautiful and Ryan Gosling rocks. :)

A personal recommendation: Watch the director’s cut. It was so good! It clocks in at 3 hours, but it’s completely worth it. I cried through the entire last hour. So good!

Good movie. That enough info?

I love Ed Norton, a lot. I think he is so talented. Naomi Watts is also coming up to be pretty high on my list of actors who I love. I enjoyed this movie and the relationship it portrays.

Like most movies adapted from books, I found that the timeline was a bit unclear. I thought that time was passing faster than it actually was, so I was a bit confused with the events at the end. Eventually I figured it out, though, that they’d been in China for less time than I had thought.

The scenery was beautiful. I really enjoyed that. I had seen an interview with Ed Norton on Sunday Morning Shoot Out in which he discussed how in order to film in the areas of China that they were in, they had to collaborate with the Chinese government, which of course implied that the government could have final say about what was depicted about their country in the movie. I found myself thinking during the movie about the balance between wanting to have the beautiful scenery that I feel the movie would be less impacting without, and willingly giving over some piece of your artistic license as a film maker.

So…the movie itself was okay. I don’t think it was put together the best, parts of the story could have used more development. I mark it worth seeing, however, and would continue to do so even if it was a 10 minute movie that just featured Jennifer Hudson singing “You’re Gonna Love Me”. That was stunning and well-worth the price of admission in itself.

As I watched the movie, I was thinking about the fact that doing this movie was a pretty ballsy move for Beyonce. Now, I cannot stand most any noise that comes out of Beyonce’s mouth, I find her music since starting her solo career horribly annoying. But I can’t help but respect her being willing to be in a singing role where she is upstaged by an actor coming from American Idol. It is true that Beyonce and Jennifer Hudson have wildly different styles, and Beyonce’s song later in the movie is good…but Jennifer Hudson is absolutely stunning.

The funniest, and most annoying, thing about my Dreamgirls experience was the audience… I saw it Christmas, so opening night at a 9pm showing. I think that about 10% of the audience I saw it with knew coming in that it was a musical. I will acknowledge that I’m in Anchorage, AK right now, and we are far, far away from any pop culture knowledge, but I had somehow managed to become aware of the fact that this movie was based on a Broadway production (thanks Oprah!). So I was prepared…unlike about half of the audience who burst out laughing at the beginning and end of every musical scene. That was really annoying.

But all in all it was a good movie, and a fun thing to see for Christmas.