Brokeback Mountain – On or first night on vacation, this happened to be playing on HBO, which we got for free, so we decided to watch it only because it was there. My only reason for not seeing it before then was kind of as a response to everyone and their brother saying how good it was for so long. So my take is this – great scenery and shooting, but the story left a little to be desired. I came away from it with the feeling that it was only made because of the taboo nature of having two rugged individuals that also happen to be gay. While there is no full frontal, I wasn’t expecting the scenes to be as frank as they were. I guess they’re convincing as such, but I’m no authority on the manner. So I thought the scenery was great, the acting ranged from very good (Ledger) to plain capable (everyone else). But feeling like it was a forced story only motivates me to give it a 4 of 10 which is just ok.
America: Freedom to Fascism – I wrote about this briefly once I saw the preview many months ago. This film is a documentary whose premise is that there is no specific law that requires Americans to pay income tax. The first 30 minutes is convincing, but after that it becomes just plain annoying. The wife did some on the fly legal research, and some of the foundations of the documentary seemed to over inflate their points only to serve their purpose in making this documentary. However, after seeing the movie, I do not have a clear answer of the main premise. I have no idea if there is a specific law that requires a tax on income. Definitions of terms by the government don’t make sense, and according to many in the film, numerous requests by many to the IRS and other lawmakers to point out the specific law requiring income tax have been ignored. As a topic, this is interesting, but would be better served as a Frontline production or better throughout miniseries. Without a better case, I’m not going to stop paying my taxes. So in the end this is not a good film at all hence a 3 of 10.
Idiocracy – Office Space is one of the best indie movies of the past few decades. And while I’ve never been a fan of Mike Judge’s other projects (Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill), Office Space is more than good enough to give any Judge project a chance. So I waited with much anticipation to see this, and I’m walking away with mixed feelings. Great concept, and some very funny parts to it – but I felt it was a little disjointed from time to time with more not so funny parts than I’d hoped. However, I do think that this may have legs, so I’ll come back to it again in the future to see if it gets better with time. I do applaud the idea that in the future Starbucks will become a brothel of sorts. For now, it’s just a 4 of 10.
Now You Know – Like 90% of the people who have seen it by now, I only did so out of allegiance to Kevin Smith (who has a small cameo in the film and has been hawking it with the release of Clerks II). This is a movie written, directed, and co-starring Jeff Anderson (Randall from Clerks). The only other actors of note in the production are Jeremy Sisto and Trevor Fehrman. It has a sincere little story on the surface, but everything else about it showed why it was a low budget indie-flick. What I didn’t understand was Jeff Anderson saying around the time this was made (2002) how he didn’t want to be Randall all his life – but this movie struck me as a Kevin Smith wannabe in a bad way. A blah 3 of 10
The Wedding Date – It’s predictable, it’s stupid, it’s full of bad acting (even by Amy Adams). It was a painful 2 of 10.
This Film Is Not Yet Rated – I’ve looked forward to seeing this since I heard/read about it. It evaluates the manner in which films are “voluntarily” rated by the MPAA. It’s not only very interesting, but it has good social implications. Nothing like An Inconvenient Truth or The Fog of War, but it does have a good level of importance in reference to the place of movies in society and what impact these ratings may have. It is less about that than the examination of how the process is anything but transparent (it’s downright secretive), and very much influenced by the major studios. It gets a 6 of 10 in my book. As a side note to this movie, check out this memo from Matt Stone to the MPAA during the rating process of the South Park feature film.
Scoop – Is Johanson a new muse of Allen? While I did enjoy Match Play (very much so for a Woody Allen movie), it proved to be a fluke as Allen reverted back to his typical self with Scoop. Maybe it’s that I never liked any old Allen flick… Maybe I find them formulaic enough… Who knows… I give this a not so great 3 of ten… Take Woody Allen out of the acting role, and it’s one or even two points higher.