Movie Reviews

It's movie month at my house! We signed up for Blockbuster's movie pass for one month. We can check out two movies at a time, as many times as we want, all for the low, low price of about $30. Here's a partial review...hopefully, more to come.

10,000 B.C.

I watched this movie with the family, and we all liked it. It was a good escape, including elements such as adventure, tension, romance, etc. I especially liked its ancient setting. I felt like I was watching an episode of "Age of Empires." In the West, we forget that for most of human existence, life has been very fragile and violent, might making right, ubiquitous evil and cruelty. Although that exists in much of the world, we generally don't fear a clan of mauraders sweeping down from, say, Canada, or up from Mexico, killing, burning, raping and pillaging anything in their way. In this movie, that is exactly what the characters face. I liked it.

Vantage Point

Again, a hit. I love the intrigue of an assassination, international violence, conspiracy, plots, etc. We were all on the edge of our seats for most of the movie. I liked how the various perspectives of the movie were gradually assembled to create the full story. Well done.

Rails and Ties

A nice, warm fuzzy, feel good movie starring Kevin Bacon and Marcia Gay Harden. A train engineer's wife has terminal cancer and after some tragic events, the engineer and his wife have to care for a little boy who starts to live with them. Again, I liked it, though it was a bit syrup-y at points. It showed how people deal with pain and death and tragedy. In one particular scene, a social worker has to choose between doing what is technically legal and what is morally right. She chooses the right (which I think is unusual for social workers). Sometimes rules have to be broken to achieve a greater good.

There Will Be Blood

This movie got a lot of hype from the industry and the media, probably because it demonizes capitalism, oil companies, and Christianity. Putting all that bias aside, I still did not care for the movie. Daniel Day-Lewis is good, but the story itself did not grip me. I was repulsed by the religious hypocrisy and I was disgusted at the callous heart of Daniel Plainview, the oilman. There were points I got bored. I couldn't keep my daughter interested either. It tries to be an epic, but I don't think it succeeds.

Jumper

Yeah, not much to say here. Nice premise, but the movie did not deliver.