Just left Jackass 3-D. Let me clean up the vomit and I'll blog about it later.

Visiting Penn State with my wonderful girlfriend! We went to the campus theater and saw Children of Men. Review to follow.

Movie #31 The Secret of Kells

Great night tonight.  I snuck out of work after only 10 hours.  Pick up the kiddos and headed home.  Usually Tuesdays night are reserved for our house famous tacos.  Taco Tuesday as is has titled.  Tonight however I didn't feel like going to the grocery store so we made spaghetti.  The three of us all chipped in and made a wonderful diner with homemade sauce, and garlic cheesy bread.  It was delicious.  Again normally we watch reruns of The Office. That is unless it is American Idol time, then the whole schedule changes.  Tonight though there were baseball playoffs on instead of The Office.  I scanned the channels and there was nothing on.  I looked at my DVR'ed shows and there was barely a movie made after 1948 on there.  Now I much as I would have liked to sit and watch "The Third Man" or "The Big Sleep" or "His Girl Friday" I didn't think those would be a big hit with my tween daughters.

Then I remembered that I had added the 2009 animated Irish film "The Secret of Kells" to my Netflix queue.  This film was nominated for Best Animated Film at the 2010 Oscars.  I had heard great buzz about it and was waiting for an opportunity to watch it with the kids.  I really enjoyed it.

The story is that of a young monk living in a city where the Abbot is having a wall built around the city to protect it from the marauding vikings from the north.  The junior monk, Brendan, has never been outside the city walls.  The construction is interrupted by a visit from a monk named Adian.  He visits from a far away land that was destroyed by the vikings.  He carries with him a magical book that Brendan can not get his mind off of.  Where the Abbot who is also Brendan's uncle is a strict disciplinarian, Adian is older and encourages Brendan to explore and imagine.  Brendan sneaks out from the walls into the surrounding forest.  There he meets a young girl that may be a fairy. 

This film is a wonder to behold.  It was created using traditional animation.  Not computers.  The imagery and use of space in this movie is like nothing I can remember.  The story is totally original.  It felt like it could have been an ancient tale passed down through generations.  The skill of the animation as a tool to tell the story is where I was most impressed.  The scenes in the forest, the scenes were the threat of danger is discussed and the scene in the dark place are all so well executed.   It reminded me of the films of Studio Ghibli.  Think of the way Miyazaki uses space and time in an animated frame.  There are no limits.  The Secret of Kells is like an Irish version of that. 

The good news is that both kids seemed to enjoy the film.  I would say quite a bit more that the movie we watched the other day "Secretariat".  My youngest asked all kinds of questions after the film about how cartoons are made.  I also love it when a story (movie) talks about other storytellers.  It always feels so personal.  I gave The Secret of Kells 4/5 stars.  Check out the link below for the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMPhHTtKZ8Q

Movie #30 The Town

This is the second time I have watched the town.  I wanted to blog about it again because this time I took my father and step mother to the show.  My dad generally liked it.  He likes a little more action in his heist films than this movies provides, but over all he enjoyed it.  My step mom didn't make it though the film.  She has a high sensitivity to profanity.  I didn't even realize that the movie had an excessive amount.  And I had seen it before.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  It is an R rated film about bank robbers in South Boston.  That isn't exactly Sesame Street.  I just thought I might warn anyone that if they do get an allergic reaction to sex, violence or language then The Town might not be for them.

For those of us that can't get enough sex, violence or cursing, and those who enjoy suspenseful well shot action scenes and great performances The Town is a solid film.

Hard to believe these guys kiss their mothers with those mouths.  I mean except the one who's ma was a coked out whore who hung herself with a clothes hanger.

Movie #29 Secretariat

I took the kiddos to the theater this weekend.  At first glance it appeared that there was nothing new out this week and surely nothing as eye catching as last weeks The Social Network and Let Me In.  I wasn't entirely right, but I wasn't entirely wrong either.

Secretariat is based on the true story of the last horse to win the triple crown and the family that raised him.  The movie starts off as pretentious as it is preachy.  I though after 5 minutes that this looks like the perfect place to take an $8.00 nap.  It does come around.  The movie is largely saved by the performance of John Malkovich.  He plays an eccentric trainer attempting retirement.  he is brought on board by the female owner of the horse Penney Chenery (played by Diane Lane).  Penney is the no-nonsense matriarch of the family after her mother dies in the opening minutes of the film.  Malkovich is the only one in the picture that keeps his performance in check.  All the other characters by WAY too far at least once in a while.

This is a films as much about old, white money and it is horse racing.  A topic that I do not find all that interesting.  I like listening to rich white people bicker about weather or not to sell a seven million dollar horse for a mere six million dollars about as much as I like listening to 20 somethings complain that their parents are trying to control them. 

This movie is not a total bust however.  I have to give it credit.  Sports movies, by their nature, are inherently dramatic.  The sport aspect assures that.  Who will win?  The good team that worked had, paid its dues, learned from its mistakes?  Or the bad guys that cheat, take performance enhancing drugs, expect to have things handed to them.  Hoosiers, Rudy, Rocky, and The Karate Kid all quickly come to mind.  Secretariat manages to infuse excitement and drama into a story where I already knew the ending.  I know the horse wins all three races.

The film is extremely sappy though.  It is a Disney production and they seem to still abide to the Hayes Code of the 40's & 50's.  Not bad deed is left unpunished.  They introduce a ridiculous character in the final act to be Secretariat's nemesis.  He plays the rival loud mouth trainer.

Except Malkovich (who was as good as I have seen him in a while) all the performances struggle.  There would be a great drinking game in this movie.  When Miss Chenery finishes a conversation with Mr Chenery and he doesn't say anything, take a shot.  You would be plastered half way through.  I really began to laugh at it.  The actors and directors are mostly to blame for the performances, but the script didn't give them much to work with.  In particular I like how they almost halfway try to work in this 60's hippie vibe using one of the Chenery daughters as a catalyst.  That is until they realize that the hippies were dirty, drug using, protesters.  Disney isn't going to show that.  So they give us the hippie movement by way of the Brady Bunch.  Comicial. 

My kids did seem to enjoy their selves and it had enough moments to keep me awake the entire time so I didn't hate this movie.  I will give it a 2/5 stars and hope that Malkovick continues on this path.  But I have seen the trailer for R.E.D.  Check out the link below for the Secretariat trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKmuvjL2cVw

Movie #28 King Corn

I caught an interesting documentary tonight.  King Corn.  The premise  is two college guys from Boston movie to Iowa to raise an then follow though the food chain an acre of corn.  Sounds simple enough.  What they discovered however is not so cut and dry.

This is a solid documentary.  It is clear that the production budget was low, but that doesn't mean that the film looks amateurish.  My beef with the picture is that I think the film makers play dumb a little too often.  They are the surrogate for the audience, and it is a bit of a slap in the face to think that Americans don't know some if the basic farming staples.  At first I thought i might know some of this because I was raised and currently live in the "corn belt".  But for example are we really that surprised that corn is planted, protected from bugs, fertilized and harvested by large tractors and combines?  Compared to the traditional way of farming by hand or with long forgotten farming tools.  I could have done with a little less of the soft sell. 

What these two guys did find out was fascinating. Things like farmers used to be paid by the government NOT to produce on all their land.  This way the demand was high and then the selling cost of grains would also be high.  Currently farmers are encouraged to grow as much as possible and they are given a bunch of subsidies to counter balance the low cost of grain.  Also, most of the corn grown in Iowa (millions of acres) are not immediately consumable by humans.  90% of the corn grown in Iowa goes to grain to feed farm animals.

This is where the film starts to get a little expose on you.  It just barely chips at the tip of the iceberg of the meat industry in this country.  Films like "Fast Food Nation", and "Food Inc." both really delve into this dark and disgusting corner of the food market.  Apparently corn is the majority of what cows eat now a days and it is killing them.  We plump them up to get the most meat per cow.  Even at the risk of endangering the cows and ourselves in the process.

We then spend a good deal of time on High Fructose Corn Syrup.  This is a food additive created from corn.  It is in nearly everything we eat or drink.  It is quickly replacing natural sugar because it is cheaper and easier to produce.  It is most likely one of the major causes of diabetes in this country.  Let's just say if a man walked up to you on the street and tried to sell you and ounce of HFCS (and told you everything it does to your body) you would run away and call the cops.

The movie then hits on the impact that all this industrialization has had on the family farmer.  A nitch of small town communities that is rapidly disappearing.  They boys rent a acre of land off a kind gentle farmer.  They spend a lot of time with this fella getting to know him and listening to stories of days gone by.  Then at the end of the film he is forced to leave the family farm and auction off his possessions due to lack of funds. 

The films is sort of an up beat picture for all of the negative impacts they find that corn has on people.  Mostly because they didn't focus on one issue.  They jumped around and didn't line the cross hairs up and ask probing questions.  The film makers seemed content to skim the surface of some major issues in service of a peppy story.  I enjoyed King Corn, but would recommend the fantastic documentary Food Inc. for a hard hitting, smart, informative doc on the food industry.  But the next time I drive by a grain elevator and see a small mountain of corn on the ground around it, I will think twice about scarfing down the cheeseburger and large soda.  I would give King Corn a 3/5 stars.  Check out the link below for the trailer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiCRwMMh9k8

Tonight I will be watching a Kung Fu movie called "Ip Man".