Movies, Take One

So here's what I've liked recently, and why. Remember: I love to argue / learn / hear about movies, so be sure to add your two cents'!

Frozen River: Bleak, grim, chilling (literally and figuratively), unforgettable. I wasn't necessarily in the mood for such an intense film, but it drew me in. The plot is basically about the intersection of desperate lives, and it gives you a vivid insight into a gritty corner of life on and off the St. Regis (Akwesasne) Mohawk Reservation that straddles the border of upstate New York and Quebec. Melissa Leo, one of the two female leads, is awesome; she definitely deserved her Oscar nomination for this role. Grand Jury prizewinner at Sundance.

The Spitfire Grill: I guess this is an oldie now -- 1996 -- but I hadn't seen it. It's kind of a grown-up Mystic Pizza (remember that one from 1988? A young Julia Roberts showing lots of promise; a young Annabeth Gish overacting like crazy; Conchata Ferrell as the crusty heart-of-gold pizzaria mama?) This film is a little more authentic and believable. Ellen Burstyn is the exact same crusty heart-of-gold restaurant mama, but with a little more finesse in her acting; and I really liked Alison Elliott's performance, even though it was uncertain and forced at times. Marcia Gay Harden is such a good actress and so it's too bad that she so often slips over the line into stagey high-school-Our-Town acting. Still, in The Spitfire Grill she has the best Maine accent of the cast.

Waiting . . . Okay, so the mood required for this one is: "I'm ready for a raunchy Ryan Reynolds flick. A really raunchy, really Ryan Reynolds flick." He pretty much dominates any film he's in (I don't care if all his characters are snide and ego-driven, so long as he takes his shirt off at least once per movie.) If you've ever worked in a restaurant, especially a big chain restaurant, I'm guessing you'll like this movie and agree that its depiction of the sleaze behind the scenes isn't much of an exaggeration. Okay, so I never put dandruff on a customer's salad when I was a cook at Farrell's, and I never slept with the manager when I was a waitress at Denny's, but, well, I followed the five-second rule a lot, and I worked with people just like the characters in this movie.

The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio: Whitney and I loved this movie. First of all, you can't go wrong with Julianne Moore (hmm, except for Laws of Attraction). Secondly, you usually can't go wrong with Woody Harrelson, especially because he picks excellent scripts (speaking of which, I'll talk about Trannsiberian in a later post). So there's excellent acting in this film. But it's also just unique and surprising in lots of ways -- plot, script, production values, directing. The main story is interspersed with little surrealistic retro clips done like late '50s / early 60s TV ads, where Moore's character speaks directly to viewers about her "career" as a contest winner. It's based on a true story about a desperately poor Catholic mother of 10 whose husband is both a loving father and a rage-filled drunk. She manages to support her family with her prize winnings -- everything from cash to cars to appliances. It brought back vividly to me those days in the 60s when contests and promotional giveaways were everywhere: Queen for a Day, green stamps booklets, jingle contests. I even won one of those contests myself once! I submitted a name and a picture for a new Kool-Aid flavor: "Poop-Deck Punch," with a little sailor in a tipsy cap. Got a pair of walkie-talkies. Anyway, The Prizewinner of Defiance, Ohio is a more complex story with more nuanced characters than its retro theme might imply.

The Cider House Rules: Everyone I know has already seen this, but it was a catch-up for me, and what a wonderful surprise. Sometimes Michael Caine irritates me, but in this film he showed all his power as an actor; he clearly loved his character, inhabited it so fully that you love him, too. The film's already an American classic, so I won't bother summarizing it, but if you haven't seen it yet, put it on your list (along with anything else directed by Lasse Hallstrom that you've missed).

All for now. Next post: Angels and Demons, The Ex, In Bruge, Shrink.

Your Personal Movie Valet

But first, you have to listen while I whine. I'm two weeks out from Shoulder Surgery #2, and I continue to be amazed (actually, I use a different word) at how much I cannot do. You just need those darned arms for every darned thing, and every movement reveals a series of steps that you never noticed before because they never hurt before.

Filling a water glass, for instance, is painful four times: you you reach forward to the tap, twist or pull the tap to open it, lift the empty glass (easy) to the faucet and then lift the full glass (hard) up to your mouth. Going for a walk starts with the pulling-on of coat and hat (or if you live in Oregon and it's January, the pulling-on of coats, plural, and hat and gloves and hood and rain pants). Then there's the reaching down to get shoes and socks on, and reaching up to get the house key from the hook, then reaching forward and pressing to turn the key in the front door lock, and then reaching over to put the key in my pocket. Then there's the (ouch) swinging of arms while you walk. I've discovered that if one arm is in a sling, the other arm tends to swing even more to compensate, and so it's always a toss-up which post-op shoulder is going to hurt more. Sometimes I'll shift my sling from one arm to the other several times during a walk.

More often, these days, I just give up the walks altogether.

Are you bored with me yet? I am. However, Dear Readers, your patience will be rewarded. In the next several posts, I am going to share an annotated list of the films I've seen during my convalescence!

Aside from pointing the remote control and pushing buttons, watching DVDs is pretty easy on the arms. I can even ice my shoulder while I do it! (Pathetic, the things that excite me these days.) As a result, during the past few months I've been blowing through my Netflix queue, and I've acquired quite a viewing list. Over the course of the next several posts, I'll write a brief comment and opinion for each of the films I've seen. My goal is not a series of extensive reviews, but some quick commentaries to give you ideas when you can't think of what to rent. And if you take issue with me -- or agree -- or have recommendations of your own to add, please contribute comments!

Gotta go rest my keyboard-weary shoulders. Next post: Frozen River, Waiting, The Spitfire Grill and more!