Posts Tagged ‘mirror’
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I’ve taken a few self-portraits. Yes, I have. Yes, I have.
I know today’s comic isn’t exactly movie-related. Maybe you were looking for something a little more on-point, genre-wise this morning. But after all the homo-erotic goodness of the last two weeks, I had to take the joke and run with it.
Coming up with the punchline was kind of weird. Since the comic is a autobiographical exaggeration, I kind of resisted the idea of casting myself as vain or being more concerned with myself than Cami. I didn’t want to give you guys the wrong idea about out relationship because the joke is kind of at her expense. Truthfuly, I would rather stare at Cami for 100 hours that catch a passing glimpse of myself in the reflection of a storefront window.
But upon realizing that I didn’t want to portray myself as being vain, I realized… I was being vain. So I ran with the joke. More movie stuff later in the week. Cross m’ heart.
Cami and I saw Inside Man over the weekend and I really liked it. I mean REALLY liked it. As in, "Hey, maybe the situation at the multiplex isn’t as dire as the evidence would have led me to believe three weeks ago! There’s hope!"
I think we can all agree that there hasn’t been very many good movies in the theater since the end of the holiday season. It’s okay. It’s low tide on cinema. Happens every year.
But watching the crafty Inside Man was like a beacon saying "The salmon are returning to spawn!" With spring brings renewal.
The movie is as tense as you might expect and there’s always some kind of new twist being thrown into the mix. Each of the four leads – Densel Washington, Clive Owen, Jodie Foster and Christopher Plummer – all sink their teeth into their roles and bounce off each other well without being too showy. Densel didn’t launch in to Training Day level histronics. He actually milks a lot of comedy out of the tension just by being his usual, charming self. If anything, I thought Jodie Foster’s performance was possibly the weak link in the film, but that’s only if you’re going out of your way to complain about something.
The film was directed by Spike Lee, which I think made it even more impressive. A mainstream movie like this was something he needed to do a LONG time ago because I think the unfortunate truth is that people are more familiar with his politics than his considerable talent. There’s no reason he couldn’t tranition between these realms of Hollywood effectively. A movie like this might wake people up to his cannon of work.
If you’re dragging your feet on Inside Man for whatever reason, stop screwing around and go see it. I haven’t enjoyed a movie as smart as this one in what felt like an eternity!
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Before today’s blog, I wanted to quickly remind everyone about the fund raising campaign for Theater Hopper: Year Three over at Kickstarter.
There wasn’t a whole lot of traction on pledges last week and that may have been due in part to the fact that I wasn’t promoting the campaign as hard as I could. We had a really great week two weeks prior and maybe it left me feeling a little too comfortable.
So instead of burying a blog post about the campaign below the main blog, I wanted to take the proactive approach and remind you of it right away.
Please visit the campaign page at Kickstarter and if you have any money to pledge, please consider doing so today. I know here in America it’s going to be a short week because of the Thanksgiving holiday. So if you’re thinking about pledging, sooner is probably better than later.
Right now we’re 35% funded with 38 days to go. Let’s see if we can get that a little closer to 50% before all the turkey and tryptophan settles in and makes us sluggish!
Now, onto the blog!
Today’s comic is sad, but also a little bit true. I mean, who wouldn’t want awesome abs – especially it impressed your wife?
The only piece of fiction in this comic is that Cami knows/cares anything about Taylor Lautner. Even if she did, what are you going to do? I can’t compete with the metabolism of a 17 year-old. Hell, I don’t think I could compete with Taylor Lautner even IF I was 17 years-old.
As it has been widely reported, New Moon broke all kinds of box office records this weekend, taking in over $140 million and coming in third behind The Dark Knight and Spider-Man 3 for the biggest 3-day weekend opening ever.
There was some outrage in the blogosphere early Saturday when it was reported New Moon shattered The Dark Knight’s opening night tally with $72.7 million, besting The Caped Crusader’s $67.2 million – and it did it on 342 fewer theaters than The Dark Knight.
Some of the outraged comments I read online were particularly hilarious. And although part of me kind of wants to be outraged along with them, to do completely ignores two factors:
1.) The increasing escalation of box office reporting and one-upsmanship. If it wasn’t New Moon that overtook The Dark Knight’s record, it would have been some other movie. If not by popularity, but by sheer inflation alone.
2.) New Moon found success by virtue of an audience that was made up nearly 80% by women. When you consider Sandra Bullock’s The Blind Side drew a respectable $34.5 million (the best opening of Bullock’s career, by the way) with an audience made up of nearly 60% women, it is (as Entertainment Weekly put it) “of the most lopsidedly female-driven weekends in Hollywood history.” Any way you slice it, that’s impressive. So, good on ya, ladies!
At this point it would be very easy to delve into the debate that popularity does not equal quality. But at this point I’ve taken a very live and let live attitude about things.
Do I understand the Twilight phenomenon? Do I want to see New Moon? Do I even want to see The Blind Side. The answer to all of those questions is “No.” It’s not my world. I don’t understand it.
I don’t mean to put that out there as an excuse for perpetual willful ignorance. If, for example, Cami wanted to see either movie – if it was important to her – I would go. My point is, these films are not important to me. Just as Transformers 2 wasn’t important to her.
Now perhaps as a “critic,” it’s my job to go out and watch these films so I can tell you guys what I thought and if you should go see them or not. But Theater Hopper has never been about film criticism in a traditional sense. My opinions are not based in any kind of formal education and neither are they driven by a motivation to fit within a social or artistic context.
Simply, they are what they are. I present them to you as a friend might present his or hers to you. No one is holding me to some kind of invisible journalistic standard that demands objectivity and fairness. So if I make the decision that I’m not going to see a movie for whatever reason, I believe I have that latitude- so long as I can at least attempt to explain what lead me to that conclusion.
Besides, considering New Moon’s 29% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes, I think it’s safe to say that the film is essentially critic-proof. What kind of influence could I hope to express?
I’m sure we’ll be talking about New Moon’s success and more on The Triple Feature tonight at 9:00 PM CST on TalkShoe. Be sure to join us live if you want to participate in the conversation.
In the meantime, you can always leave your comments here. What were your thoughts about New Moon? Did it live up to your expectations or did it leave something to be desired?
And speaking of desire, what about Taylor Lautner’s abs? Amirite, ladies? Leave your comments below!
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