Mike's Holiday Movie Round-Up (Pt. 1)
Got to do some catching up the last couple days.
Invictus: Liked this one; kinda puzzled by some of the lukewarm reviews. Also surprised more hasn't been made of the Obama parallels.
A Single Man: Not to be confused with A Serious Man; Colin Firth as a closeted professor in 1962, dealing with grief issues. He's terrific, it's beautifully filmed.
Precious and The Blind Side: yeah, they go together. Liked Precious more than I expected; I'd been reading a lot of negative things recently. I'd've never expected a performance like that out of Mo'Nique in a million years. A good small film that has suffered from the usual Sundance overhype syndrome. Blind Side is, yes, Precious for Middle American white folks. Precious is the better film, but Bullock and McGraw are quite good. BS is more Hollywood and could use less of that; it makes a true story seem less "true" if that makes sense. And that little white kid is easily THE most annoying child actor I have ever seen.
It's Complicated: It's... pleasant. I enjoyed it mainly for Alec Baldwin, who I worship, but I felt like the script coulda been a lot sharper.
More to come next week; when I saw Blind Side at Metreon last nite the lines for Avatar were endless.
