Netflix Quadruple Feature(7/24)

If Netflix keeps getting 4 movies a week to me, I will rename this permanently. So hear is my latest addition, I hope you enjoy.

Before Sunrise directed by Richard Linklater

Ever since I heard about the premise to the sequel of this movie, I was interested in checking this one out. I made sure to see this one before I saw the second one because I knew I would be lost in the second one without seeing this one first. I was unsure going into this how it would play out, listening to two people talk for an hour and a half, but I was pleasently surprised. The movie is very engaging and turns out to be a very interesting look at relationships.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are both very good in their roles, with Delpy being better than Hawke. Ethan Hawke bugged me a lot throughout the movie though, and while he did a good job as an actor, the person he was playing was just kind of a dumbass, and I had a hard time believing that Julie Delpy would fall for this American guy.

What really made this movie work for me was how familiar it seems. Everyone has moments like these where everything is laid out in front of you, and it is up to you how you react to it. More often than not I find myself acting in the opposite way, always wondering what would have been. I'm not much of a risk taker that way, and to see Ethan Hawke take such a risk made me wish that I had the ability to do that. The movie also does an excellent job at keeping some of the bigger moments ambigous, leaving it up to the viewer to decide what they they think happened. It was an interesing choice and one that works extremely well in this movie.

I really enjoyed this movie for its honest look at relationships and watching two characters interact so naturalyl with one another. This movie is recommended by me.

Before Sunset directed by Richard Linklater

The sequel to Before Sunrise is an extremely interesing experiment, and ultimately much more engaging than the original. Taking place in real time-we are treated to the 80 minute reunion between the two characters from the original movie and we get to hear how their lives have changed in the 9 years since we left them. I was unaware going into this that it took place in mostly real time and didn't really notice at first, but then I started seeing how long of takes they were using and was amazed to find out that it was indeed occuring in real time.

Ethan Hawke remained very similar in this movie, and he got a little more on my nerves in this one because everything he said for the first 20 minutes were bad jokes, to which he would add, "I'm just joking". He got on my nerves, but I still found myself hoping that this movie would end happy for him. It's a testament to these actors that they can make this kind of movie so engaging and make you really care about them in a short amount of time. They are really only given a few minutes to make us care about them again, and they pull it off quite well.

This movie is very interesing because we get to deal with much bigger issues, as we find out that these two characters have really been pining for each other since they last left. I dated a girl from Australia a while back, and we had a short time together, but it felt really meaninful. From tiem to time, things will remind me of her-so I've never really forgotten about her, and this movie made me wonder if she remembers me from time to time.

My only real complaint with this movie is that it ties up the ambiguties from the first movie, and I personally would have preferred to have them remain ambiguous. The way they did it worked, but I would still have preferred that it was left a mystery.

This movie too ends on an ambigous note, but I was unhappy to see this end, as I really could have watched another hour and a half of this movie pretty easily. My hope is that there will be more of these movies, but even if this was the end, it is still a pretty fitting end. Ethan Hawke's character sums it up quite well at the beginning of the movie-saying that if you are a romantic, then the movie ends romantically, but if you are a cynic, then it will end badly. It's left up to us. and I for one hope for a happy ending for these two.

Highly recommended-but I insist that you watch the first one, first.

In Good Company directed by...does it really matter?

I really wanted to like this movie. I'm a Topher Grace fan and I hope his movie career works out for him, because if it doesn't, I'll be more upset that he left That 70's Show. And while he does a passable job in this movie, it really is nothing special. And I think Scarlet Johanssen is absolutely gorgeous, and she is usually good too, but again, she was nothing special. Topher Grace said it best in Oceans Twelve when he told Brad Pitt that he phoned this movie in. I think everyone involved phoned this movie in, and the reception wasn't very good when they were doing that. (That's a bad joke-but I realize that it is)

This movie never really felt like it ever started-throwing us into the movie without ever really explaining anything. And maybe I wasn't paying that close of attention, but the whole Topher Grace becomming Dennis Quaid's boss never really made any sense to me. Overall, this movie seemed like a rush job, with little time or effort given to make us care about these characters. The only good thing I can say about the movie is that it didn't end typically like I assumed it would.

This movie does not come recommended by me. I only laughed a couple of times and just generally didn't give a shit about any of it.

Dawn of the Dead remade directed by...who really gives a shit.

This movie sucked. In my opinion, it spit in the face of everything the original stood for. The original was a slow, methodical movie. It took time to build scares, and to develop the characters into well rounded people. This one was just a flashy movie with no real surprises to it. Every character's path was laid out the moment they uttered their first line. The original was unique because the characters had real arcs in their story and they earned everything you felt for them, which it made it that much more tragic when characters died. The remake just had cookie cutter characters and I didn't give a shit about any of them.

The gore was the only thing seemed to have any time devoted to it, but even that was pretty straight forward. I didn't like how this movie made the zombies fast and super human. The fat lady that was getting wheeled around on a wheelbarrow-how the hell did she just get up and start running?

Overall this movie pissed me off, and I really wish I hadn't spent two hours watching it. But in the end, I have no one to blame but myself. I do not recommend this movie at all. Avoid it at all costs.

So that's it for this week. Next week I have Klute, Crash, Pollock, and Basquiat. So until then I hope you don't watch the Dawn of the Dead remake. It's really bad.