The Dajreeling Limited (09 03 08) – Review
American Gangster (10 02 08) – The trailer and commercials made this look like a typically fast paced gangster/crime movie. It was actually much more of a character film. The acting of Denzel and Russell were both good. They actually seemed to like being there. It reminded me of The Departed (for obvious reasons) and Catch Me If You Can except that it was very slow and long at almost three hours in length. Neither of the main characters meet until the last few scenes, but the actors had a lot of chemistry. I like this better than Training Day and Denzel’s performance here is actually better. It was also well shot on location. The wonderfully talented Chiwetel Ejiofor is also in this movie.
Paris Je t’aime (14 03 08) – Love! I am a sappy romantic so this gets to me. A couple of the films were odd (in the good and bad ways), but many were just downright wonderful and really well done. I look forward to the New York version.
Sense and Sensibility (30 03 08) – 2008 BBC version. The first half was slow mostly, and I couldn’t get over how similar this Marianne looked like KW, this Elinor sounded so much like ET, and how miscast Willoughby was. Edward is too good looking, but that’s okay. The two female leads held there own in the end. The music and cinematography are nice, and as usual, Col. Brandon played by David Morrissey, is the best part. I love a good adaptation.
In the first three months of 2008, I have only seen 12 films. A year ago this time, I had seen 19. 23 in 2006, 24 in ’05, 41 (!) in ’04, and so on and so forth. Even more strange is that I have read more books in the first three months than movies. That hasn’t happened since 2001. Obviously the decline indicates how much my life has changed, but I just don’t spend as much time looking and thinking about movies as I did. Knitting sort of replaced it, but I can remedy that. I have a To Be Watched pile of movies that I procrastinate watching (which probably contributes to fewer movies watched). Though I will say that going through the books is more important at present. I need movie breaks too.