Life has a way of getting in the way of things, and it has been a lot longer than I would have liked since my last post. I have managed in that time to still see two movies in theaters, and I have actually found time to watch quite a few at home. I have the first shift at night now with our new baby so if I can let my wife go to bed to get a head start on sleep while I stay up and keep the baby quiet and calm I find there is usually time for TV or a movie. Among some of the movies I have watched in the last while are a chilling yet inspiring documentary called Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father, a Polish language Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee from a couple of years back called Katyn, and another foreign language biopic La Vie en Rose which won Marion Cotillard the Oscar for Best Actress for her portrayal of French singing legend Edith Piaf. All were excellent, but it was the two I saw in theaters that were most noteworthy.
It is not often that my dad goes to movies, but I knew the minute I found out about True Grit that it would be a movie to invite him to. Good westerns don't come along that often anymore, and since my dad doesn't go anywhere near video games there wasn't a chance I could get him to play the outstanding western Red Dead Redemption that I have also been enjoying as of late. With the holidays in full swing, Christmas Eve morning seemed the only opening to go out with my dad and brothers to see True Grit. I was excited at the prospect of a western first of all, but I was even more excited knowing that it had the Coen brothers behind it. I knew that I could expect good dialog and a well directed film, and I wasn't let down in the least. My brother has made it back to watch it three times now, and I need to get around to seeing it again as well because I am sure I didn't catch some of Jeff Bridges extraordinary but gruff dialog. What I have since learned from an interview with Joel Coen is that most of the dialog actually comes right out of the novel of the same name that the film was adapted from. In a year where I saw some truly fantastic films such as Inception, Scott Pilgrim, and The Social Network, True Grit is right there with each of them as pure entertainment and quality film making.
Historically, January always seems like a throw away month for movies because all of the big holiday blockbusters and Oscar contenders came out in December, but a couple of years ago I was given a January gem with the Liam Neeson film Taken, and this year it was The Way Back. I knew about the movie from interviews with director Peter Weir and actor Mark Strong (you can't hardly go wrong when Mark Strong is in a movie) on my favorite BBC movie podcast Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo's Film Reviews. Interestingly, as with Taken, the movie had been released in the UK far before it was released in the states, and that foreknowledge only made my anticipation greater. Mark Strong was all I needed to know about, but a based on true story tale of three men who escape a Siberian gulag, walk 4,000 miles, and cross the Himalayas for their freedom into India had hooked my interest absolutely. It was a limited release film, but a theater I normally attend had it, and I knew my window to catch it in theaters would be short. A late night at work knowing my wife would want to go to sleep before I got home seemed the perfect opportunity. What I thought made the movie especially good was that even though the very opening text tells you that it is a story dedicated to the three men who made this amazing journey thus giving away the ultimate outcome, it was so compelling and interesting that it didn't really matter that I knew the ending. When the main character, a Pole played by Jim Sturgess, first arrives at the gulag he is told by one of the Russian guards that the guards, the barbed wire fences, and the dogs aren't what will stop them from escape, but that it was the harsh, frigid surrounding wilderness I had only a remote sense of the hardship that awaited him and the other escapees. The trip home on my scooter late at night during some of the coldest few days of the year (in Arizona mind you) didn't seem cold at all after watching what this group had to endure. It was beautifully shot and an epically inspiring story of survival. I liked it so much that I didn't even mind that Mark Strong's character never even leaves the gulag with the escapees meaning he doesn't make it past the very beginning of the film.
After The Way Back and True Grit, for February I have my sites set on what I have dubbed 'Taken 2', or in other words Liam Neeson's new movie Unknown. It comes out tomorrow so with any luck I will be back soon to say if I liked it or not. I also have a new Radiohead album coming out Saturday which after their last album In Rainbows I cannot wait to hear, and I may also have to write my thoughts for the intelligent John Hughesque teen movie Easy A starring Emma Stone I watched last night. Those are three reasons I should be back soon so now only time will tell if I make it back and get back in a regular habit of posting again. Until then, good night.
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