Movie Weekend

On Saturday, Lori and I went out to eat and saw "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," and it was a good time. Dinner was at Macaroni Grill, which everyone agrees is assloads better than Olive Garden, the Chi-chis of italian cuisine. At the movie, we chose to sit in the handicapped seats up front because Lori hurt her ankle and couldn't walk up the steps too well. And let me tell you, these were the best seats in the house. There was no one sitting in front of us, no one directly behind us, and while the screen was a little close, they're so small these days it doesn't make much difference. So my mind was in a good place by the time the movie started, because I wasn't imagining the many different ways I could kill the audience around me. Anyway, the movie was entertaining as all hell. It's a comedy through and through, and it's pretty funny, especially the banter b/w Pitt and Jolie, and even some of the Pitt's comedic acting, which surprised me, because I saw his cameo on "Friends" a couple years ago and he kinda stunk. But second to Tyler Durden in "Fight Club," this is his best role to date. Jolie is pretty good too, although she's mostly just re-hashing the steely sexiness of Lara Croft. Combined, they make a good onscreen team, certainly better than other great-looking couples of late (i guess the fairest comparison would be Clooney and Zeta-Jones in "Intolerable Cruelty") . On top of that, they have an awesome house, with great furniture and lamps, gorgeous wardrobes (i fully expect a sudden surge in shirt/sweater combos in the workplace), etc. So the movie is 2 hours of Brad and Angelina looking good, sounding good, eating good, fighting good, and just plain having a good time. And, yeah, the plot is nowhere to be found, the action gets silly, so on and so forth, but it is what it is, and Doug Liman presents it well. 3.5/5.

On Sunday, Father's Day, my parent's and I saw "Batman Begins" and then ate at Michael's in Newburyport. Both were worthwhile, but ultimately disappointing. You heard me right. The gist of my "Batman" experience was this: I liked it, but I was not satisfied, and it ain't no "X2" or "Spider-Man 2." I fully expect the next Batman installment to be much better. Bale makes a great Bruce Wayne, but the jury's still out on his Batman. The mask looks ridiculous on him (I don't know if it's his face or what), and since we never get a good long look at him in costume, or even get a sense of his movement in the suit (thanks to choppy action editing), I had trouble making the emotional link b/w the Bruce Wayne character Bale had developed so well in the first hour, and the Batman running around in the second hour. A similar problem occurred in the first "Spider-Man," but it was due to crappy CGI spider-man effects. As for Nolan, with the exception of the batmobile chase, his action direction was sloppy and unclear. Again, similar problems in the first "X-Men" and "Spider-Man," particularly in Singer's case. My biggest beef with the movie though is the script, in particular the death of Bruce's parents, which on top of being filmed poorly and with very little emotional impact (a lackluster child actor doesn't help), is arrived at in the most contrived way possible. This is a huge miss on the part of Nolan and the script. You just can't screw up the scene that defines Bruce's life. You see, early in the film, Bruce Wayne as a young boy falls into a well in his backyard and is swarmed by a den of bats. Yes, bats. So he is traumatized by bats. Ok, fine, I thought. Then one night he and his parents go to a play that features, of all things, bats (how convenient). A frightened Bruce asks his parents if they can go, and they do, and right outside the theater they are mugged and killed. So for the rest of his life Bruce is wracked with guilt thinking that it was his fear of BATS that lead to his parent's death. So when he finally decides to become a "symbol of fear" for Gotham's criminals he chooses the symbol of the Bat as a way of turning his fear on those he wants to bring to justice. It has less to do with him wanting to avenge his parent's death and ensure that no criminal can do that again (as is the case in the comic books), and more to do with him wanting to overcome his fears. So, of course, one of the villains is Scarecrow, who throughout the movie releases "fear toxins" on everybody. See, to me, that is all just too neat. It's just such a nice tidy package for explaining BATMAN. Fear. Fear this, and fear that. I guess that's called thematic unity, and maybe it might've worked if the characters were given dialogue better than: "I seek the means to fight injustice. To turn fear against those who prey on the fearful." What next? "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself"? "No man is an island"? Then there are the obligatory "repeat lines" that are said once, but then said again later in the movie for dramatic impact. These are "It's not who I am underneath, but what I DO that defines me!" and "Why do we fall? So that we can pick ourselves up!" The film's best lines are delivered by Tom Wilkinson is his speech to Wayne at the restaurant. It's juicy stuff. But really, there was not one great scene in the movie. There were a bunch of pretty good scenes, mostly having to do with Bruce's interaction with family and friends while he's NOT Batman, and a few crappy ones. There is definitely not one great BATMAN scene, ya know, where he is just friggin awesome. There's only one scene that shows criminals actually being afraid of Batman. And ok another one where Batman interrogates a criminal by scaring the shit out of him. But by the time Bruce is officially Batman, the movie's plot mechanics have kicked in and we're in typical event-movie territory with big explosions, train crashes, and cheesy one-liners like "I gotta get me one of those" (spoken by Jim Gordon, yeah right). Sure, it's miles better than the previous 4 movies, but them's low standards. EXTREMELY low standards. So what is everyone loving about this movie? 3.25/5.

"Family Guy," Petarded. Only time I laughed heartily was the Dan Rather "s" alliteration.

"American Dad" was mostly just disgusting.