This doesn’t make the series any less interesting to me.  But the element of suspense that Band of Brothers had for me, where I had heard of a few of the battles and locations, but had never heard of the characters, is not the same.

I worked at the Naval Hospital at Camp Pendleton in the 90s.  So I absorbed some historical information without actually intending to do so.  This is not to say that I didn’t find military history interesting at the time.  I was just working and going to school and didn’t really have time to pay it a whole lot of attention.  I don’t think I had cable; because I didn’t have time to watch tv.

In any event, I managed to learn who Basilone, Leckie and Sledge are.  Though given my location at the time, it probably would have been hard not to learn those names.  That and the fact that I am a warehouse of useless information, that occasionally turns out to be useful.

Iwo Jima Memorial by kanu101

And so continues my obsession with made for HBO series. I used to rent all the HBO series. Then we got them on Netflix. And now we have HBO with Comcast, free. Free from Comcast of course, means that they’ll be charging us for it any minute.

• Jake Gyllenhaal could make his career on the Middle East. I could come to think of him anytime I think of war movies about Iraq or Afghanistan. In the same way I think of James Cagney as the Chicago gangster.
• Tobey Maguire looks like the real deal.
• Maybe I’ll finally see Natalie Portman in another great film. I can’t think of anything great she’s done since The Professional. Star Wars may have been a hit. But I hardly think it highlighted acting talent.

Now that I’ve seen the trailer I think somebody did a great job writing the script for those kids. My five year old and her friends sound just like those little girls.

Apparently, I am going to have to go and see the movie, which according to the Newsdesk section at IMDB is not a war movie. Well, maybe not technically. But to me a post-war family drama is still a war movie. People are still dealing with what happened during a war. The story could not unfold without those precipitating events.

I think The War at Home is also a war movie. Though all of it takes place in the United States, after the war.

]]> http://froginnorthgeorgia.com/frogwp/2009/12/brothers-movie/feed/ 2 http://froginnorthgeorgia.com/frogwp/2009/11/the-dark-knight-movie/ http://froginnorthgeorgia.com/frogwp/2009/11/the-dark-knight-movie/#comments Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:41:20 +0000 Christine Eclavea Mercer http://froginnorthgeorgia.com/frogwp/?p=1452
• Van Damme Movie

I have to say that The Dark Knight is the most violent Batman film I’ve ever seen. I might have been shocked. Except that I had seen Batman Begins, which was no slouch of a dark film.

One of the Joker’s violent scenes reminds me of a scene from The Untouchables. Which was interesting. (I’m not going to spoil it for you.)

Christian Bale by BattieQ

I was surprised to see Maggie Gyllenhaal, instead of Katie Holmes. I’m sure I must have heard that Gyllenhaal replaced Holmes for the sequel. But I didn’t remember.

I found the casting bizarre in the looks department. Sure, Gyllenhaal and Ledger are amazingly talented. But you’re covering up Ledger with makeup and casting Gyllenhaal as hot chick A. Apparently, I have a different opinion about looks than the casting director, and am more superficial than Hollywood.

DH thinks that Maggie Gyllenhaal is hot. But he has also described Benicio Del Toro as good looking. Which tells me that DH thinks people who look odd are attractive. A fact that I have always found disturbing for myself and attempt not to dwell upon.

After that I wonder how anybody could get that many well known actors into one film. I recognized the face, though not the name, of nearly every character. That is a lot of talent in a room.

I’ve never been a comic reader. But I am a huge lover of mindless action flicks, espionage movies, and the like. So of course, I had to see The Dark Knight.

Oh yeah, and there’s Christian Bale, the only person who I thought looked the part. I like him as Batman; like Pierce Brosnan was a good James Bond. I have a SIL who says Bale could read the dictionary, and it would be sexy. Being a different sort of weird, I insisted that DH come over and look at the crisp spread collar shirts, with modified barrel cuffs and wool suits with European fitted shoulders.

Yeah, I need help.

Related posts:

• Van Damme Movie

]]>

Jake Gyllenhaal by Barbara.Doduk

Not surprisingly, I was unimpressed by the social agenda of the film. I think it could have been spectacular without all the cheesy gimmicks. The wife and mother-in-law have a good relationship, and wife is very pregnant. Cheese. I recorded it because I haven’t got my latest installment of The Wire from Netflix.

And wtf with the family man being the terrorist suspect? You can turn on any documentary and the terrorist profile will be a single male. I think of it like honor among thieves, in the extremist world the suicide bombers bless their mothers with their martyrdom, not their children. The mafia never leave their wives, that sort of logic.

Of course, I could have terrible reading and viewing comprehension. But I don’t think so.

I have great appreciation for the acting talent. Just not the cheese in the script. Could the audience not feel the pain of a single male immigrant, or a couple? Are viewers that stupid?  I think I could cry with Reese Witherspoon without the tiny boy and pregnant belly.

Peter Sarsgaard made me think he could be my favorite ex-boyfriend. He’s incredible in that way that Kevin Spacey is incredible because you don’t even know it’s him until you’re looking at the cast list on IMDB. And then you realize you’ve seen him in a half dozen films.

The film does have redeeming qualities. The scenery is terrific. And there are a couple of interesting plot loops. They are not completely surprising in retrospect. But I was enjoying the film during the watching, not over-analyzing, so I got to say a nice little, oooh, at the end.

I’m a practical person. One could rage all day at the injustice and inhumanity of torture. But in my opinion the single best argument against it is that it is ineffective. A tortured person will say anything to make the pain stop. That doesn’t yield good intelligence. That doesn’t mean I think it’s a good idea otherwise. I just choose not to use morality as an argument when there is no telling what sort of moral compass another arguer would have.

But who could regard my opinion. Because stuck in my head instead of the torture, is Gyllenhaal without a shirt.

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• Weak Female Characters – spoiler

David Duchovny by mobu26

So far I have watched half of season two courtesy of Netflix. So my commentary will include only references to those episodes.

I continue to loath Madeline Zima’s character Mia, who imho brings only smarminess to the show, which is quite possibly the point. I just don’t enjoy her character. She is a nasty, manipulative, oversexed teen. How obvious. And any adult with any sense whatsoever would stay far, far away from her. And the Hank character says as much – why is she here, why do we need her attitude?

Somebody in a seat of power must like Zima; because Karen broke up with Mia’s father at the end of season one, which could have effectively terminated the Mia relationship. I really wish it had. There are plenty of female characters on the show. Do we need her?

Hank’s dick continues to get him into trouble. I say it flatly that way, because it seems to go with the theme. He goes down on a strange woman. Which seems quite humorous. I mean, really, if Karen didn’t want to shag him post-vasectomy, in a strange house, how would he get turned around and end up in the wrong dark room with a strange naked woman?

I don’t dislike the Karen character. I just think she isn’t always honest with herself about the fact that she loves Hank as the jerk that he is, and not some imaginary other person who can keep it in his pants. If he didn’t get himself featured on Defamer every now and then; he wouldn’t be Hank.

Hank is the probable father of a child created in an episode during season one. This bit of information is uncovered during a dinner party. Note to Hank: See, once you have a cheap screw with somebody, you’re supposed to throw them away. That’s why it’s called a one night stand – because it is only supposed to last one night. Which pretty much sums up why I think Hank and Karen are so dysfunctional, because they can’t throw anything away, even ex-lovers.

Becca gets a boyfriend. And Hank acts the way you would imagine a hound-dog would when a boy gets near his daughter. It’s quite funny.

Hank is working in this season, not for the Dialtone, Mia’s father and Karen’s former fiance. And that brings another interesting set of problems and strange people into the show.

Charlie and Marcie Runkle continue to be themselves. My favorite line from Marcie is “I wax hairy tacos.”

It’s so wrong. I just can’t look away.

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• Californication – Mia the Sociopath
• Weak Female Characters – spoiler

Sounds labor intensive and kind of nonsensical, no?

[twitter]

I found a little app that I like, Yoono, that runs in the sidebar and creates a feed that combines Twitter and Facebook.  Most importantly, it lets me edit the feed to some degree.  So I don’t need to follow every friends activity in Farmville and Mafia Wars.  If I have time to kill, I can actually go to Facebook and play.  But in the course of a normal day, when I have stuff to accomplish, I can read the highlights.  This was especially handy when SIL was posting baby on the way updates.

It’s a much better method, than what I was doing previously, which was not logging in to Facebook more than once a week.  Because it can truly be a time sink.

I’m thinking now about the rules of engagement for comments.  Because I have unfriended a person, because person has digressed to being unable to talk about anything unrelated to getting laid.  Ditto for comment to my blog.  I could go on.  But I’ll spare you.

[unfriend]

So here’s the question:  is social networking skewing the filter of polite behaviour?  Too much freedom to get our thoughts out in the world?  Too easy to pull the trigger and hit enter? 

In my defense… I use my standard test for peoples actions and whether I need to be party to them and look for a pattern.  An occasional foot in the mouth in my estimation is typical.  Toxic with regularity is to be avoided.

Then there is the business end of things.  I’m good with reading a few times a day about somebody’s hobby or profession, unless it is the only topic.  Or it gets all hourly spammy.  But the pay per post type links on twitter.  Ugh.  Isn’t this why people pay for cable, and  tivo, and subscribe to xm radio?  Me anyway.

Hulu has this new feature where you have to watch an ad to keep it free, but get to choose which ad.  I like this.  The trojan condom commercial where Joe Average hooks up with a hot girl because she is a vampire is hilarious.  And there is a bacardi ad that I like because of the music.  On the other hand, there’s a VW ad and a banking ad that I hope I never have to see again.  Fortunately, I haven’t had to.  I can stick to the R rated condom and liquor commercials that entertain me.

We’re about to turn the cable back on. We turned it off because it’s a time sink and crazy expensive considering we can watch tv free.  Except that there is a racquet for tv and sports.  DH cannot watch his sports on the pc.  They are blocked or otherwise unavailable.  So after months of torture, I suggested we turn it back on.  Some people drink in the evening and unwind.  DH watches sports.  I like him better with his sports.  He’s happier. 

I have not missed tv much, because I watch Hulu and Netflix and whatever else crops up.  I miss DH having tv, golf in particular.  I will be pleased to see Law and Order SVU again.  And I will like lifting weights while I watch tv.  I don’t do that when I’m on the computer, because I’m attached to a headset and the screen is small.

Damn, I’m wordy tonight.  And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

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• Air Force and Social Media
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[JCVD Movie Poster]

JCVD (2008) – Plot summary

Between his tax problems and his legal battle with his wife for the custody of his daughter, these are hard times for the action movie star who finds that even Steven Seagal has pinched a role from him! In JCVD, Jean-Claude Van Damme returns to the country of his birth to seek the peace and tranquility he can no longer enjoy in the United States.

I don’t know what other people think of when they think of Jean-Claude Van Damme.  But I think of mindless action flics.  I love them.  If they have a plot and the action makes sense then I consider them the height of cinematic wonderful.  Jean-Claude Van Damme doesn’t come to mind as an actor who has done a lot of movies that have a plot.  Actually, I think, story lite.

But hey, who isn’t entertained by a short, but good looking, arrogant foreign man kicking some ass for a couple of hours?  JCVD is about ten times more plausible than Universal Soldier, a movie I enjoyed.  But of course, it was silly.

Blah, blah.  So why will I probably watch this movie ten more times, aka every time it ends up on cable tv re-runs.  The way the film moves in and out of present time and memory is brilliant.  You get a feeling of frustration from Van Damme.  But it is also funny.  Because how ironic is it to be held captive and demonstrating how to karate kick a cigarette out of someones mouth?

You can tell that Van Damme finds his stage name, the autograph signing and photographing kind of silly.  But he’s a good sport, and poses and smiles.  I found it amusing the number of times he had to introduce himself as Van Varenberg, you know, Van Damme, you know… Hollywood.  That cracked me up.  The shrug and grimace and holding back of a rolling of eyes was great. 

And he complains some about movies with no plot and the unfairness of life – why is he famous and some more talent people impoverished.  He appears to be a real person.  And there is a scene where a person says the television reporter out front looks much better on tv, which adds to the concept of how unreal the movie star image really is.

I watched JCVD streaming on Netflix, on my 10 inch Asus while doing household chores.  I may actually get a proper dvd and watch it on the giant tv.  Let me tell you, I never do that. 

I would love to read comments from anybody reading this post about how you feel about the subtitling and the constant back and forth from French to English and vice versa.  I like to turn off the subtitling of French films whenever possible (usually not possible with North American dvd).  So I’m sure my watching experience is not typical.

[Belgium]

As a side note, I think of Belgium as really cold and grey.  I recently watched In Bruges.  And that film also seemed black and white, because everything looked kind of grey.

Oh, and I love the quotes about the eggs.  Very French.  I read a review where the reviewer panned the quotes as inscrutable and pretentious.  But I find them quite typical.

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• Van Damme Movie

“Californication” (2007)

Hank Moody… No man is more committed to a midlife crisis.

Other than Mia, played by Madeline Zima, I find the show really entertaining.  Though I was disappointed to discover that I could only watch season one on Netflix and season two and three are not available.

[Californication Mia and Hank]

Returning to my previous conversation about weak female characters, what is up with the social message that among women is this very overt needy freak who must manipulate men with her sexuality?  Just yuk.  I get her being sixteen and messing with Hanks head for an episode or two.  But then we clearly enter the realm of poor mental health.

And speaking of poor mental health.  Of course, I got sucked into watching the show because I wanted to see the fall of David Duchovny.  Yes, I had to see the program that sent him to rehab for sex addiction. I like to think of it as curiousity, rather than total lack of altruism.

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The woman needs medication.  And then, this recent episode, Season 5, Episode 16, Clean, she’s taking all sorts of pills.  The most interesting thing about it though is that Tommy is the hero of the story and a likeable alcoholic.  And she is this crazy, neurotic bitch that makes my skin crawl.  Doesn’t seem fair now does it?

[Callie Thorne, Sheila Keefe on Rescue Me]

I had another example, of another crazy, manipulative bitch in a male dominated, male written tv show that I otherwise like. But as soon as I thought of the Sheila character, I creeped myself out and forgot.

It isn’t a good commentary on men either, these freaky women, because the Tommy character actually likes her.  Another, wtf. 

I also saw Public Enemies a week or so ago, which seemed to me a chick-flick with a lot of gunfire.  I’m fairly certain that if I tried to watch it at home I would have fallen asleep.  Being the freak that I am.  I like movies for guys who like movies.  So, if it’s a gangster film, I want to see an actual gangster film.  I’m good with a chick-flick now and then, so long as that’s what I’m expecting.  But a chick-flick with gunfire is just kind of sneaky.  I guess it having Marion Cotilliard should have tipped me off.  Either way, I did like it.  I just wanted to see a really Godfather-esque type film.  Like American Gangster.  That was great.

I’m currently trying to watch JCVD on Netflix in ten minute increments.  Ten minutes at a time because that is about how much of anything I can do without interruption.  So far I really like it.  But I’m partial to movies where the English and the French run together, makes me feel at home.  Even if they are in Belgium.

DH does not want to go with me to see the new Terminator movie.  Boo.

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• Rendition

Eastern Promises by Patrick ??? ???

Eastern Promises (2007) – Trivia

To prepare for his role, Viggo Mortensen traveled alone to Moscow, St. Petersburg and the Ural Mountain region of Siberia, where he spent five days driving around without a translator. He read books on the gangs of the vory v zakone (thieves in law), Russian prison culture and the importance of prison tattoos as criminal résumés, and perfected his character’s Siberian accent and learned lines in Russian, Ukrainian and English. During filming, he used worry beads made in prison from melted-down plastic cigarette lighters and decorated his trailer with copies of Russian icons.

It’s a great film.  And though I think it is unrealistic that a midwife would not immediately give the diary of a murdered girl to the police, it works because Naomi Watts is so believably naive. Also, having a foreign father myself, I can see why she would think it perfectly acceptable to arrive unannounced, reveal that she had a Russian father and seek assistance with translation.  I would personally seek help at a church, rather than a restaurant.  But that would not be much of a story.

[Naomi Watts and Vincent Cassell]

Viggo Mortensen and Armin Mueller-Stahl are convincing Russian criminals.  It makes sense for these European faces, Mortensen being half Dutch, and Mueller-Stahl born in Prussia.  Being fascinated by that kind of trivia, I immediately had to see where each person was born, raised, and the ethnicity of their parents.  But that does not speak of their acting ability, which is amazing.  Mueller-Stahl is chilling, and Mortensen disturbing.

[Viggo Mortensen]

Vincent Cassel also does a fine job of looking like a foolish young thug.  Not long into the the file I wanted to smack him around myself.

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