Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)

- 3 Eberts

I figured I better watch this movie again, seeing as how Roger had rated it so high. I've seen bit and pieces of it but haven't seen the whole thing in years.

It was a good movie. Great? I didn't think so. It had two great comedic actors, Steve Martin and John Candy, but this movie didn't really tap into their talents. Both actors had to pretend to be serious for most of the movie and I don't think either of them, John Candy in particular, did it very well.

On their trip together everything that could go wrong did and there were some pretty funny situations.

I thought I might be missing something so I went to AFI's list of 100 best comedies (AFI Comedies) but Planes etc. wasn't there.

Good movie but not great

MIA in Great Movies List

Let me first say that I love the movies in Roger's Great Movies Series. In his list he has over 200 movies, and it is as good a list as you can find of the great movies except ... it is missing one.

Where is North by Northwest? The movie with Rushmore, the crop dusting plane, Cary Grant, falling down drunk and driving along the winding cliff road, Eva Marie Saint, Leo G. Carroll, James Mason, Mr. Kaplan and Roger Thornhill.

It's not better than Planes, Trains and Automobiles or Groundhog Day? As good as those movies are they are no North by Northwest.

People who love movies have to love this one, and I know Roger loves movies. Where is North by Northwest Roger?

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

- 3 Eberts

I enjoyed this Woody Alllen exploration of a variety of disfunctional relationships. No one is really happy, everyone wants something different. Woody has been singing the same song for a long time.

The actors and the dialogue were the real stars here. Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall were all really good.

Although classified as a comedy, it is more quirky than funny. Roger gave it 3 stars and so do I.

The Duchess

- 3 Eberts

I thought this was very well done. There are some interesting historical events swirling around in the background, such as the American and French revolutions and the slave trade, but this movie is really about life among the aristocracy.

The duchess was a very strong women and an excellent role for Keira Knightley. What I found most interesting about the movie was how bad even the rich and famous were treated, if they were women.

Roger really liked the movie and gave it 3 1/2 stars.

The movie doesn't have a lot of action or plot turns, but if you like historical drama you will probably like The Duchess.

I Wanted to Believe

- 2 Eberts

I really wasn't too interested in seeing The X Files: I Want to Believe. I liked the TV show and I liked the Mulder and Scully characters, but movies based on TV shows usually aren't too good.

This movie was actually better than I expected. It was sort of like a Coma meets Silence of the Lambs.

But overall, the movie was just mediocre. It was nowhere as good as the 3 1/2 stars Roger gave it. There were three separate plots running involving Father Joe's world, Mulder and Scully's relationship and the main plot line. All of them were sort of muddled and didn't fit together too well.

If you like supernatural themes you'll probably enjoy it, otherwise, pass on this one.

Not Wanted

- 2 Eberts

The IMDB and Roger rating (3 stars) were pretty good so when my library got this, I brought it home. It was sort of a cross between The Matrix and Fight Club, although I thought both of those were much better.

Roger said :

“Wanted,” directed by a hot Russian actionmeister named Timur Bekmambetov,
is a film entire lacking in two organs I always appreciate in a movie: a heart
and a mind. It is mindless, heartless, preposterous. By the end of the film, we
can’t even believe the values the plot seems to believe, since the plot is
deceived right along with us. The way to enjoy this film is to put your logic on
hold, along with any higher sensitivities that might be vulnerable and immerse
yourself as if in a video game.

Roger makes some good points here, but I don't like video games, so I didn't like Wanted too much. Once again Roger shows his genius for putting himself into the body of the person who the movie is targeted for. Video game players and fifteen year old boys will want Wanted, for everyone else I wouldn't recommend it.

Slumdog Millionaire

- 3 1/2 Eberts

I thought Slumdog was really good. It had three sets of good actors who represented the characters at different stages of their lives. The story was good and the music was great.

Roger really liked it and gave it 4 stars.

The parallel stories of the game show and the flashbacks worked really well.

It was effective as a gangster story, a social expose and a love story. In some ways it was a throwback to the Hollywood movies of the 30's.

The most interesting part of the movie to me was the look at the poverty and life styles in the slums. The English have been gone for over sixty years but it looks like they left Fagin behind. By the way, I knew the answer to the last question.

Don't Take the Express

- 2 Eberts

I had heard a lot of good things about Pineapple Express. Roger gave it 3 1/2 stars. He said :

Pineapple Express has all the elements you'd expect from the genre: male bonding, immature sexual desires, verbal scatology, formidable drug abuse, fight scenes, gunfire, explosions. Yawn? Not this time. It's a quality movie even if the material is unworthy of the treatment. As a result, yes, it's a druggie comedy that made me laugh.

I don't know whether to worry about Roger or admire him even more. The movie with its sophomoric humor and writing aimed at the fifteen year old crowd made me grimace much more than it made me smile. This is a movie that has as its best line, as reflected by the discussion boards, "F___ the Police!".

I just don't get it. The only explanation that I can come up with is that Roger must have the ability to view a movie through the eyes of the group towards which the movie is aimed. If Roger has this Zelig like power then he is a true genius.

Roger's Top 20 of 2008

Roger picked his top 20 movies of the year (in no particular order). There are quite a few I still have to see.
Ballast The Band’s Visit Che Chop Shop The Dark Knight Doubt The Fall Frost/Nixon Frozen River Happy-Go-Lucky		Iron Man Milk Rachel Getting Married The Reader Revolutionary Road Shotgun Stories Slumdog Millionaire Synecdoche, New York W. Wall-E

At The Movies Guys

The Top 10 Lists for 2008 of

the At The Movies guys were :

Ben Lyons 1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 2. Slumdog Millionaire 3. Milk 4. The Wrestler 5. The Dark Knight 6. Frost/Nixon 7. Let the Right One In 8. The Reader 9. Miracle at St. Anna 10. In Bruges

Ben Mankiewicz 1. The Wrestler 2. Frost/Nixon 3. The Reader 4. Milk 5. Man on Wire 6. The Bank Job 7. Rocknrolla 8. Towelhead 9. Happy Go Lucky 10. Iron Man

I kind of feel funny posting their movies here, because so far, they are not even a pale comparison of Siskel and Ebert. Their lists this year look pretty good (except for Towelhead). Last year Ben proclaimed I Am Legend "one of the greatest movies ever made". That didn't go over too well. This year I think he decided to go with the chalk (except for Miracle at St. Anna). Good move Ben.

Towelhead

- 1 1/2 Eberts


I used to hunt down the movies on Siskel and Ebert's Top 10 lists and try to see them all. Once in a while there was one that was not too good, but most of them were really good. That was a show I always looked forward to seeing.

I watched the new, At The Movies, show with Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz . Ben had Towelhead in his Top 10, so I put it in my Netflix queue, and I saw it.

I was pretty disappointed. It was a creepy kind of movie. I completely agree with Roger on this one. Roger said :

"Towelhead" presents material that cries out to be handled with quiet
empathy and hammers us with it. I understand what the film is trying to do, but
not why it does it with such crude melodrama. The tone is all wrong for a story
of child sexuality and had me cringing in my seat. It either has to be a tragedy
or some kind of dark comedy like Kubrick's brilliant "Lolita," but here it is
simply awkward, embarrassing and painful.

I think he hits it right on the head. The movie is warning about inappropriate behavior but seems to be saying that 13 year olds having sex with each other is OK.

I don't think Ben and I saw the same movie. Roger gave it 2 stars but I don't even think it was that good.

Man on Wire

- 3 Eberts

The documentary, Man on Wire, about a French guy who walked back and forth between the World Trade Towers back in 1974 was pretty good.

Even though you knew that he was going to make it, it still played out like a mystery.

It really was an incredible feat that Philippe Petit accomplished but what more interesting was watching the plan develop. Most of us have had wild, grandiose plans but very few of us act upon them.

Roger gave this one 4 stars. I didn't think it was quite that good, but it wasn't bad.

Burn Before Viewing

- 2 1/2 Eberts


I was really disappointed in Burn After Reading because I had such high expectations for it. I don't really think it should be burned. It was Ok and worth seeing.

Roger gave it his normal 3 stars.

It had a great cast with Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, George Clooney and John Malkovich. It doesn't get much better than that. It was also written and directed by the Coen brothers. It also doesn't get much better than that.

But for some reason I didn't think it was that funny. I go to a gym and I think some of the caricatures of the gym people were pretty funny but other than that I thought it was very mediocre.

A Curious Review

- 3 Eberts

Roger didn't like The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. In fact he gave it 2 1/2 stars, which is quite unusual for him. I think he didn't like it because it seemed illogical to him.

He says :

"Let me paraphrase the oldest story I know: In the beginning, there was
nothing, and then God said, "Let there be light." Everything comes after the
beginning, and we all seem to share this awareness of the direction of time's
arrow. There is a famous line by e.e. cummings that might seem to apply to
Benjamin Button: and down he forgot as up he grew. But no, it involves the
process of forgetting our youth as we grow older."

I don't quite get what Roger's complaint is here. Benjamin didn't know anything when he was born. The twist of aging in the wrong direction is what makes the movie interesting.

But, I am happy that Roger gave something less than 3 stars. in fact, I wasn't in love with this movie either. It was beautifully filmed, and the idea was interesting, but it was too long. With a running time of 166 minutes the movie just dragged in the last half hour, when it should have become exciting.

Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, the special effects and the makeup were all great. It could have been a really good movie if it had just been cut by 40 or 50 minutes. But it wasn't, so I can only give it 3 Eberts.

But Roger seems to think that this beautifully filmed movie is not as good as Zohan or the Mummy 3. That is pretty curious.

Tropic Thunder

- 2 1/2 Eberts

I wasn't as fond of this movie as most people. Roger gave it 3 1/2 stars. I'm not a big fan of slap stick and gross humor. There were some funny scenes but most of the jokes just didn't work for me.

I did enjoy Robert Downey Jr.'s performance and Tom Cruise was also really good.

The movie was interesting as a parody of the different kinds of actors there are in Hollywood. It had the potential to be very good. In the end it was the writing that let it down.

The Long Dark Knight

- 3 1/2 Eberts

Roger gave The Dark Knight four stars and I can't fault him for that. There were so many things that were good about this movie. Roger brilliantly says :

Something fundamental seems to be happening in the upper realms of the comic-book movie. “Spider-Man II” (2004) may have defined the high point of the traditional film based on comic-book heroes. A movie like the new “Hellboy II” allows its director free rein for his fantastical visions. But now “Iron Man” and even more so “The Dark Knight” move the genre into deeper waters. They realize, as some comic-book readers instinctively do, that these stories touch on deep fears, traumas, fantasies and hopes. And the Batman legend, with its origins in film noir, is the most fruitful one for exploration.

Writing movies that appeal to both adults and children is really hard to do, but these new comic book movies may do it as well as any genre ever.

Having supporting actors like Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman can only help a movie because they are always fun to watch. Heath Ledger gives the best performance ever given in this genre and it may never be matched. I really hop he gets the Oscar.

My only gripe with Knight is the length. I think the movie should have ended with the end of the Joker. In addition, making the movie a more reasonable length would have made the movie more focused.

The movie is long and the plot strays, but it does so many things right I have to give it 3 1/2 Eberts.