Say hi to your mother for me

While Wahlberg’s stuff will typically never be competing for best picture at the Academy Awards, he tends to turn in some pretty good action. Here in Contraband, that continues.

Contraband starts off with our reformed smuggler Chris Farraday (Wahlberg) working a good honest job doing home security system installations while dealing with being married to Kate Farraday (played by the exquisite Kate Beckinsale…ah Kate…lovely lovely Kate…you still haven’t answered my calls…your penmanship on the restraining order is beautiful…) Ahem. Sorry, lost my train of thought there. Oh, right, and he’s a family man and they have a couple of young kids and they live in New Orleans. (call me Kate!) All is well until Andy, Kate’s idiot brother, botches a smuggling job to the tune of a pretty sizeable chunk of change owed to our bad guy, a Mr. Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi). Though reluctant to do so, yet seeing no other options, Chris steps in to do one last big smuggle in order to save the delicious Kate’s idiot relation. That sets up the movie and the tension and the action, and there are some decent twists along the way for a fairly enjoyable movie.

I enjoyed it for the action/thriller that it was, and my only complaint was not enough screen time for Ms. Beckinsale.

Now for something completely unrelated, some clips of Wahlberg here and here.

Bridesmaids

Just watched Bridesmaids. It’s lewd, it’s crude, and it’s some pretty funny stuff. This is the first wedding movie I’ve seen in a long time that moved me to tears (though to be fair, I’m a real sucker for toilet humor).

This flick is about the engagement and lead-up to the wedding for Lillian (Maya Rudolph) and her eternally unattached maid-of-honor/best-friend-since-childhood Annie (Kristen Wiig). Other bridesmaids are Rita (Wendi McLendon-Covey) and Becca (Ellie Kemper) whose relationship to Lillian I didn’t quite catch, and also Helen (Rose Byrne) who is in the same country club as her husband-to-be and Megan (Melissa McCarthy) who is the groom’s sister. There’s a power struggle between maid-of-honor Annie, who is not having the most exciting life up to this point and isn’t terribly wealthy, and Helen, who is a new best friend of Lillian and who is also rather rich. We’re also treated to some fun bits with Officer Rhodes (Chris O’Dowd of The IT Crowd).

There were many funny moments and I was routinely laughing throughout, but for my money, Melissa McCarthy’s Megan stole the show. She was a riot. So, if you enjoyed shows along the lines of 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, this was a hoot. Give it a view.

Funny and serious

Earth (the book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human Race is put together by the writing staff for The Daily Show on Comedy Central and is a tongue-in-cheek textbook-style format encyclopedia of sorts designed to explain to our future alien overlords just what they’re looking at when they finally arrive on this planet and start scratching their heads, wondering just what the hell we were doing here. If you’re into that sort of humor, this is pretty funny.

Breaking Bad is here to illustrate that sometimes things can be so completely different that they should, by rights, be in separate reviews, but clearly that isn’t happening.

If you remember Hal (Brian Cranston) from Malcolm in the Middle, your first order of business with Breaking Bad is to somehow extricate that character from your brain matter, possibly using a spoon if needed. The character of Walter White (Cranston again) is the polar opposite of the cheerful and misguided goofball from Malcolm. His performance here goes to show his chops as a truly superb actor. Walter is a genius chemist, and since I’m fairly early in the series, I don’t have the full background on the guy, but he’s a Nobel Prize winning chemist who, through events, is relegated to teaching high school chemistry in New Mexico. His meager earnings set the wheels to hell a rollin’ when he learns he has terminal lung cancer. Right around this time he also learns that his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) is pregnant, and they already have a nearly-grown child, Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte) at home with cerebral palsy. Feeling cornered with no way to provide for the long-term future of his family once he’s gone, he “break’s bad” by getting into the underground world of producing methamphetamine with a former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Being a chemist, he has quite a knack for making high quality stuff, but his DEA Agent brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris) makes for some awkward and tense moments when he’s explaining bits to Walter about some of the new meth they’re seeing crop up.

The show is intense, and so far the acting and character development are great. Definitely not kid friendly, but well worth a watch if you enjoy a good crime thriller.

A bit of light and dark

Let’s start with the dark. Lars von Trier’s Melancholia is an exercise in depression. The film certainly has some artsy scenes, and the concept has a lot of potential, but I personally didn’t care for the execution.

We start on the wedding night of Justine (Kirsten Dunst) who is having a hard time keeping herself together. It’s a lavish affair put together, hosted, and paid for by her sister Clair (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland). All of this takes place in the lead-up to the projected very-near-Earth passing of planet Melancholia, a rogue planet whose existence was only recently discovered and whose trajectory isn’t well defined. Will it pass by? Will it ultimately collide?

What I didn’t like. The characters are pretty much set at the beginning, and they then go for broke within that mold. Justine is depressed and nearly unreachable. Her sister Clair is snippy and bitchy. Bro-in-law John is feeling a lack of gratitude from Justine and her husband who doesn’t need much of a mention because he’s a bit player. There are some family conflict segments of little consequence, but nobody really has any kind of cathartic moment or transformation, and it’s hard not to wonder what the point of this exercise was. That said, some of the scenes were moving for the viewer.  I can’t say I’d recommend it.

The unexpected western True Grit now, was another matter. I suppose this is rather obvious being a Coen brothers film and all, but I didn’t expect this to be as light-hearted as it was. The characters were generally charming and there were many amusing moments, and it made for a lot of fun.

The story finds us following the journey of young Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), a teenage girl who rolls into town to settle the affairs of her murdered father. She sets out to hire a U.S. Marshall to hunt down her father’s killer Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). What she finds is a washed up drunk by the name of Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) who has a bit of a reputation for shooting first and asking questions later, and also draws the interest of LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), a Texas Ranger with a whole lot of good old Texas swagger. Mattie’s tenacious nature, while at first annoying, tends to endear the other characters to her over the course of the adventure. Though the overall tone has less grit than the title might imply, it was quite an enjoyable movie to watch and I’d recommend checking it out.

The Element

My first exposure to Sir Ken Robinson was in a couple of TED Talks he made. He has made his life’s work studying the way education is provided around the world and looking at the things that work, as well as the things that don’t. Along the way he has had the opportunity to meet and talk with some very interesting people who seemed to thrive and succeed, not because of school, but rather in spite of it. In his book The Element, he talks about people who’ve really found their niche in life and the often very diverse ways that they’ve come to their place in life. Often it’s through great adversity. He discusses as well both areas in which modern education are completely failing their students, as well as models where students can really flourish. The overall tone and message of the book are hopeful.

I’d recommend checking this out. It’s often humorous and provides some good insight into education.

The Swedes are a bit…dark

I found this on Netflix streaming and I’m honestly not sure where else one might find this (I’ve heard rumor that in the U.S. the extended edition is available). I watched the 6-part extended edition consisting of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. The whole thing comes out to some 9 hours of story. There is no sugar-coating to be done here. This is a thoroughly brutal story with some of the most horrendous bad guys I’ve seen, and not for either the faint of heart or children under the age of 27. I’ve never read the books, now I want to, but if in typical fashion the books are even better than the movies, I’m a bit nervous about what I might find in there.

These films, in my opinion, were very well done. I’m usually not one for subtitles, but as these were all made in Sweden for the Swedish, it was necessary. Despite the subtitles, they were well worth watching. The character development was excellent. Over the course of the trilogy we find out how Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace, soon to be in Prometheus) came to be the way she is, and we’re treated to some excellent acting in the character of Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist). The story reels you in and then it’s pretty much non-stop sitting on the edge of your seat, biting fingernails the whole way. Like any story, you know in your heart that surely the good guys will prevail despite all of the awfulness they’re forced to trudge through, but the bad guys are so equally compelling that it’s not hard to imagine justice not being served. Plus, the whole thing is Swedish, so what if they don’t have our sense of happy endings?!

At any rate, these were excellent movies, well written, well acted, but be warned, they are very tough stuff to watch in a number of places. I’m also curious about the English version with Daniel Craig, as that seems to rate well, though it’s hard to imagine an English adaptation taking on some of the scenes in this one.

They bought a zoo

We Bought A Zoo is based on a true story. Though the original setting was England, we find ourselves in southern California in this family-friendly outing.

Our central character Benjamin Mee (Damon) is a recent widower with two young kids, and when we come in, they’re struggling. Benjamin is having a difficult time keeping himself together leaving kids Dylan (Colin Ford) and Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) a bit lost themselves. Everywhere they look are constant reminders of the wife and mother that was taken from them far too early, so Benjamin decides a change of scenery is required. With adorable daughter Rosie in tow and with the help of a very eager real estate agent, they go house hunting, finally discovering a semi-rural house that seems like the perfect fit. There is, of course, one minor detail. With it comes a zoo that is currently in default and in which the animals are running out of time.

There is a pretty good balance of humor and fun mixed with some pretty heartfelt moments as this broken family tries to pick up the pieces. We all enjoyed the story at our house, and I’d recommend giving it a view. One quick note, Elle Fanning does a pretty good job in Super 8, but don’t expect that here. Her character’s a minor part though, so that helps.

Finally got around to reading this

I’d heard about the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for years. It’s a nerd staple, and when it appeared in casual conversation, it seemed like I was the only one who hadn’t read it, and that was quite odd apparently. This in and of itself is a small pinch of irony when we consider the content here. This book is, I think it’s safe to say, VERY odd itself. The author, Mr. Adams, died rather young and one can’t help but wonder if long-time use of hallucinogenics were involved.

The basic setup is this. Our regular everyman Arthur Dent is having a problem. The district where he lives wants to basically use eminent domain to relocate him so that they can demolish hi house so an expressway can proceed through the area where his house currently resides. As you might imagine, he’s rather put out by this turn of events. It is shortly after we learn this that Arthur learns that an alien race has essentially claimed eminent domain over planet Earth and intend to demolish earth so that an intergalactic expressway can be put in. This is how it starts, and then it proceeds to get silly from there.

The humor comes along very regularly and is often very odd. There is a story here, though I found it to be rather non-traditional. It wasn’t terribly long, I enjoyed the read, and intend to finish the 5-book “trilogy” to see what happens next. I’ll be honest, this might not be for everyone, but if you like a little bit of the unusual from time to time, check it out.

This blog post will self destruct…

Just watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, and holy crap!

I’m a big fan of Brad Bird’s. The guy seems to really be in his element with this whole “making awesome movies” thing (Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and others).

This is apparently his first live-action outing, and the guy really delivers. There’s not much playing it safe here. In true MI fashion, the tasks are nigh-impossible, the story larger than life, and for action they really put the pedal to the metal. Our story opens with these guys on the trail of a smart and dangerous villain who manages to blow up the Kremlin and pin it on the IMF group. The U.S. government then initiates ghost protocol which essentially disavows the whole lot. They are officially completely and entirely on their own. Their choice is to try to disappear, or to try and clear their names. The story is really good and the action is quite intense. I give full props to Mr. Cruise for doing his own running around on the side of a building work. A solid supporting cast made this a whole lot of fun, and I’d highly recommend a viewing.

The Hunger Games Trilogy

I just finished the final book of the popular “young adult” series The Hunger Games (book for those who don’t know are: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay).

I prefer “young adult” to “teen fiction” as it lets me continue to pretend I’m not slumming it too bad, and hey, the content is rather dark. I digress…

The gist of the story takes place in the distant dystopian future where society as we know it today has long since collapsed, and is now organized into a group of 12 district managed by a central capitol. Due to a failed uprising some 70+ years prior to where we come in, the ruling government has instituted “the hunger games” as a constant reminder of the dangers or revolt by making each provide two young kids (teens), a boy and a girl, each year in a match where they fight to the death, with the lone survivor winning eternal glory and a better life for themselves and their immediate family upon their return home. Cheery stuff it ain’t.

The books read pretty quick. They’re not overly large (there are no Harry Potter book five’s here), but the character development is pretty solid for the main characters, and the situations and action are pretty imaginative stuff. I have yet to see the first movie but will be interested to compare. Overall, I’d recommend giving these a read if the basic premise sounds good to you.