Maggie Never Sleeps

Last week I went and saw Tom Hooper's Les Miserables. It's not a story that I was previously familiar with -- I've never seen the play and I didn't read any summaries before I went.

I did not particularly like the movie. I left the theater feeling confused and off-balance.

Spoilers below. I wrote a lot.

( Why Sometimes a Play Should Stay a Play )

Haven't been keeping up on my movies.

The other day Pat and I saw Night Watch, the new Russian movie that's been talked about a lot. Its one of those dark things versus light things movies, sortof like underworld in tone, but much better in reality. I liked it quite a bit, even though it's plot was a bit predictable and its logic a little weird. One thing that really stood out is what they did with the subtitles -- rather than just having them on top of the film almost in the way, they actually incorporated them into the storytelling. Really neat thing that I don't think I've seen anywhere else. That alone made the movie for me. I've read that they're planning to make two sequels: one in Russian and one in English. I wonder how that will turn out. I've also heard that they re-cut the movie for American audiences and that the Russian cut was much better. So I'll have to hunt that down if I can and watch it.

Last night we watched Mirrormask, which I wish I'd watched in theaters when it was out. Really gorgeous visuals and a neat, weird little story. Some parts were a little slow, and Pat couldn't help but groan at the ending -- but really, its a fairy tale, what do you expect? There were pieces that were reminiscent of Labrynth and other pieces sortof like Legend -- a mix that I thought worked really well, since they have different flavors. Labrynth is often silly and strange while Legend is serious and strange, so this was a good mix of silly/serious strange. And some of the scenes were pretty comparable, to the point where I wonder if they were thinking of those movies when they made them. Of course, the Jim Henson company helped to make this one, and they also did Labrynth, but I think the similarities go beyond that. Really excellent little movie.

Pat and I watch a lot of movies out here in Boulder (by this I mean even more than the many, many we used to watch at home). I want to try and write at least something about each of the ones that I see over the next year, maybe every two weeks or so (or when I get around to it).

Early January (and late December) movies:

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Ok, so I just watched War o' the Worlds. SPOILERS AHEAD. Overall I liked the movie a lot -- had a couple of issues though.

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