I watched two movies in the theater (that makes 3 on the year)!! And another at home...
Dark Water Rising- this movie was in Portland for a week, through tonight, it's first regular engagement in a theater- not a total World Premiere cuz it was at two festivals. It's a movie about pet rescue in New Orleans last year. A sad movie? Well, yes, but I also knew it would be a good movie (and it was very good), and I know that documentaries give a perspective you just won't get from mainstream media (and it def did that). You might wonder if starved animal corpses, or murdered animal corpses, or footage of illegal New Orleans pitbull dogfights were the saddest thing in the movie. You know, to me the saddest part of the movie was just the first minute or so- no dead animals, or humans, just seeing the Complete Fucking Devastation of a major American city; the areas shown quite literally looked like a nuclear bomb hit them. As for starving animals- most of the pets rescued in the movie hadn't had food or clean water in 4 to 6 weeks. As for murdered animals- footage is shown of dogs's corpses in an abandoned shelter-building that someone had systematically murdered with several guns (shotguns and several calibre of bullets). A deputy was suspected, but nobody has (dared to) come forward as witness. The movie mostly follows official Humane Society rescuers (like our own tomahto*) and also renegade, unsanctioned rescuers who couldn't stand to wait (or get denied) for official clearance.
http://www.darkwaterrising.com/trailer.html
The director, Mike Shiley, was there fielding questions, and also showed a clip of his documentary on Iraq. It looked great, so I bought a copy on DVD in the lobby. I watched it last night:
Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories- Shiley went to Iraq with basically no training or press credentials. He divided up his time between using a private escort/ translator and faking press credentials to get imbedded in army bases and tank batallions. Some things that stand out: 1) there's a lot of porno being sold in Baghdad now, 2) the armor unit he was with intimidated the townspeople by taking tanks and assult vehicles to an empty ravine in the middle of the night and shooting off ALL their cannons. Charming, 3) there were also soldiers who were friendly to the kids in school visits, and one soldier who decries all the waste of food and supplies in the army base dump, which Iraqi kids try to sneak into over razor wire to forage. It says in the epilogue that the soldier was passed up for promotion and given early discharge for saying these things, 4) I'd heard Iraqis get free gas, and they do, but the lines they have to wait in are insane. Shiley shows one line he filmed (in fast-motion) as they pass, and says it took 5 minutes to drive the length of the line at 30 mph. I have to recommend this film just because you see Iraq as a real place, not in a "news" way. It is very real.
http://www.insideiraqthemovie.com/trailer.html
SNAKES ON A PLANE- Okay, different sort of movie. Was lucky enough to see it with SuperFlashGo tonight, and... it's hard for me to rate this movie. I actually encourage you all to see it, as you think you know how goofy this movie is, but it's really odd. I thought it'd just be a straight action movie like.... Passenger 57 meets Anaconda... but it's a lot odder than that. Some of the dialogue is just loopy as hell. I found myself saying, about 50 times, "WHAT? He/ she didn't just SAY that!! What the hell?!?" Some of it seems to be played for drama, but it's often hard to tell when it's not just being sarcastic, when they're deliberately doing action-movie-type things for drama or laughs, and then they throw in a lot that's horror-comic... and it's a VERY violent flick. There's like NINETY BILLION snakes on this plane, and you have NO idea how mean and nasty they act! So I give this movie credit- the one thing I ask most from a movie is the unexpected, something I couldn't see coming, and it has its share of that. For one thing, the guy with the cowboy hat from Anchorman is the co-pilot and gets in a lot of oddball lines, and Kenan Thompson plays a bodyguard (!!) for a rapper, and... provides some unexpected moments in the end.
The whole time I watched it, I'm like "Juliana Margulies gave up millions of dollars to keep acting in ER because she had to make movies... movies like this....huh."
I recommend seeing this once, as a matinee... dunno that I'd watch it a lot for kicks on cable or DVD. Also, thanks for the cookies, SuperG! They were a perfect consistency, no flour problems.
* http://suicidegirls.com/members/tomahto/1016381/
Dark Water Rising- this movie was in Portland for a week, through tonight, it's first regular engagement in a theater- not a total World Premiere cuz it was at two festivals. It's a movie about pet rescue in New Orleans last year. A sad movie? Well, yes, but I also knew it would be a good movie (and it was very good), and I know that documentaries give a perspective you just won't get from mainstream media (and it def did that). You might wonder if starved animal corpses, or murdered animal corpses, or footage of illegal New Orleans pitbull dogfights were the saddest thing in the movie. You know, to me the saddest part of the movie was just the first minute or so- no dead animals, or humans, just seeing the Complete Fucking Devastation of a major American city; the areas shown quite literally looked like a nuclear bomb hit them. As for starving animals- most of the pets rescued in the movie hadn't had food or clean water in 4 to 6 weeks. As for murdered animals- footage is shown of dogs's corpses in an abandoned shelter-building that someone had systematically murdered with several guns (shotguns and several calibre of bullets). A deputy was suspected, but nobody has (dared to) come forward as witness. The movie mostly follows official Humane Society rescuers (like our own tomahto*) and also renegade, unsanctioned rescuers who couldn't stand to wait (or get denied) for official clearance.
http://www.darkwaterrising.com/trailer.html
The director, Mike Shiley, was there fielding questions, and also showed a clip of his documentary on Iraq. It looked great, so I bought a copy on DVD in the lobby. I watched it last night:
Inside Iraq: The Untold Stories- Shiley went to Iraq with basically no training or press credentials. He divided up his time between using a private escort/ translator and faking press credentials to get imbedded in army bases and tank batallions. Some things that stand out: 1) there's a lot of porno being sold in Baghdad now, 2) the armor unit he was with intimidated the townspeople by taking tanks and assult vehicles to an empty ravine in the middle of the night and shooting off ALL their cannons. Charming, 3) there were also soldiers who were friendly to the kids in school visits, and one soldier who decries all the waste of food and supplies in the army base dump, which Iraqi kids try to sneak into over razor wire to forage. It says in the epilogue that the soldier was passed up for promotion and given early discharge for saying these things, 4) I'd heard Iraqis get free gas, and they do, but the lines they have to wait in are insane. Shiley shows one line he filmed (in fast-motion) as they pass, and says it took 5 minutes to drive the length of the line at 30 mph. I have to recommend this film just because you see Iraq as a real place, not in a "news" way. It is very real.
http://www.insideiraqthemovie.com/trailer.html
SNAKES ON A PLANE- Okay, different sort of movie. Was lucky enough to see it with SuperFlashGo tonight, and... it's hard for me to rate this movie. I actually encourage you all to see it, as you think you know how goofy this movie is, but it's really odd. I thought it'd just be a straight action movie like.... Passenger 57 meets Anaconda... but it's a lot odder than that. Some of the dialogue is just loopy as hell. I found myself saying, about 50 times, "WHAT? He/ she didn't just SAY that!! What the hell?!?" Some of it seems to be played for drama, but it's often hard to tell when it's not just being sarcastic, when they're deliberately doing action-movie-type things for drama or laughs, and then they throw in a lot that's horror-comic... and it's a VERY violent flick. There's like NINETY BILLION snakes on this plane, and you have NO idea how mean and nasty they act! So I give this movie credit- the one thing I ask most from a movie is the unexpected, something I couldn't see coming, and it has its share of that. For one thing, the guy with the cowboy hat from Anchorman is the co-pilot and gets in a lot of oddball lines, and Kenan Thompson plays a bodyguard (!!) for a rapper, and... provides some unexpected moments in the end.
The whole time I watched it, I'm like "Juliana Margulies gave up millions of dollars to keep acting in ER because she had to make movies... movies like this....huh."
I recommend seeing this once, as a matinee... dunno that I'd watch it a lot for kicks on cable or DVD. Also, thanks for the cookies, SuperG! They were a perfect consistency, no flour problems.
* http://suicidegirls.com/members/tomahto/1016381/
VIEW 13 of 13 COMMENTS
That Christina Aguilera video was very cute! She can be quite charming.
I saw it too.