Aria

An interesting idea, to have 10 prominent film makers direct short films to famous opera arias -"like classical MTV" someone wrote. UGH. The images are nothing but gratuitous sex and nudity throughout. The only one I liked was the one everyone else hated, the one with Buck Henry...it was the ony one that was remotely close to a true plot. I also liked the one that was shot in B&W. But neither is enough to recommend seeing the whole thing. The writeup raves about "Bridget Fonda's electrifyingly erotic sex scene"....uh, pretty dull! The other hook on the box was Elizabeth Hurley - well, yeah she's gorgeous but she looks nothing like she looks now. We had to go back and look for her and we still couldn't believe it was her!

Oh, other recent standout films:
My Life Without Me - What a gut wrench. Beautiful. Sad. Oh so sad. Makes you want to hug everyone around you in case they won't be there next week.
21 Grams - Outstanding cast, incredible acting, good story, a leeetle too much jumping around, but it still worked, kept my attention. I was expecting as usual to be blown away by Sean Penn, and while he was excellent (very subdued) it was Benicio Del Toro that was most impressive. He was really scary, he was so close to the edge at certain moments it made me nervous.
American Splendor - well done, entertaining
Clay Pigeons - Vince Vaughn stole the show, would like to see more of him!
The First Year - documentary that follows 6 teachers in their first year of teaching. Very well done, touching, inspiring, infuriating!
Spellbound - documentary that follows I think 8 junior high aged kids on their way to the national spelling bee. Really great! Amazing to see these kids and where they came from.
Better than Sex - watched it awhile ago, but liked it enough to watch it a second time after Marco came home late and I'd just finished watching it.

Well I guess I'm a bit overdue. We just watched 'Jump Tomorrow'. I thought it was really sweet. It's just your basic serendipity love story, but it's got really great style and color and the two leads are just too irresistible. Amy Sedaris (my new 'gotta know everything about her' subject) has about 5 seconds on screen in this movie and she's adorable too. I found out just by chance, after the fact, that she's in it. I'm a newly indoctrinated Strangers with Candy fiend. Addict. Whatever. We just watched the first 2 seasons last week and I had to buy them. It's the kind of show that is just so well done, so well written and so full of detail that one has to watch it again and again. I've been visiting jerriblank.com almost daily and reading everything and finding out how much got by me! I can't wait to watch them again, and then I will watch them with commentary, because those guys are just so durn clever!

The Safety of Objects is what we watched last night. I'd say it's the best film we've seen all year. A really great central story put together and edited beautifully. It kept my attention throughout. I guess I got my wish from 2 blogs ago! I'd watch it again in a minute.

Tonight - Philip Seymour Hoffman (PSH as I've come to call him) in Owning Mahoney. He plays another slimeball I think....he's so good at that!

Speaking of Audrey....and freaky.....Audrey Tautou was quite unnerving in "He loves me , he loves me not"

Man, I just want to see a good movie. This summer has been a bust as far as I can remember. There's really nothing I CAN remember. Each morning I wake up, I think, "What did I watch last night? Did I like it?" If I have to go that far, then it was not memorable which = not so great. There are so many mediocre movies being made. Like with having kids and pets, I think people should have to qualify (NOT based on money!) to acquire the honor or privelege to do so.

We did watch Roman Holiday (Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck) and that was good. (They are two of the most beautiful creatures ever made). We also watched Audrey in Wait Until Dark. That was good too - Alan Arkin was freaky!

Oh - speaking of freaky, Dustin Hoffman put in a creepy performance in Confidence, which we watched last night. That was the best part of it... I got tired of Edwarf Burns trying to be tough. Hah! Edwarf! I meant Edward of course, but that's a pretty funny slip!!

I guess this was foreign sex flick week. We watched "Sex and Lucia", "101 Reykjavik", and something else I can't recall this minute. I liked Sex and Lucia quite a bit. Very tender story. I like how it's told. It reminded me of "Big, Bad Love". Because the guy is a writer, and tells a great story.

Oh, I never wrote about "Mostly Martha", but I've been recommending it to everyone. Excellent story and extremely well done. Marco and I kept punching each other saying "s/he reminds me of you!!"

This isn't the "SUCKED " list, but here's one that did: Montenegro. I'm sorry I sat all the way through it. Dorky stupid 80's movie. No point, really. Didn't like anyone. Really bad makeup, fashion and music. Well, there were a couple of ABBA tunes, but no chartbusters like "Dancing Queen".

OK, I can't say enough great stuff about About a Boy. I watched twice the same week it came out on DVD and I would watch it again tonight, but Marco got something different. I am going to buy a copy from my video store once they take it off of the new release shelf. I don't usually buy movies. There are very few that I would own.

Next I shall post a rather short but very important "SUCKED" list.

About a Boy. Love it. Hugh Grant won me over in this film. I'd never paid much attention to him but after I saw this movie in the theater last year I went out and rented as many of his films as I could find. I still like this one the best. Both Marco and I agreed that he played Will exactly the way we imagined him while reading the book. I read it again right away.