movies

Sasha arrived in New Jersey on Friday. On Saturday we went for dinner and a movie.

We went to the movie theater in New Brunswick and watched Avatar.

The film showed a beautiful alien world, with great flora and fauna. It was an entertaining movie and great to see it in 3D. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie in 3D.

Last night we went for dinner and later saw “This Is It”, a documentary about the shows Michael Jackson planned to do in London.

Very impressive dancing and music. The dancers absolutely adored Michael Jackson, ‘worshiping’ may be a better word even. Good movie.

We saw Inglourious Basterds yesterday, the new movie by Tarantino. A great film!

Very violent, as most his movies are, but very well made and a terrific story line. The acting by Christoph Waltz was phenomenal. Going into the theater I had no idea what the film was about, and that was a great way to see it.

If you liked his previous films, you’ll love this one.

We saw Frost/Nixon recently. We had heard good things about it and I picked it up from Blockbuster without reading the summary. So it was somewhat surprising that in the first few minutes of the movie the whole Watergate-to-Nixon-resigning story was told. Obviously, the film was not a documentary about the actual affair, but about 4 interviews that President Nixon gave after his resignation to Mr. Frost, a celebrity journalist.

An original angle to take, and the movie was very interesting. The journalist, obviously looking for a spectacular ‘scoop’ of some kind, is depicted as in an battle against the smart and ex-president, who is looking for redemption in the public view.

Very good acting, especially by Michael Sheen who was playing President Nixon’s role.

We had a fun weekend. On Saturday we attended a very nice and romantic wedding (congratulations Sylvana and Daniel!) We had a great dinner with a good friend on the balcony.

On Sunday I went for an ambitious run. I tried to do 16 miles, but it was 85 degrees and I gave up after 14 miles. That meant I still had to walk another two miles to the car. Since it’s also pollen season I was sneezing quite a few times during the run. Beautiful course though, through Umstead and the Cary Greenway.

I was pretty much wiped out Sunday night, and watched “Quantum of Solace” which was exactly the right movie at the right time. Simple, uncomplicated with a lot of car chases and explosions. I enjoyed it.

Tonight Sasha and I saw Sons of Cuba, a wonderful documentary about Cuban kids in a school for boxing.

This was the openings movie of Full Frame 2009, and it was a great choice. The movie was very touching, very funny, and beautifully shot. After the movie there was a Q&A with the makers, who followed the group of young boxes for a period of over a year. They had amazingly good footage. At one point the film maker said “I was worried there wouldn’t be enough action in the movie” — well, that was a thing he didn’t have to worry about.

A great start of the festival.

It’s pretty cool to realize that four out of the five Oscar nominees for Documentary Feature played at the Full Frame Festival last year, and I saw all four of them.

Of the four movies that I’ve seen, Nerakhoon is my personal favorite. I think that Man on Wire has the best chances of winning the Oscar, since it’s more ‘commercial’ and has received a lot more publicity. My least favorite was Encounters at the end of the world, it was just boring.

Encounters at the end of the world was a bit boring.

The documentary maker travels to Antarctica to interviews various people living there. The problem is that the subjects aren’t very interesting, and the film never really takes off.

The film Man on Wire is a delightfully entertaining documentary about Philippe Petit, who walked on a rope between the Twin Towers in 1974.

When we saw the initial screening at Full Frame it the audience gave it a huge applause, and later it was awarded the Audience Award of the festival.

In the last couple of years there have been a lot of movies and documentaries about Katrina and its aftermath. Trouble The Water is the best I have seen so far.

I saw this movie on the last day of the Full Frame Festival, when it was screened again on Sunday morning since it had won the Grand Jury Award.

Two ‘street hustlers’ in the 9th ward in New Orleans have no car, no money and decide to stay in the city during the hurricane (“we have no wheels”). With a hand held camera they record everything that happens during the hurricane, when the levees break, and in the weeks afterwards. The main characters are full of live, and they try to stay upbeat during everything that happens.

The government is completely overwhelmed by what happened, and the film shows how this impacts their lives and that of others around them. It was a great movie, and while I prefer Nerakhoon to win, this documentary is worthy of the Oscar nomination it received.