March Review
Posted by Primogeniture on April 9th, 2008
My movie viewing slowed in the past month, dropping a full 50% from February. Despite this, it was a good month averaging 3.2 out of 4 stars, up impressively from 2.4 in February but down from 3.6 in January. Even with the slower month, I remain well ahead of my movie count from 2007, with 23 new movies having been viewed since the new year began. I saw no 2008 releases and all but one film was from 2007. Sunshine and Michael Clayton both lived up to expectations, while Into the Wild disappointed and The King of Kong soared to among my ’07 favorites. My sole classic was One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a fine film that didn’t quite live up to my expectations. I think I’d like it more on repeat viewing. Oddly enough, all three of my rewatches were 2007 films. My only theater experience of the month was a rewatch of the superb No Country for Old Men, a very worthy Best Picture winner.
’70s: 1
’00s: 4
I am continuing with the first season of The X-Files and began Barack Obama’s memoir, Dreams from my Father. I also watched the first, and so far only, season of the HBO series Flight of the Concords. It is probably worth its own blog entry. A terrific musical comedy, it came out of nowhere for me. You can blame some of my movie-less nights on the new Nintendo Wii system I finally got my hands on. After, literally, months and months of searching the Wii was found. I am currently playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Thanks to school, things are moving slowly on that front.
Rewatches: The Darjeeling Limited, No Country for Old Men, Michael Clayton
April 9th, 2008 at 2:53 am
Any expanded thoughts on Michael Clayton and Into The Wild? I know your thoughts on Sunshine but I just watched the other two in the last couple weeks as well. I kind of had the opposite effect. I thought Michael Clayton was disappointing. Not bad, just not best picture nominee worthy. It was kind of bland. Into the Wild basically lived up to expectations. Good, not great, and kind of overadmired its hero imo.
So excited about Twilight Princess!! I finished it on the Gamecube and it was awesome. I know you share a similar love of Ocarina of Time so trust me, you’ll really dig the game. How far are you? My memory card got corrupted or I’d be replaying it myself. Need to get me a new one of those for sure. *curses*
April 9th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Into the Wild just never connected with me, which is sort of odd because I can understand the feeling of wanting to get away from society and “into the wild”, although for different reasons than the protagonist here did. I do agree that it over-admired its hero. He was just never really that likable to me and I was unable to get caught up in his journey. I don’t know of anything that was specifically poorly done, but it didn’t connect. And with the type of story that it was, if I don’t connect emotionally then there is little good that it can do.
Michael Clayton is also hard to describe. I’m not even sure I understand all of it and I’ve seen the movie twice. After watching it the first time I had to give it a rewatch before sending it back only two days later. It’s a well-written and directed film with some fine performances. The plot is interesting to me and the scene with the horses is beautifully done. The final scene between Clayton and Swinton’s character was terrific. I just loved it, as I did what happened right afterwards. We were kind of talking about this earlier, how it’s hard to say just why you like a movie or dislike another one sometimes, well, these are two movies that are like that to me. One I liked and one I did not.
Alright! I didn’t know you had played Twilight Princess! This one is definitely more up my alley than Wind Waker was (chalk it up to the Ocarina love maybe). I love the way Link and the other characters, such as Zelda, look. The story is so far pretty good as well. I prefer playing as human Link to wolf Link, but so far I’ve enjoyed both. I’m in the water temple right now, at the bottom of Lake Hylia, trying to get the third fused shadow. So I’m guessing I’m close to getting the Master Sword and arriving at the real objection of the game. Kind of like in Ocarina how you set out to free the sages after collecting the three stones and obtaining the Master Sword. I also like how it plays on the Wii. The motion sensor sword swings work really well.
April 14th, 2008 at 7:55 pm
I loved the last half hour of Michael Clayton, but it felt like everything that came before it was a bit too plodding for me. It was a slow drain of information to even figure out what the big secret trying to hidden was at all, which generally I’d chalk up to good building of suspense but I didn’t feel the suspense came until the more accelerated last act. Anyway, I agree the scene with the horses was brilliant, and the ending was a perfect note.
You’re making me want to replay Twilight Princess now! I definately preferred playing as Link as well. Sometimes I found the wolf obnoxious, switching back and forth, but it was kind of a stroke of genius to include it. In many ways because of the advanced graphics and gameplay it far surpasses Ocarina of Time but benefits from following the same kind of formula. Midna is also 80 gajillion times better than Navi.
April 16th, 2008 at 3:14 am
I can kind of understand not being enthralled with Michael Clayton for most of the movie, because like I said, even now, I really am not sure exactly what all went down. But I still enjoyed it, maybe just because of the performances and the cinematography or whatever, but I did. The last act is great though. However I thought Wilkinson did a great job. He was excellent.
It’s been sooo long since I’ve gotten to play Twilight Princess. I haven’t even picked up the controller since we last spoke about it. School has been so busy lately, and I guess I’ve opted to watch a quick tv show or see a movie instead of playing lately. Hopefully this weekend I’ll get to play some. I’ve got a test on Weds and one on Thurs, but after that I can probably relax a little bit more. I do love the look of TP, it really is like Ocarina done with better graphics. I can’t wait to get back to it.