Five movies

After a hiatus from the movies, I've seen five in recent weeks.

Movie #1: Cloverfield. The best recent example of why I consider the type of movie and what it's trying to accomplish when evaluating it. This is an experimental kind of movie, shown from the viewpoint of a hand-held camera. If you don't like the jarring motion and all that, you'll hate the movie. It did give me a headache. But all in all, I thought it was done okay. People in the theater with me didn't like the ending, but endings are always tricky. Part of me thinks that movie makers have struck back against high expectations by deliberately leaving the audience hanging and unsatisfied. The guy acting as the cameraman was really funny, like your nice-but-stupid friend who can't keep a secret and always says the wrong thing at the worst possible time. I saw where it was called an American Godzilla movie, and that's kind of accurate. There's a little bit of creepy-crawly things that I'm not fond of, but it was effective. I don't expect everybody to like it, but it was all right.

Movie #2: Charlie Wilson's War. Very funny and fun. Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts are good, as they often are. Philip Seymour Hoffman is very entertaining, and I heard several people comment on how good he was. And in case you didn't know, it's about how a Congressman managed to wage war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Or something like that. It's based on a true story, so you can't really mess around with the ending too much.

Movie #3: I Am Legend. I saw this mostly because my sister raved about it. It's not really my kind of movie, since it involves creeping around in the dark, waiting for the bad things to jump out. Once the fighting started, I was okay. But the anticipation isn't for me. Will Smith is good. The whole thing is pretty well done, except for the ending. I wouldn't really recommend it unless you LOVE Will Smith and zombie-type movies. And I mean really, really love him.

Movie #4: Bucket List. Touching and funny. It's a comedy, but it does a pretty good job of showing you how serious it is to be in a hospital with cancer. There are some touching moments. But mostly it's funny with a bit of insight. Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson (maybe you've heard of them) appeared like they were having fun with each other, at least on screen. Ending was a bit of a cliche, but it was good. Just because it's cliche doesn't mean it can't work.

Movie #5: There Will Be Blood. Daniel Day-Lewis is great. His character's persona just reaches out from the screen and grabs you. Part showman, part ruthless businessman. It's a long movie, listed at 2:38. The first hour and fifteen minutes to hour and a half are good. Then it gets a little clunky. But the last hour has some pretty good scenes. The final scene, even with a sudden ending, is a great scene. Pretty good movie, though they could have cut off about a half hour or so and it would've been just as good.

Incidentally, this movie has Fletcher Hamilton, who played Julius Caesar in Rome. I could not for the life of me remember where I'd seen him. Turns out he was also Firmin in Phantom of the Opera.

There's something that bothers me about the movie, though, and it's not anything that appears on screen. It's rated R. Why? There's very little violence. There's only two things you could really consider a "killing", and they're not gory or terrible to look at. There's a couple of other instances of people dying, but it's nothing awful to watch. There's no nudity. I remember exactly one curse word. The MPAA warning on the movie says "Rated R for some violence." There's way more violence, sex, nudity, and foul language in dozens and dozens of movies that will be rated PG-13 (or even PG!) this year. I just don't get it.