Monday Morning Quarterback Part III
By BOP Staff
August 8, 2012
Kim Hollis: I didn't really think I'd care much about Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, but I found myself really enjoying it, mainly because the chemistry between Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt is quite wonderful. Kristin Scott Thomas has an amusing turn, too.
As far as The Dark Knight Rises, I found it to be the ideal capper to the trilogy. More of a sequel to Begins than The Dark Knight, the film has a number of excellent flourishes and pays attention to the details, which I appreciated a great deal. Bale is at his best here, and the cast members who surround him are top-notch, particularly Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Tom Hardy. The movie has a few missteps, including what I believe to be poor sound mixing and a horribly written character played by Matthew Modine, but overall I think it is quite satisfying.
To Rome With Love is pure fluff, but it's amusing, harmless fluff. It was going to be tough for Woody Allen to follow up Midnight in Paris with anything comparable in quality, so I think he just took the approach that he'd have fun shooting a film in a picturesque location. I'd compare it to reading a "beach book."
I was surprised I enjoyed Man on a Ledge as much as I did given that I pretty much knew everything that would happen in the film thanks to the trailers. I just kind of went with it and accepted the movie's conceit. Sam Worthington isn't a great actor, but he may work better as an everyman like the one in this film rather than a demi-god like in the Titans movies.
Beasts of the Southern Wild is a movie I had been eagerly anticipating. I'm always drawn to the magic realism genre, and while it could have gone far overboard and gotten too precious, Beasts straddled that line between fantasy and reality quite nicely and was quite thought-provoking to boot. Quvenzhané Wallis is an amazing young actress. I found myself wondering how in the world the director was able to elicit such an inspiring performance from her. The movie is not upbeat, but it is uplifiting, if that makes sense.
Finally, Mirror Mirror is an utterly forgettable fairy tale adaptation that does absolutely nothing to set itself apart from the various other retellings that have taken place over the past year or two. Julia Roberts is mostly obnoxious, while Lily Collins and Armie Hammer (who I normally like) are super bland. I did enjoy the dwarfs, but overall the movie almost felt like a Summer Playhouse sort of thing rather than a big-budget production.
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