Steroids can do a job ob your appearance. But keep in mind that he had nerve damage to his face when he was born. It's always made his face look out of kilter.

Garden of Eden
This was based on a Hemingway novel which I haven't read.
It takes place in post WWI Europe and tells the story of a weak willed writer and WWI vet who meets and falls in love with a slightly androgynous and very bossy heiress. They get married. While honeymooning across Spain and France, his wife decides that they should take a third person into their marriage. The results are of course, mostly negative.

The wife is also jealous of her husband's writing while the husband has unresolved issues with his father, mostly shown in flashback in African safaris.

The writer is played by Jack Huston (Richard from "Boardwalk Empire"). Mena Suvari ("American Pie", "American Beauty") is the wife and Caterina Murino is the second wife.

I don't know if this was a problem with the source material but the story sort of lacked intensity. The wife never seems to have real motivation for her actions.

We saw "City Island" the other night. The movie stars Andy Garcia and Julianna Margulies as a husband and wife. They have a son and daughter, and all are hiding secrets from one another. The two leads are lovely to watch together. The same woman who plays an always-in-control attorney on "The Good Wife" reveals another dimension as a wholly believable Bronx MILF.

As a former Bronx girl, the scenery alone was worth seeing. However, the movie has a wonderfully comic appeal. Garcia is a prison guard who wants to be an actor. His bad Brando impersonation is hilarious, especially for us Godfather fans. As the various secrets of the family members are revealed, the film becomes wonderfully heart-warming and funny. While the coincidences border on the ridiculous, it never quite crosses the line from quirky to just plain silly.

The film is highly recommended.

Ok, based on that review SB I might give it a shot. It was listed in the On Demand menu.

Added to Netflix, thanks

I feel so influential!

Saw THE TOURIST with a gal pal. Rating; 6 out of 10. Beautifully shot. And very slow. Very European.

Did you catch the Black Whale in the opening sequence, Babe?

I forgot to mention this movie to you last year, but I knew you'd love it. We saw it in theatre at the Whitestone Multiplex, just off the Hutch. How's that for getting in the spirit of things? I've since bought the dvd.

Well, I'm glad you got to see it anyway!

I did think that Garcia's Bronx accent was a bit over the top, but it was all in good fun. I'd never really heard the musselsucker/clamdigger thing outside of a City Island bar before, so they really did their homework .

Fun fact: That's his real life daughter (Dominik Garcia-Lorido) playing his on-screen daughter. And I give Andy even more credit for that, what with her playing a stripper and all. I sure as Hell couldn't handle it if it were me!

If it weren't 20 degrees I'd shoot up there right now for dinner. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

Of course I saw The Black Whale. I also noticed The Crab Shanty later on in the film. God, I haven't been there in years. My husband hates the chairs.

The Town

Despite using virtually every known cliche of heist flicks/Irish gangster movies/action movies and running maybe 20 minutes longer than needed, "The Town" was a relatively entertaining film.

It was testament to Affleck's directing skills that this was so since not everyone is able to make a good movie out of a story that includes such obvious plot lines as "hot tempered second-in-command", "slutty girlfriend", "racist Irish", "One Last Job", "An offer you can't refuse", "Just like his father", "Four man band", "The good girl", "It's quiet out there-Yeah too quiet", "You were like a brother to me", "I'm not going back to prison" and so on.

The movie looks great (especially on HD) and really brings out the beauty of some portions of Boston. Still if you've seen "Heat" you've already seen "The Town". The only question would be did you like "Heat".

Frozen

I didn't recognize any of the actors in this nifty little horror film and it was just as well because I wasn't tied down by any expectations. The premise is pretty simple. Three college age students (boyfriend/girlfriend and a second guy (best friend of the first guy) decide to go skiing together, despite the second fellow's resentment at the fact that the girlfriend is monopolizing more and more of his friend's time.

Through a combination of stupidity and honest mistakes the trio get stranded in a ski lift between 50-100 feet off the ground when the ski resort closes down. As this was the last day before a holiday no one will be back for at least four days. And they can't call for help as their cell phones are back in their lockers.

So the temperature is dropping dangerously, storms are coming in, and they must decide whether they want to try to wait it out and risk frostbite/gangrene, jump down or try to climb down hand over hand icy cables in the dark. And there just happens to be a pack of wolves in the area that are attracted to their cries for help.

Even though this movie had a low budget and limited area of action I liked it quite a bit. It certainly didn't LOOK low budget. It felt like something that really could happen. The acting was pretty good.

The eXperiment

Behavior modification movies and books have always fascinated me. People will do a lot of things if they think that authority gives them the ok. This movie examines how that would work.

A group of financially needy men are recruited for an experiment. About 1/4 of them are to play prison guards while the other 3/4 will be inmates. They will be locked away from the outside world for 2 weeks. At the end of that time they will each get $14,000. No violence is supposed to be allowed but rule breaking is not to be tolerated either. Supposedly they are being watched at all times and any violence will cause a red light to come on and end the experiment.

The leader of the guards is played by Forest Whittaker, a bible reading man who is gentle and firm (on the outside) while the leader of the inmates is played by Adrien Brody-an antiwar pacifist (on the outside).

Needless to say the situation inside causes both men to behave in ways of which they'd be ashamed otherwise. Whittaker's role is particularly meaty and his lazy eye comes in pretty handy in helping his character to look extremely disturbed as his sadistic and bossy personality elements come to the forefront.

Not a great movie as it is a little too predictable and things go downhill a bit too fast but worthwhile.

I just saw the movie. It wasn't bad at all. I enjoyed it. Seems like it should have gotten a bit wider release/notice.

Also it had Ricky Aiello in a brief cameo. He looks like -acts like- what I expected Al Neri to look like in my mind's eye. If they ever did do a remake..

"Musselsucker" sounds like something that you would say to start a fight.

"You musselsuckers don't run things around here any more.."

Glad you enjoyed it, Lilo. If you ever make a trip to NY, I'll meet you for dinner at The Black Whale.

I can never resist watching "Die Hard" every time it's on. Even if I watch part of it, I still find it very entertaining.



TIS

TIS, me, too! You really need to see "Red" if you're a Willis fan. The movie has some great action scenes and a fun script.

I have not been able to watch any films over the holidays due to the kids watching all the Christmas films like ELF,HOME ALONE,MARY POPPINS and other such gems

Just beat them away from the television with a broomstick, Yogi. Quite effective.

I went and seen True Grit tonight. I didn't think I would like it but it is pretty good. Jeff Bridges did a good job being Rooster Cogburn.

The "he won't be joining us for the rest of his life" and "I am an exceptional thief, Mrs. McClane. And since I'm moving up to kidnapping, you should be more polite" quotes are absolutely priceless.

"Elf" is probably the only Will Farrell movie I can watch. He has made some awful movies that I cannot understand why are considered "hits".

Loved this film, and your review was pretty good. However Heat and The Town are completely different movies, besides being heist films, and in no way does seeing one mean you've seen the other.

I pretty much agree. I liked him also in Ron Burgandy, but most of his stuff is just outrageous and loud, not really funny.

Mark and Olivant,

Consider watching Stranger than Fiction or the Other Guys, both starring Will Farrell. He's much more subdued in both these films. The Other Guys is a pretty funny film while Stranger than Fiction is both a funny and very touching movie!

I wanted to see "The Other Guys". I heard that the Wahlberg/Jeter scene is hilarious. Given that Wahlberg is such a huge Red Sox fan, he said that he relished being the man that shot Jeter.

I watched "Elf" for the first time this season and liked it. I've not seen any other movie of his. I never was a fan.

And TIS, whenever I stumble upon Die Hard, I have to watch too.

Ehh...
professional heist team led by a "good" thief of high intelligence who eschews violence where possible.
broad daylight shootouts.
betrayal by key trusted figures.
warning signals sent by compromised love interests.
lead character seeking vengeance.
One last job.
ominous non-violent confrontation between leaders of "bad guys" and "good guys".

I thought there were enough similarities to warrant a mention. It's not a shot at either Affleck or the audience. I enjoyed both Heat and The Town.

They are different, IMO Affleck makes "The Town" look a lot better than "Heat" while the second guy has much better motivation and is drawn more strongly but even Affleck recognizes that some comparisons were unavoidable.

The film with which The Town begs obvious comparison is Michael Mann's Heat, and it is a comparison Affleck initially hoped to avoid. "That movie's really the gold standard of heist films, and I knew that doing this movie it was going to come up. At first I thought I could duck a bit, get away from it somehow.

"Then I started interviewing a lot of guys who were in prison, and invariably I'd say during the course of the interview, well what kind of things inspired you and they'd all say, 'have you seen the movie Heat?' And then I thought, 'well maybe this is just limited to the crooks', but then I went in to see the FBI and the f***** poster for Heat was on the wall, and at that point I thought, 'well, I'm just going to have to live with this!'"

Affleck

The Killer Inside Me

This is based on a Jim Thompson novel (aside- which I couldn't find at my local Borders and then they wonder why more people are just ordering books online) and is set in early fifties Texas. It was directed by Michael Winterbottom.

Via voiceover the movie tries to ape the first person perspective of the book's protagonist. As the protagonist happens to be a pretty sick sociopath deputy sheriff (played by very young looking Casey Affleck) with a taste for spanking and beating women his POV can be hard to stomach at times. There really is no one to root for in this film which presumably was the point.

Jessica Alba plays a local prostitute that the local bigshot (Ned Beatty) would like to have run out of town for personal and business reasons. This job comes down to Affleck who doesn't do as he's told and force her to leave but decides to use her in a revenge plot against Beatty and company (after engaging in a sadistic sexual relationship with her).

Of course blood calls for blood and the Affleck character is "forced" to do more acts of murder and evil in order to stay one step ahead of his increasingly suspicious bosses and a one man Greek chorus of recrimination-Elias Koteas.

This movie got a lot of flack for "misogyny". I think that sort of misses the point in this context. Affleck's character is evil through and through and doesn't really discriminate in who he harms. However I think most people (feminist or not, liberal or conservative) are still somewhat taken aback against depicted violence committed against women even as we are neutral or dismissive against fictional harm done against men. That's life.

That said if you do not like filmic violence or really don't like seeing women be the target of extended realistic looking violence this may not be the film for you. Initially I thought Affleck was miscast as a Texas deputy sheriff but his slight frame and baby face juxtaposed to what he was doing gives the movie a dissonance that the director may have wanted.

In addition to Affleck, Alba, Koteas and Beatty this film also stars Kate Hudson, Simon Baker, Bill Pullman and Tom Bower. With the possible exception of Beatty and Hudson I don't think anyone really tried to pull off a Texas accent.

Dinner for Schmucks

Would be winner (Paul Rudd) is offered chance to rise in corporation by humiliating hapless loser (Steve Carrell). Three's Company inspired hijinks ensue mostly involving misunderstandings, switched phones and only hearing the endings of conversations.

Pretty silly movie all around and probably only good if you have a free rental. Of course there is a happy ending and this is no different from any of the other films which purport to teach us about how money and success don't really matter in life.

Lucy Punch looks pretty good in black leather pants. That was about all I could remember from this film.

I thought it was a pretty repugnant artistically.

I wrote a review on my film blog.

Here are few paragraphs from that post:

The Killer Inside Me has been described as a “character study”, as can often be fashionable with films and stories of this type. Beware: it's fast becoming – if it wasn't already – an industry shorthand for broody, introspective non-commitment.

Writing for Film4, Catherine Bray notes, “Lou is a polite, rather dull man, leading a highly conventional life, and if it weren't for that fact that he commits some atrocious crimes, there would be very little point in making a film about him. If we accept this, then his violence is what legitimises him as a subject.”

This, apparently, is what might have drawn Winterbottom to the character. But Bray is right to go on: “Violence being the thrust of the film, what does The Killer Inside Me have to say about violence? Not as much as you might hope, is the answer.” The film is vacant of any moral or personal complexity. Its despairing tone is a result more of its sheer, stubborn hopelessness than its atmospheric rendering of a period Texas. A Kiss Me Deadly-style conclusion lends the work absurdity, but not a jot of seriousness.