movies

by Toni McGee Causey

I don't know about you all, but I am flattened by all of the activity from the last few weeks, and what I really want to do is goof off and go watch a good movie. I'm in the middle of creating a new voice for the WIP, which is fairly different from my previous work (this is darker, grittier, different world, no humor), and because of that, I'm interested in how others set up their worlds, hook us, and create their voice. [hmmm. Well, in part. Mostly, I just wanna be a slug in front of a big screen, but let's pretend I made some sort of profound statement on voice here. I think the triptowhateverturkeystuff has kicked in and I'm knee deep in relatives, and I cried Uncle about a week ago. Thank you.]

Problem is, I just don't see all that much at the theater that makes me want to bother. I've never been, nor will I ever be, interested in the Twilight films, much to the chagrin of several friends of mine who've been trying to convince me to give the books and films a try. (One friend even dragged all four books over here and piled them on my desk. Whereupon I made them into handy paperweights 'til she gave up and came and got them back.) I can't explain why the disinterest. I've read plenty of other vampire books I've enjoyed. I've read plenty of YA. Dunno why the combination feels meh, but it does. (Clearly, I am not the one to go by regarding what will work, though, because holy box office, Batman, that did well. Thank you, young female audiences. Hi, Hollywood, hope you're taking notes... females can rock the box office.)

The last thing we saw was last weekend: The Blind Side. (Desperation to get out of the house drove us there. It was... okay. Maybe meh tilting toward not bad.) I actually expected more depth to the story, more confrontation with the aspects of Michael Oher's tragic upbringing, and while that's shown, there's a glossing over that frustrated me, as a viewer.

I honestly can't say I've seen anything extraordinary, lately. I'm curious about Precious and it's probably up next. I'd tried a couple of romantic comedies this summer (The Proposal, which was funny up until the point where it was a complete rip off of While You Were Sleeping, to the point of staging and everthing and that sucked the life out of that ending for me. We also saw The Ugly Truth, which was, indeed, Ugly. If you set aside all taste and moral compass, it had its funny moments. I so want to like Gerard Butler in a film.)

There have been entire months--multiple months at a stretch--where my husband and I will look at the multiplexes and feel completely left out of any thoughts regarding what we'd like. And we'll go see a huge variety, so you'd think it wouldn't be that difficult to find something. [Having been a screenwriter for seven years, I grasp how all of this comes about, but still... it's disappointing to truly want to go to movies, to have the time and money, and repeatedly have nothing worth bothering over.]

There are a couple of movies I'm looking forward to. One is Cameron's Avatar:

And another one is Rob Marshall's Nine:

Jim Sherridan's Brothers looks noteworthy:

But overall... that's pretty slim pickings. I may have missed something coming out soon, though, so if you have some suggestions, I'd love to hear them. Meanwhile, what's a great / decent / worth going to film you've seen in the theater lately? And I'm all over Netflix and have a few good ones in my queue, but I'd love to see your favorites in a list.