Dec 10th 2009, Week relating to 12/1 – 12/7

Movies Seen: *First Time Viewed
Jackie Chan’s First Strike*
Jackie Brown*
When Harry Met Sally
Clash of the Titans*
Jesus Camp*

I swear I did not intend to see 2 movies with the word Jackie back to back on purpose. It just happened that way.

Jackie Chan’s First Strike:
I sat down on a lovely evening with Kempo and Aaron to watch a VHS copy of this movie. Have you heard of VHS? It’s on these tape things and it doesn’t have any menus and the picture quality is kind of crappy, but they work in a pinch. This movie had some really funny dubbing in it, which is just a standard for old Jackie Chan movies I suppose. The action was all over the place. I mean ALL OVER. From the snow, to the beach, to underwater, aye ya! I think the underwater fighting was probably my favorite part just because it was so out there. Although I don’t like sharks…. By the way, if you wanted to see Jackie Chan’s butt, this is the movie.

Jackie Brown:
After having watched this movie, I can see why some people like it least out of Tarantino’s films. It is almost completely different then his other movies. There is very little action, the dialogue is of a different sort than other Tarantino flicks, and it’s shot in sequence (that was a joke). I still liked this one a lot. It’s a really great story with lots of tension and great cinematography. It has some of the best acting I have seen in any Tarantino movie. The music is so GOOD. I need to buy this movie already. It wasn’t what I expected because from what I have seen of blaxploitation movies, I thought it would be something laughable the entire way through. I guess I need to go watch some more movies. What a shame for me.

When Harry Met Sally:
This is a movie Sarah loves that she introduced to me a few years ago, that I also love now. It’s what every romantic comedy probably strives to be. Smart, funny, relatable, and smart. Did I mention smart? Billy Crystal represents a REAL guy in this movie. We like sports (by “we” I mean a typical guy, the only sport I like is baseball), we have our guy friends we trust completely, and we can be just as emotional and broken as women are typically portrayed in romcoms. I love that Billy Crystal isn’t typically handsome because it makes the whole thing seem more real. Plus I think he’s a great actor. I cannot speak for how Meg Ryan represents the woman’s view point, but she is also great in the movie. It wouldn’t have been the same with a different actress (well, duh). I will say that she doesn’t represent a weak female POV in the movie. It’s a really good movie, you should watch it if you haven’t.

Clash of the Titans:
I have started listening to a new podcast called the Film Sack, in which every week they watch a movie that can be viewed streaming off of Netflix. Having never seen Clash of the Titans, I thought it couldn’t hurt to take a look. I am so glad I did because I honestly loved it. It isn’t like any movie I have really seen before, and I was really impressed with the acting and the stop animation within it. I thought I would hate it for sure. I really like how the Gods in the movie were a bunch of petty arsewipes and were always doing things behind each other’s backs. Clash has some very good action scenes, most famous is probably the Medusa fight, which actually had me laughing but I still thought it was pretty cool. Why does Perseus just kind of toss his shield away? He could have used it later! The creatures were all very cool looking, and I don’t just mean for their time. I think a lot of thought must have gone into the animation. I even liked the mechanical owl. I want to get this movie and watch it with my nephews and nieces so they can make fun of me for liking it. I don’t care if they do, because someday they’ll look back and say “Joel made us watch some weird movies.”

Jesus Camp:
I never want to watch this movie again. That sounds really harsh, but the whole time I sat through this movie in class, I was cringing and probably making little sounds of pain. Its not because it’s a bad movie, in no way would I say that. One sided sure, but what documentary isn’t. It’s because I wanted to reach into the film and shake those people. I wanted them to stop lying to their children and make them wake the hell up. They use scare tactics to make these children believe that they MUST be the only way, the truth. The movie is not a commentary on religion as a whole; they only focus on one branch of Christianity, one church group specifically. Even now, I don’t like to think about the movie. I don’t know if I can recommend it because it made me feel this way.

Now, one may be wondering why it took me so long to complete this week that I started so long ago. I figured out something key for myself in the future; I was stuck on writing up something about the movie Miss Congeniality and thought I was just having a sort of writer’s block. Several weeks later of typing a sentence and then quitting I finally figured out what I was doing wrong. I had not REALLY watched the movie. I simply had it on in the background while I did other things. So I didn’t have a clear picture in my head about what I wanted to say about the movie. So the lesson is that I should only write up something on movies that had my full attention. Or at least 75 percent of it.