The Darjeeling Limited

What a great movie. Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and Adrien Brody do a great job. There was this incredibly beautiful Indian woman in the movie too. Great story, held together well.

The story of 3 brothers and their relationship post-father's death. They all seem pretty dysfunctional, rich, and drug addicts. They all abuse drugs together.

Great lines in the movie too. Natalie Portman plays Jason Schwartzman's girlfriend, she says to him, "I am going to feel like shit tomorrow if we fuck." Jason's character responds, "I'm ok with that." Just beautiful, I don't give a fuck how you feel or will feel, lets fuck. Funny, but typical male attitude.

I would say greatest Wes Anderson movie since Rushmore. It was great to see all the same people show up in it that are usually in Wes Anderson's movies. And the way he used a train to tell the story and as the set. Similar to what he did with the ship in The Life Aquatic. Just awesome.

Lars and the Real Girl

What a strange movie. I think I know what they were trying to do. They kind of hit us over the head with it during an argument between Ryan Gosling's character, Lars, and Lars brother's wife, show that everyone loved this fellow, Lars, so much in this small town, that they would actually go along with his delusion that a life sized "love doll" was a real live girlfriend for Lars.

The problem I had was that they did not develop Lars character enough, so that you knew that he was a fantastic guy that a whole community would help out in such a way. It was still a funny movie though, its just that the emotional pay off, for me, fell flat. I think if they would have spent more time with Lars helping these people that later on help him instead of spending so much time showing him as being socially awkward with his sister-in-law and work place love interest. They could've accomplished both at the same time, he could be socially awkward and saintlike with these people that helped him. Oh well.

There is an interesting portion of the movie spent with a doctor/psychologist where they work on Lars problem of not being touched. I guess Lars was raised without a mother and by a father that was heartbroken and sad, so perhaps did not touch Lars at all. Lars seems to feel pain when touched by other people. Also there seems to be some idea going on that Lars is afraid that his brother's wife will die during childbirth like Lars' mother did.

There was this whole other part of this movie that felt really strange to me. That there was some woman pining away to be with this socially awkward delusional fellow the whole time. She patiently waits in the wings while Lars goes through this strange delusion. Then (spoiler alert) at the end she ends up holding hands with Lars at his dummy's funeral. To me, it seemed to be a rather idealistic portrayal of some strange feminine romantic notion that in my experience does not exist at all. It has been my experience that women want a man that takes care of everything for them. They do not wait patiently for a man to sort out his life and go as far as lending a hand in sorting out his life seems to me to be ludicrous. But that is just my experience.

The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai

I saw this dvd last night. Very interesting soft core porn movie from Japan. Lots of decent simulated sex scenes. The plot was pretty trippy. Sachiko Hanai is a call girl that ends up surviving a gunshot in the forehead and in possession of a cloned George Bush finger that could destroy the world because it can be used to remotely fire ICBMs. She ends up with super powers of intelligence. But her feelings become delayed. She cannot feel anything while she is experiencing it, only later on does she feel it.

I think it speaks volumes for our president and what the world thinks of him. When you become a main part of a plot to a softcore porn movie, the world is definitely thinking some strange shit about you.

This is the second Japanese softcore movie I have seen, and both of them, Gates of Flesh, seem to have bad views of the USA.

30 Days of Night

Saw this movie yesterday during the wildfires. Weird movie to watch during the fires here in San Diego. 30 Days of Night, when I went into the theater there were ashes raining down, not thickly, but then the movie was about 30 days of night in this Alaskan town named Barrow, with blizzards, ash looks like snow.

I liked the movie. Lots of gore, and the vampires all looked scary, they even spoke their own language. I liked the lead vampire, he seemed to be the only one that spoke. Interesting lines: "When man finds a force he cannot oppose, Man destroys himself." There were some other cool lines too.

Tough questions though, the cop character shots himself up with vampire blood, then goes out and fights the lead vampire. Pretty good fighting scene, but who would do that? Then he decides to watch the dawn with his loved one. What a friggin' sap. He could've lived forever as some strange vampire. The cold would not effect him anymore. Whatever. I liked the movie. But I wish they would have focused more on the vampires. They were the cool part of the movie, their culture, how do they survive, etc. Who cares about a bunch of people that live in some small town in Alaska, except that they were attacked by vampires. The vampires are the point of interest. Oh, well.

Mr. Bean's Holiday

I wanted to take my nephews to a movie while visiting them in San Jose. There was a real lack of kid's movies in the theaters. We could have gone to the re-release of the Nightmare before X-mas in 3D, but they were not having it. For some reason they both wanted to see the Bean movie. I had gone to one of these Bean movies previously and did not really enjoy it much, so I was not looking forward to this one.

It certainly wasn't a great movie, but we were the only ones in the theater showing this movie, so that was a plus. My nephews and I could talk, and we had some fun during the movie. Quin mentioned that it was a movie within a movie. Mr. Bean wins a trip to Cannes in a raffle, but he also wins a Sony video camera. Talk about product placement, Bean uses this camera throughout the entire movie. It was a pretty cool idea though and they did a good job implementing the whole thing in the end.

Surprisingly there were some good actors in this movie: Wilem Dafoe, and some other guy, I don't remember his name right now, but I like him. It ended on a sort of surreal musical extravaganza. I am kind of interested in this movies' soundtrack now. There were some interesting songs in it. Overall this movie was an enjoyable experience for my nephews and I. Good times.

The Heartbreak Kid

I saw Ben Stiller's Heartbreak Kid today. It was pretty funny. A romantic comedy though which is always kind of disgusting. One good thing about it to me was the ending. I liked the fact that Stiller's character found himself in the same situation. Often these romantic comedies end happily ever after, everyone is in love, married, etc. I also liked that Stiller worked with his dad Jerry Stiller. Jerry's father was pretty funny. "How many pussies have you crushed lately?" Pretty good question for a father to ask his son. There were some pretty good lines in this movie. During the movie I had this kind of annoying realization that Ben Stiller reminded me of my ex's new beau. That kind of made me sick because I like Ben Stiller. Oh well. This too will pass.

There was a trailer for Depp's Sweeney Todd movie. Cannot wait for that friggin' thing. Looks like he's going to sing.

Feast of Love

I saw this movie tonight. Good lord, what a tear jerker. I liked Greg Kinear and Morgan Freeman's characters. But what a sad movie. I teared up several times. There were only about 4 of us in the theater so it wasn't too embarrassing.

Lots of good ideas in this movie. Kinear's character would close his eyes and jump into a relationship, Freeman's character was blind to his son's addiction, and Alexa Davalos's character went to a fortune teller to see the future of her relationship.

There was lots of nudity and sex in this movie which is always a good thing as far as I am concerned.

With the stuff that I have gone through in my life in relationships and what my brother is going through, it made this movie very poignant to me, very sad, and maybe just a little too real.

I liked Kinear's search for a woman that believed that love is all, not just a way to force us to have babies. And also the idea that his character needed to find a woman that would love him.

Good movie.