What Emily's Been Watching, March Edition

Kind of a weird mix of movies this month. Or maybe not. Perhaps this list is exactly the kind of list you might expect from me.

CATFISH (2010) [PG-13] Documentary. There is a saying that goes, "The first rule of Catfish is- you don't talk about Catfish". This is an important rule! So I am going to stay pretty tight lipped about this one. All you need to know is that it is about this photographer that lives in NYC, and his brother and his friend decide to make a movie documenting his relationship with a fan of his he met on facebook that made a painting of one of his photographs. This fan is an 8 year old little girl, "wunderkind" painter of sorts. Rob and I watched this one night and got interrupted by Scout and shut it off and had to finish another night. All I will say is that it was at the EXACT WORST place to stop this movie you could ever imagine and that sucked royally. (If you've seen this, you can probably imagine the spot. If you haven't and you do see it, imagine while you're watching it the spot that you would hate to turn the movie off and commiserate for us.) I have to say, it probably wasn't the same for us had we been able to carry on and go straight through. But, we didn't hold it against the movie of course and I HIGHLY recommend it- great ride. Rob enjoyed it too. Emily recommends this movie if you like the crazy new spin on documentaries that erupted this year, if you like a good mystery, like meeting people on facebook, etc. Don't worry, you actually do find out why it's called "Catfish" the last 3 minutes of the movie........ --Also it is PG-13 only for one scene where Nev is reading some text messages that were sent back and forth that got a little steamy. But it is only a little steamy and a whole lot funny. (hoping I'm not giving too much away....).

I just found this trailer and it's a good trailer I think to watch. I am going to leave up the original trailer and my thoughts on it that I posted last night too.

I had a major battle with myself on whether to post this trailer or not. It spoils a little more of the plot then I would like, but in the end I figured you are all adults and it definitely adds an air of mystery that I didn't dare get into. So, use your discretion on whether or not you want to watch this. It doesn't spoil anything major, but it IS a lot of fun going into this movie knowing nothing. YOU'VE BEEN WARNED!

AMADEUS (Director's cut) (1984) [R] Biography/Drama. This was another movie that was featured on The Kid's Were All Wright as a WTB post, then I happened to see it at the library, so I thought- eh, might as well. I hadn't seen it in a very long time, so I was due. It is an entertaining movie and the director's cut added about 20 minutes of a side story that was totally cut out. It added a different dimension to some character's character and motivations, so that was cool. Oh if you live under a rock, this is a loose adaptation of the life of Mozart- particularly the Austria years. I watched the commentary and it was with the director and the screenwriter, who also wrote the play that this movie was based on. I got a lot of insight on what is totally factual, and what was dramatized and more was factual then I had thought actually. Everything was based on a seed of truth. Anyway, interesting and I recommend the commentary too it is better then average and after spending over 4 hours with the movie over a span of a couple days, I spent the next couple of days with Mozart's music absolutely pounding in my brain at all times. Mad genius that man. Emily recommends this movie, especially if you've never seen it. My dad was correct, the director's cut made the movie R for one brief shot of (as he so eloquently put it)- "boobs".


THE SWITCH (2010) [PG-13] Romantic comedy. I know, I am shocked too. But just wait. So, Rob and I were in movie mode one night with just a Redbox at our disposal and I was in a total brain candy movie mood. Thus, we rented this. It actually was adequately enjoyable (oh I hope Matt isn't obsessed with this one too, cause I am going to hear about it for "adequately enjoyable".) It was alright for what it was. Jennifer Aniston is watchable. Jason Bateman is entertaining. The kid is pretty cute. The storyline is eh. Oh the "best friends" are Jeff Goldblum and Juliette Lewis-promising. BUT here is beef #1 I have with romantic comedies: 1. Why is the main girl always pretty level headed and ALWAYS ALWAYS has a cooky/crazy/outrageous best friend??? Come on romantic comedies-- LETS TRY SOMETHING ELSE FOR ONCE. Phew. Ok, here is the plot: Basically, Aniston is one of those biological tickers and decides it's time to have a baby with or without a man in her life. She finds a sperm donor, throws a party, and in a drunken/herbal pill induced fog, her best friend switches the sample with his own and doesn't remember doing it. They lose touch and like 6 years later she shows up back in NY with a tiny Jason Bateman. Go. Run with it. Hahaha, hilarity ensues, dot dot dot. Like I said, it was decent time filler when all you want to do is turn off brain and veg on your bed. (Rob was so riveted he fell asleep during the last 15 minutes and didn't bother to ask me how it ended.) But I did hear him laugh a time or two before snoozing, if that's worth anything (he is a Jeff Goldblum fan -who he referred to as "that guy"). Emily will recommend this movie if you are a romantic comedy fan. If you are, this one is probably pretty good for that crowd. I was sufficiently invested to care what happened at the end at least.


WUTHERING HEIGHTS (1992) [PG] Drama. I mentioned I think on facebook that I was going to have a Wuthering Heights marathon. Well, this is the only copy I was able to get this month. I was interested in watching this one and the 1930's one. Netflix doesn't have it! How lame is that? My library does. While I try to figure out which alternate universe I fell through, we will have to make do with only one review of Wuthering Heights. First off, I am interested in seeing a few of these because I am a big fan of this book and have never seen a movie version, so I decided it was time. This 1992 version was pretty dang good. Ralph Fiennes is Heathcliff and he did a fantastic job. Juliette Binoche is Catherine and Cathy and she was equally fantastic. It followed the book quite well I thought. My main problem was that there was some melodrama. For this book (and yeah well- let's face it, any movie or book), the mere presence of melodrama is too much. But with this story, crossing the line to melodrama just pulls the rug out from under it. Kind of why I avoided seeing a movie version of this. To be fair, they did well, it really tried not to. The spooky scenes though looked REALLY bad. I can't imagine they couldn't have done better creating a spooky effect in 1992, but perhaps they couldn't. It was laughable and that ain't good. So all in all, Emily recommends this movie to fans. Acting is really good, staying true to the book was well done, scenery was broody and moorish, execution of the movie beyond those three things- meh to bleh. Worth seeing, but the book is all I think one really needs. I will still consider seeing the Laurence Olivier one if I come across it in the library sometime and report back. You guys only get the movie poster because the theatrical trailer doesn't seem to exist and there is a fan trailer that takes melodrama to new levels and I didn't want to subject you all to that.




THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST (2002) [PG] Romantic Comedy. This is what you guys were waiting for- I saw another romantic comedy- that makes two in one month and three in two months. Wow. The deal is though, this one isn't exactly a Matthew McConaughey disaster. It's a well known Oscar Wilde play brought to the big screen with Oscar winning actors. Colin's Oscar status was not yet achieved for the making of this of course, but Judi Dench's one was. Wow, that's a lot of Oscars (I included Oscar Wilde in that observation). Yep, it's getting late. So, this was enjoyable. I have seen this play since I was pretty young several times and didn't know they had done a movie version until I saw it. Besides the fact that a play is confined to a stage (therefore, it all takes place in one room), and movies aren't confined to such rules, they did little to this to make it feel more like a movie and less like a play. This is not a bad thing, just an observation I have. Plays are fine, plays are fun. I need to not finish these posts in the wee hours of the night. ANYWAY, the male leads are Colin Firth and Rupert Everett (two fantastic male leads for such an endeavor). Reese Witherspoon was perfect in her role as was Frances O'Connor. Emily recommends this movie/play if you are a fan of the play or a fan of any of these actors, cause the casting was really stellar and come on, you will not get anywhere near that lucky seeing this play at the city center in the neighborhood production, or the local high school.



So that's pretty much that, except I obtained my very own copy of Jane Eyre this month, so you know I watched that at least a few times. If you missed my review of it or missed the movie, you can read the review here and borrow my copy if you haven't seen it cause you must! (But you can't borrow it for too long)