Hereafter

I saw Hereafter this weekend. I liked it, but Jill didn't. She did say it was better than The American, but that can barely be considered an endorsement. Even though I liked it, it wasn't without it's problems:

• About 1/3 of the movie is subtitled. I know this is so uncultured of me, but sometimes I am just not in the mood for subtitles. I didn't mind them this time, but I wish I had been warned.
• The music is very heavy-handed and at times annoying.
• Plot advancements happen via google searches. This shouldn't bother me that much. It's 2010, and people really do base actions and decisions on google searches. But it feels like lazy writing. Maybe it's just forever tainted because it was used in Twilight.
• The dialogue is often awkward. In a moment of amazement, a character actually says, "Well I'll be."

Listing all of those weaknesses made me wonder why I think I liked it. Maybe I'm greatly underestimating the appeal of Matt Damon. The tsunami scene at the beginning is breathtakingly horrific. Not "I wish I could erase this from my brain" horrific (like some scenes in certain movies). The movie never again reaches the same power as that opening scene, but I thought it was an interesting meditation on what happens to us after we die.

The Easy Red Social Town

I've seen like a billion movies since I last updated. What gives? I'm lazy, that's what gives. I saw The Town, The Social Network, Easy A, and RED. See? A billion. So here are the reviews, from my least favorite to my most favorite.

Easy A
Likable protagonist, sometimes funny, but the movie is very overrated. I was expecting something like Clueless - silly contemporary literary adaptation but with Scarlet Letter instead of Emma. I left the theater very disappointed.

RED
I know a guy that refuses to watch movie trailers, because he feels they ruin the movie. I think that guy would like RED a lot more than I did. It was a perfectly fun fluff movie, but it felt like an extended version of the trailer. No surprises, no amazing chase scenes, no commentary on society. (Though there IS a lot of Karl Urban in a suit.) So you'll like the movie exactly as much as you liked the trailer. (Maybe a little more if you like looking at Karl Urban in a suit.)

Srsly, I'm wearing a suit.

The Town
I really liked this movie, but I left the theater disappointed with the scope of it. (Does that even make sense?) The premise, from the trailer, is that this small area of Boston is responsible for a disproportionately high number of bank robberies. That premise has a lot of promise. But it's just a regular bank robbery movie with a little bit of romance. I had a problem with Ben Affleck's character being characterized as the hero. He kills a lot of people breaks a lot of laws, and gets away with it. Am I supposed to be ok with that because of where he comes from? Because of his life circumstance? The movie isn't very clear with that. And Jon Hamm's character would have been a total waste of a character, were it not played by Jon Hamm. But it was, so no complaints. Overall, the movie was intense and entertaining, with great bank heist/car chase intensity.

The Social Network
Loved this movie. (Just pretend that it's not half fiction.) I like that it never really tells you what to think of Mark Zuckerburg. It makes judgments on all other characters (that scene with the twins and dean was AWESOME), but you never really feel comfortable coming to any conclusions about Mark. Is he good or is he evil? Mostly evil, right? He deals with his deep insecurity over being excluded and marginalized by society by creating his own society... and then using it to excluding and marginalize the people who were his actual friends. Very interesting movie. Great dialogue, excellent music and cinematography, and good pacing. I loved the actor that played the twins. They were my favorite characters.