Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Showtime!

What movie to see? The nearby arthouse cineplex in Louisville is playing the following films, none of which I've yet seen:

The White Countess (Yahoo Movies critics' average grade: B)
The Pink Panther (C)
Match Point (A-)
Brokeback Mountain (A-)
Mrs. Henderson Presents (B)
Capote (A-)
Walk the Line (B+)
Transamerica (B-)
Firewall (C)

This seems an especially good docket. It's a pointless exercise to solicit votes, since I won't be around to count them before I head to the theater! But maybe y'all can help me pick out tomorrow's movie.

The Pink Panther just sounds bad. I think the originals were mostly flops, and were held up almost entirely by Peter Sellers's odd comic talents. Whether Steve Martin still has a claim to similar talents is an open question to me.

I've heard such raves about Brokeback Mountain, but the very concept is not alluring to me, regardless of the protagonists' sexual orientation. The fact that it yanks the short hairs of the archetypal tough guy won't get me into the theatre. I can see this on South Park for free.

Walk the Line sounds well-done, but it's a ways away from my musical orientation. Still, a fella loves Reeze Witherspooon. I think maybe I'll wait for the video on this one.

Transamerica: no thanks. Too much work to find the universal truths buried deep within the Jerry Springer episode.

Firewall. The older I get, the more impatient I am about the Hollywood Thriller. Sorry, Harrison. Maybe you can get the wizened old Jedi part in Lucas' eventual third Star Wars trilogy.

Mrs. Henderson Presents sounds like a potentially neat little bit of WW2 history, or at least a movie that uses that backdrop. Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins make a good sell, but it's not the strongest movie here, methinks.

So that leaves Capote, Match Point and The White Countess. I think I'll default to Woody Allen (Scarlett Johannson doesn't hurt either), though the description of The White Countess titillates.

If you're lucky I'll shoot off a little review (of whatever I see) later. Or I won't.

4 comments:

Lizzie said...

See Walk the Line! It was excellent. It was so good I almost blogged about it (not that I'm a discriminating blogger or anything). I can't recommend it highly enough.

(Although I really want to see Match Point too, so if you end up seeing that one, I'll forgive you ;-))

wstachour said...

Great minds think alike! Or at least we do. You'll have to let me know what you think when you see it.

Kate said...

Okay, Walk the Line is the only one I saw. You don't have to be a country fan to enjoy the movie. I thought the acting was great but there were issues that are really hard for a wife-type person to deal with. Of course, I already know you didn't go see that. ;-)

wstachour said...

But I might!

That's two votes to zero for everything else.