Playing Catch-Up

Once again, the movies have been piling up, and I will be doing a half-assed review of the past few movies I've watched.

Straw Dogs
Starring Alexander Skarsgaard, Kate Bosworth, and James Marsden. A Hollywood couple move back to her small southern town for some quiet while he writes his next screenplay. I guess this movie has to do with what it takes for a passive person to become violent and stand up for them self. It is kind of slow, and uncomfortable at times, but I think it's supposed to be, you should be asking yourself "What would I do?" "Would I speak up?". The ending is incredibly violent, but the movie as a whole was an interesting examination into our behaviour. As a person who tries to avoid conflict, I like to think I would have been pissed off way earlier than Marsden was. James Woods was awful, but wonderful.

Contagion
Starring Matt Damon and Kate Winslet. A highly contagious disease spreads throughout the world while scientists try to figure out where it originated and how to cure it. This movie was captivating, it was subtle and quiet, but strong and powerful. But above all, it seemed realistic, the explanation at the end was simple, but alarming, and what I appreciated the most was that it wasn't sensationalized. A good movie.

Date Night
Starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey. A married couple looking to get out of a rut, find themselves wanted after taking another couple's reservation. Was the plot ridiculous? Absolutely. But this movie was also really funny, there were enough laugh out loud moments to leave me satisfied and Carell and Fey play their characters as straight as possible. Some hilarious characters played by Mark Whalberg, James Franco, Ray Liotta, and Mila Kunis, and outtakes during the credits were unexpected gems.

Moneyball
Starring Brad Pitt and Jonak Hill. Based on a true story, after losing some key players, Billy Beane (Pitt) rebuilds the Oakland Athletics with the help of Peter Brand (Hill) on a shoestring budget using strictly cost-benefit analysis and not intuition. I didn't like this movie as much as I thought/hoped I would. I definitely appreciated all the dialogue and the business side of baseball that you don't see in a conventional sports movie. It wasn't about a team winning by teamwork, it was about math and science. The actual players are generally insignificant, and Pitt's character was well-developed, which was nice, but it was still too much about baseball for me. My guy loved it, he got what was happening, could remember back to 2002 and appreciate all the back story the movie gave, but for me, it was a little boring. No doubt a good movie, but just didn't live up to all the buzz for me.