Movie Reviews: Julie and Julia, Time Traveler's Wife, and Inglourious Basterds

Ok, I did want to write about the movies... so here ya go... did you see these? Let me know what you thought of them!

I love movies, but I don't usually get around to seeing ANY, and the fact that I've seen three movies that are still in theaters at the same time, is SHOCKING! I'm pretty sure that I'm movied-out now. I don't expect to see anymore in the next few months. But here are my reviews...

1. Julie and Julia -- this movie is two stories in one, about Julia Child as she begins her career cooking and writes her cook book, and about Julie, who is beginning her life but doesn't feel like she's accomplishing much, and decides to start a blog about cooking every single recipe in Julia Child's cook book. I liked this movie, it was very pleasant. I LOVED Meryl Streep as Julia. I was glad I went to see it, and I would definitely watch it again, although I doubt I would pay to watch it a second time.

2. The Time Traveler's Wife -- I LOVED this book, and so I couldn't wait for this movie to come out. While I was waiting to go see the movie, I re-read the book, and loved it just as much the second time as I did the first.

But the movie disappointed me. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't a bad movie. And I guess it's hard to create a movie from a book -- especially if it's a great book and has things in it that require you to suspend your disbelief, like time travel. I actually wasn't disappointed in the time travel parts. That worked fine. But the book had so many layers of attitude, or something, and I felt that in order to simplify it into a reasonable time for a movie, they got rid of that extra dimension. They made it into a lovely love story, but that wasn't the part I really liked. Sure, the love story is good. But I liked the gritty-ness of the book. I liked the contrast of his parents love for opera and violin, and his love for classic punk rock. The movie was all violin, and no punk rock. I didn't get the dichotomy of his character in the movie like I did in the book. He was supposed to be an educated, sensitive, lover, and also a violent, brawling, stealing, drinker. They tried to get that to come across, but I never FELT it in the movie. He wasn't "that guy" for me. And a few things felt downright creepy -- I was kinda weirded out by him showing up in the meadow the first time, and also, surprisingly, by the music they chose for the first dance at their wedding. Weird.

Anyway, I'm glad I saw it. I would watch it again. But I was disappointed.

3. Inglourious Basterds -- Wow. Wow. Hard to explain. Yeah, I liked it. And yeah, I would pay to see it again. In fact, I may NEED to see it again to really wrap my head around it. I really liked it. Surprisingly; it was Ultra violent, in parts, and I never like violence in movies. And there were TONS of subtitles. Which doesn't bother me at all, but I'm not sure how much other people are gonna hate that.

The story is all about Nazis vs. Jews/Nazi Resistance. And it's all about movies. It has SO MANY layers built in, which is quite impressive. You can say alot about Quentin Tarantino. He's a sick man, he's a genius, he's perverse, he's amazing. I guess the main messages I got out of the movie are -- hey folks, it's a movie. No matter how extreme the violence and how horrible the actors (actours? acters?) are treated, or treat each other, it isn't real. And yet, real people have treated each other this way, like for example, in the Holocaust. And good vs. evil, brave vs. coward, justified vs. not justified, turn the other cheek vs. revenge, is way more complex than people want it to be. It isn't easy.

It's a really complicated movie to wrap my head around. I loved it, I guess. Even though I needed to hide my eyes a LOT of times.

And oh yeah -- Brad Pitt? He's a really good actor, not just a pretty boy. I loved his character. He reminded me of my family from West Virginia. (Although he talked a little too fast for that, he should have slowed it down just a notch.) But I was very impressed by him.




Why couldn't Quentin Tarantino have directed Brad Pitt and Meryl Streep in Time Traveler's Wife???? I would have LOVED that. That is the movie that the book should have become.





So -- of the three movies I saw -- which impressed me most? Inglourious Basterds. Wow.