Typically, I wake up between 10 and 11--although, today I was in bed until I was forced to move at 12:06 because I had to pee--move out to the couch, apply for a few awful jobs online, and then pull up Netflix on my Wii. I then spend the next few hours checking in at various blogs, pricing my dream Disney World vacation that I won't be able to afford until I have a job for a year or so and counting the minutes until dinner.
Really, I should drink more.
The last few days I have been particularly pathetic because I tweaked my back again and it's been sort of difficult to move. As such, I've knocked off quite a few movies while laying prone on the couch. And since nothing genuinely blog-worthy has occurred, I thought I'd bore you with some thoughts I've had on a few of these movies. I encourage you to be jealous of my current lifestyle while simultaneously feeling so, so sad for what I've become.
1) Who knew? If you cast Irish and English actors to play Irish and English characters, the performances end up sounding Irish and English.
One of my all-time favorite movies is Michael Collins. If you're not familiar with the film, I don't blame you. It's a historical epic starring Liam Neeson as the titular character, the guy that pretty much created the Irish Republican Army as we know it today. It is awesome and features some truly outstanding supporting roles played by Aiden Quinn and Professor Snape.
"And I will personally disembowel every last Snout and light their entrails on fire."
HOWEVER, the female lead--an Irish lass, keep in mind--was played by Julia Fucking Roberts. You haven't seen an awful performance in a movie until you've seen Julia Roberts stumble through 133 minutes of an Irish brogue. She almost single-handedly derailed the greatest Irish movie of all time, non-Ned Devine division.
"Look y'all! I'm-a destroyin' this movie right now!"
If you haven't seen Michael Collins, I strongly recommend you do so. Not only because it's a wonderful film about a man people should know about, but also for the duality of that hag's dreadful performance. Oscar winner, my ass. She should have gotten the opposite of an Oscar for Michael Collins. Like, a "Rectum".
Why do I bring this up? Because two nights ago I watched another movie about the British fisting the Irish called In the Name of the Father.
This time, however, actual British and Irish people were cast in the important roles.
Daniel Day-Lewis plays Gerry Conlon, a hippie in 1970's Belfast who is wrongly accused of an IRA pub bombing because--among other reasons--his alibi was "dissapeared" by British investigators, desperate for a scapegoat. He, along with a few of his friends, family members and Father, are all imprisoned for the crime which, again, they didn't commit. While in jail, his Father dies before the entire group is exonerated once the corruption within the British investigation is exposed. The film is based on a true story, and like many "Based on a true story" movies, it managed to get some of the details right.
Pete Postlethwaite was cast as Jerry's Father, Giuseppe and I sort of feel the exact opposite about his performance of how I feel about that chucklefuck Julia Robert's performance. You may recognize Pete Postlethwaite as Father Laurence in the Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo + Juliet...or as the guy that hunted the T-Rex in Jurassic Park: the Lost World.
This guy.
Seriously, Pete here is on my short list of favorite actors. He's genuinely amazing and I cannot believe he lost an Oscar for his performance in In the Name of the Father to Tommy Lee Jones. That loss isn't as egregious as some of the other Oscar upsets of the last 30 years but it's pretty bad.
It's also too bad that he's pretty dead. RIP, Pete.
2) I think I've figured out Harry Potter's most amazing power.
HBO has been showing the last two Harry Potter movies on pretty much a constant loop for a month now. It's cool. I had some issues with the middle third of the series--don't even get me started on the stupidity of that dumbass Tri-Wizard Cup movie--but feel the franchise started it's comeback with the Order of the Phoenix entry.
Harry can do some pretty awesome spells, none of which I can name here because I'm not that big a fan of the series. Petronus? Is that one of them? Has something to do with a glow-in-the-dark Bambi? Anyhoo, Harry has the mad ability to chase down a snitch, keep his little fanboy from suffering a complete mental breakdown while simultaneously banging the dude's sister and basically winning all the magic. He's awfully hardcore for a nerd.
You know what else Harry does better than anyone? He has the power to keep his glasses on, no matter the circumstances.
Think about it. No matter how sweaty he gets during battle, no matter how many stories he falls off a dragon into a lake, no matter how many times he gets hit by a spell and blasted through the air, his glasses always stay on. I'm sure if I re-watched the movies, I could find an instance or two where he is getting up off the ground after a wall or something fell on him and he's searching for his glasses but I can't think of one off the top of my head.
"Ocular Gorlillatis Glueium!"
That is one powerful spell.
3) I saw Brave and, well, meh...
I guess I've come to expect something profound from Pixar. I strongly believe the best movies of 2000 (Toy Story 2), 2009 (WALL-E) and 2010 (Up) were Pixar movies.
Brave? Well, it was a beautifully shot movie. And don't tell my Mom--which will be difficult anyway because, you know, she's dead--but I've always liked Scottish music a little better than Irish music. And it was funny.
But it was much more of a traditionally Disney movie than any other Pixar effort. You know, princess doesn't want to get married, she whines to a witch, a spell happens that messes everything up, intelligent animals get involved in shenanegans and at the end, the princess bonds with her Mother.
Don't get me wrong, it was good. It just wasn't what I've come to expect from Pixar. If anything, Pixar is is a victim of it's own awesomeness on this one.
4) Wes Anderson continues to be the best director making movies today.
I get it. His movies are not for everyone. I know more than a few people--people whose opinions I trust--who continue to not like Rushmore or The Royal Tenenbaums, not to mention The Darjeeling Limited, etc. And his movies, despite a bright color pallet, tend to be a little bleak; they are movies about sad people often doing sad things.
His latest effort, Moonrise Kingdom, is another such film, only this time the movie isn't just about sad people: Moonrise Kingdom is about two sad kids coming of age surrounded by sad people. How he makes sequences of these movies seem so damn cheery, I will never know. It's a gift.
If you like Wes Anderson, I cannot recommend this movie enough. If, however, you are bored to tears by his previous efforts, there's no changing your mind. You'll hate it.
5) Lest you think my life isn't as sad as a Wes Anderson Character...
Anyone want to hire me for something? Anything?
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