thoughts on My Week with Marilyn/The Descendants

My Week with Marilyn

I saw this almost a week ago and haven't felt like writing about it. After thinking about it a little, though, I think I get it, even though I didn't much care for it. Basically, we all know those people who the world seems to revolve around: other people will put up with things from them that they wouldn't put up with from anyone else, and if they ask you to do something, you drop everything to do it. Their attention makes you feel special. However, if you are someone who doesn't see what everyone else sees in this person, you are just exasperated by the lengths that others are willing to go to for them.

Marilyn Monroe was one of those people that the world revolved around, according to this movie. The problem, for me, is that I didn't quite get why. I don't know much about Marilyn Monroe, which is my own fault, I guess; however, the movie doesn't let us know a lot else. This is partly because she apparently remained a mystery to a lot of people, including the film's main character; however, what we learn about her over the course of the film wasn't really enough for me. Additionally, everyone in the film talks about what a good performer she is when she is at her best, and how she lights up the screen; Michelle Williams didn't really sell me on that. I will admit that I've never really cared for Michelle Williams and was maybe predisposed against her, but either way, I just didn't find the movie all that interesting.

The Descendants

There is a moment in this movie where George Clooney's character, Matt, tells his daughter, Alex (played by Shailene Woodley from Secret Life of the American Teenager), that her mother is going to die. She has been in a coma for a few weeks, and it has been determined that she will never wake up, and that they should turn off the machines keeping her alive. He tells Alex this while she is swimming in the pool in their backyard, and when he tells her, she reacts by ducking underwater and bursting into tears. A few moments later, she yells at him, "Why did you have to tell me when I was in the pool?"

This is a movie that is largely involved with the giving and receiving of bad news. On a few occasions, this telling is planned in advance and done very carefully. More often, however, it either just comes out (as in the previously described scene), or is said at least partly in anger, as when Alex tells Matt that her mother, Elizabeth, was cheating on him; Matt responds to this by pulling on the first pair of shoes he can find and sprinting down the street to his best friends' house, where he demands to know what they know and hurls the news that his wife is dying at them. It is these moments, the moments where characters are told bad news and we see them react, immediately and emotionally, that ring the most true for me in the movie. It made me recall the times in my own life when I've received bad news, and how it never happens at the "right" place and time. It just happens wherever you are at the time.

That's what I really liked about this movie-- that for as much as this movie is about dealing with the death of a loved one, it acknowledges that this horrible event doesn't erase anything else that's going on in your life at the time. The family's sadness over Elizabeth's death is mixed up with their anger over her infidelity. Her death also happens at the same time that Matt and his cousins are trying to decide who to sell a valuable piece of land to, or whether to sell it at all. Additionally, her death doesn't change the fact that Matt and Elizabeth hadn't been happy for a long time, or that Alex and her younger sister Scottie both have their own lives and issues. This movie is about dealing with saying goodbye to Elizabeth in the midst of all that.

Two small things that bothered me: Matt waits until he has told literally everyone else that Elizabeth is dying before he tells ten-year-old Scottie; when she is eventually told, the actual words come from a woman who I assume is the hospital's grief counselor, not him, and we don't even get to hear most of what the grief counselor says. Every moment that he didn't tell her, I got more and more uncomfortable, and I kept thinking she was going to find out accidentally, or react really violently when she did find out. Her actually finding out is pretty anticlimactic. I was also bothered by a character named Sid, a stereotypical dumb surfer dude who is friends with Alex and who is with the family throughout most of the film. He also has a knack for saying incredibly inappropriate things. I guess he was there for comic relief, and to give us the perspective of someone less close to the situation. I still didn't think he was all that necessary.

Regardless, I liked the movie a lot, for the most part. I'd recommend it.

thoughts on "Take a Back Road" music video

I've never written about a music video before. I don't even watch many music videos. However, I saw this one this morning, for a song that I have enjoyed for several months now, and found I had a surprising lot to say about it.

I think Rodney Atkins is supposed to be an angel similar to the angels in the movie City of Angels in this video. I did not get this until the end, when he claps the cute cop on the shoulder and the cop, without acknowledging that he has been clapped on the shoulder, walks over to the cute single woman and strikes up a conversation. I believe this explains why no one seems to notice Atkins walking around with his guitar in places he doesn't belong, like in Interstate traffic. I believe this is also why they show him perched on a bridge and a water tower at different points in the video (I hope he was placed there using special effects, by the way, because my heart leapt into my throat every time they cut to him just casually sitting on a bridge, playing his guitar).

Anyway, despite this bit of curiousness, I did like this video. I like the point where the guy is sitting in traffic, looking frustrated, then a song he likes comes on the radio and he just sits back with a smile, like everything's okay now. That's how it is for me, too. In fact, just this morning, when I turned on the TV and a video I like immediately started up ("Beautiful Every Time" by Lee Brice), I thought to myself, "Today is going to be a good day." I also full-on went "AW!" when the cute cop went over to talk to the woman. However, I do think this is weird: no one appears to be able to see Atkins throughout the video, including at the end, when they are at the barbecue. However, at the barbecue, people *can* hear the song, as evidenced by the fact that many people are clapping in rhythm to it. How is this possible? They can hear the other two musicians they show at the party, but not him, the singer? Weird.

thoughts on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The guy at the ticket counter at the AMC on the West Side talked me into buying their Rewards card. Then as he handed me my ticket, he said, "You'll like this movie. Parts of it are kind of vulgar, but it's good. It's like three hours long, though, so go pee before you go in." Farily accurate assessment (though I'm not sure if I would have specifically chosen the word "vulgar"), good advice.

I don't have a ton to say about this movie, but my general assessment is, "It was like the book, only more confusing." I hadn't read the book for about a year, which I thought would be good so that I wouldn't be constantly comparing everything, but it took me awhile to remember who certain characters were, and I still feel like I'd like to skim through a couple of parts of the book again. Also, while some things in the book happen quickly and are surprising, here it seems like a lot of the surprises come completely out of nowhere. Plus...Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander are both farily complex characters. Mikael Blomkvist also has fairly complex relationships with the people in his life, which I think is fairly normal for a man of his age and life experiences. I just don't think the movie captured those complexities, and that they, for the sake of time, had to skate over certain details that deserved more attention. I guess the thing that I liked best about the book was the characters and their relationships, and I was disappointed in the amount of attention the movie was able to give them.

That said, I thought the casting was good, for the most part. I liked Daniel Craig as Blomkvist, and I thought Rooney Mara totally disappeared into the role of Lisbeth Salander. Totally wasn't expecting Robin Wright as Erika Berger. Erika Berger, in the book, anyway, always just struck me as more sophisticated and put-together than the roles Wright often plays. I thought Wright did fine; I just wouldn't have pictured her in that role.

Obviously, I was squirming and covering my eyes during the rape scene. I thought the film handled it okay; it was just difficult to watch.

I guess that's all I'll say. I thought the movie was okay. I didn't love it.