Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I've seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I'll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I'll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Nothing

It was a busy weekend with no time to accomplish everything I wanted, which included watching a couple of backlogged Feed the Queue entries. Instead, in half an hour, I'll provide you our predictions for the Visual Effects Society Awards.

Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I've seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I'll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I'll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Beauty and the Beast 3D

(Original Film Version)
(3D Conversion Version)
Watching the 3D re-issue of Beauty and the Beast, I'm struck by just how little the film has aged in terms of story quality, excitement and musical aptitude. Sure the animation feels a bit dated now despite being rather revolutionary at the time (it was one of the first hand-drawn animated features to employ computer animation), but the film itself is almost timeless.

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Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I've seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I'll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I'll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Haywire

There's nothing wrong with Steven Soderbergh's sense of direction. With Haywire, he's created a tightly wound narrative around an ex-Marine whose freelance espionage work has put her on the wrong side of the gun. Gina Carano is fantastic as the operative whose capabilities threaten to get her killed. Soderbergh's eclectic but well suited cast gives the film a nice jolt and Soderbergh's reliance on naturalistic sound and fight sequences is refreshing for a genre hell bent on getting as fancy and exotic as possible. The film drags a bit, feeling a lot longer than an hour and a half. And unlike Joe Wright's Hanna and Nicolas Winding Refn's Drive, the film tries too hard to find an inventive style different from everything else around it.

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Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I've seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I'll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I'll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Not having read the book, I couldn't begin to imagine how faithful it was, but the movie is a fairly strong mystery drama with plenty of compelling elements. The problem is that it has a number of unimportant scenes (unless they play better into the second two parts of the trilogy, which I'm not certain they do). On top of this, while some of the winding elements of the mystery are quite entertaining, there are countless moments where I feel like I'm being set up for something in the new future and and then getting exactly what I expected. From David Fincher, I'd expect a lot less conventionality and many more twists and turns. Fincher also is in grave need of a more astute editor. While it's not hard to follow the action, I couldn't help but wonder what a faster, tighter narrative might have accomplished. The film seems to meander at inopportune moments. This is the same fault I found with his Zodiac, so it may just be too strict of directorial control. Entertaining, intriguing, but imperfect.

Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I've seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I'll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I'll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

My Favorite Year

It's a wonderful treat to see Peter O'Toole doing comedy. His timing is absolutely perfect and were it not for some of the corny elements of the film, including that painfully-written narration, this would be a magnificent film. There are plenty of very humorous moments and when O'Toole's on screen, the film sings even when trapped in scenes such as the dinner in Brooklyn with Benjy's (Mark Linn-Baker) mother (Lainie Kazan). The idea of O'Toole as a matinee idol washed up after years of carousing and boozing is utterly brilliant and were it not for the prior year's Arthur, this film might have been a bigger success.

Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I've seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I'll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I'll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Brad Bird's transition from animation to live action is completely successful. Here's a director who understands the need for dramatic tension, creating suspense where it might otherwise not exist and taking a fairly generic plotline and twisting it into a thrilling adventure. The performances are about what you'd expect for this kind of film, but where the James Bond franchise focuses on glitz and the Bourne series focuses on the grit, Mission: Impossible has successful found a niche between the two. I didn't love the third film, but this fourth film is right on par with the second in terms of excitement and fun.

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Welcome to The Morning After, where I share with you what I've seen over the past week either in film or television. On the film side, if I have written a full length review already, I will post a link to that review. Otherwise, I'll give a brief snippet of my thoughts on the film with a full review to follow at some point later. For television shows, seasons and what not, I'll post individual comments here about each of them as I see fit.

So, here is what I watched this past week:

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Tilda Swinton's style of acting is perfect for We Need to Talk About Kevin. This flashback driven exploration of a mother's grief, disgust, despair and inability to cope after a deadly tragedy the depths of which aren't revealed until the final act, is quintessential Swinton. Few actresses could have given the film her measure of facial discordance she is so easily capable of. It's a film told entirely in solemn glances, brief glimmers of success and waves of nauseous relief. The film's portrait of a mother unraveling, but coping is one of the finest things this year.

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