Movie marathon weekend

This weekend I managed to see 3 Oscar nominated films and one very silly film. Friday night I saw Sideways again, which was much better the second time around. The first time I saw it with my sister for lack of anything to do in New Orleans on the 5th day in the freezing rain. We thought it might be one of those lackluster films the Oscars nominate because all that came out in 2004 was crap ... like the years About Schmidt or As Good As it Gets came out. We were pleasantly surprised that it wasn't a wholly depressing movie and had funny parts. This time I saw it with several friends and a few bottles of wine between all of us. Definitely better when the anticipation of the funny parts makes up for the slow parts and you know you're not going to end up feeling depressed after the movie. Also makes one appreciate lines like "tighter than a nun's asshole."

Saturday my mom and I saw two rather very good films.

The first was The Aviator. Normally I'm a fan of Martin Scorcese even though I didn't like all of his films. Mostly because Daniel Day-Lewis idolizes Martin Scorcese and I idolize Daniel Day-Lewis. Also despite diCaprio's playboy hollywood image I grudgingly admit he's a terrific actor, especially after having seen What Eating Gilbert Grape? It's a good film, and not terrible downing even though it chronicles partly a man's descent into madness. I get the sense that Scorcese films aren't meant to be experienced, but just watched.

Afterwards we saw Million Dollar Baby. I'll spoil it for you but it's a tear-jerker. My theater was filled with middle aged and elderly people who were sobbing by the end of the film, the men included. Although it's a much better effort by Clint Eastwood than Mystic River, which I HATED!!!! How can someone stand through an ultra long movie and see Sean Penn cry most of the time??? Well back to Million Dollar Baby, I haven't seen so many people in a theater cry since Whalerider. The film is not about Swank's climb from trailer trash to sell-out Vegas boxer but really more about Eastwood's character. The boxing and training scenes gave me the itch to get back into Taekwondo training. Hilary Swank's body in the training scenes were to die for, how many New Year's resolutions have I made to try and look like that by the time I hit the ring .. to make my opponents cower in fear and throw in the towel??? Sigh if only I didn't have to work full-time I would probably try to work out 6 hours a day in hopes of fulfilling my closet dream of going to the World Champs as the US Lightweight Champ. Well acted, well scripted, well filmed ... the boxing scenes definitely got the adrenaline running in my veins. The climax scene (well there are several climaxes) where Swank's Gaellic aliased character has to fight the most vicious possibly evil character in the whole film (not including her family) Blue something for the title, positively sent shivers down my back. The Blue character, a mean looking man-chic who disregards the rules, much to the detriment of her opponent's lives would send me running or if I absolutely had to fight her I would pull every dirty Hap Ki Do move I knew plus any drop kicks I could land on her ugly face in hopes that she would just die. Of course Swank wants to box, not get involved in an alley fight and has respect for rules of the ring, much to her demise .... well okay, I told you I was going to spoil it a bit. But GREAT film, heartily recommend it, but take some Kleenexes okay?

Also to make the evening more lighthearted saw a quality film, "The White Chick" with my high school cousins after being stranded in Herndon. Funny, in that comic crime solving race/gender stereotype way. But funny how race gender stereotype movies are so funny. I laughed, shamelessly.