American Splendor, Doubt

[fatmenace]

Finally watched American Splendor tonight. Krall got me excited about it a few months ago when he posted a particular scene from the movie. I'm glad I watched it, but I'm not sure I'd watch it again. Paul Giamatti was excellent as usual. Perhaps if I was a fan of the comic books it would have appealed to me more. I still think it was worth watching, especially for Paul.

Also watched Doubt this week. The reviews and raves about it made it seem like picture of the decade. I thought Hoffman was excellent (as always) and Streep was great, although the movie didn't blow me away. It felt like something was missing, but I don't know what (maybe since there wasn't a definitive answer to the charges it feels incomplete).

Both movies are recommended though if you haven't seen them.

[fatmenace]

I also watched Murder by Death with Peter Falk and Peter Sellers. Highly recommended. Hilarious throughout, if you like that kind of humor. It's from the 70s.

Also watched Frantic with Harrison Ford. We only made it 25% through the movie before turning it off. Just a terrible film.

We have a Netflix account which we can access through his X-Box, so we can watch the movies instantly. We also have a 100 inch projector screen, so we go through movies a lot. There are very few worth watching if you don't want to inundate yourself with nudity and gore. We tend to spend most of our time in the documentary section. Some documentaries of note:

The Last Word - A great movie about the wrongful death and execution of a man in West Texas. The final few minutes when it recounts what happened to everyone involved was fascinating.

I Like Killing Flies - An incredibly boring, yet incredibly fascinating doc about a small diner owner in Manhattan. I'm not sure what the point of it was, yet we also couldn't bring ourselves to turn it off.

Forgiving Dr. Mengele - Doc about a woman who was a "patient" of Mengele's in the camp. Gut wrenching and tragic. You can't really screw up Nazi docs.

King of Kong - Probably the most interesting and entertaining doc I've seen in the past five years. It's about the quest to break the Donkey Kong score record. I know how that sounds, but it's completely riveting. Highly recommended.

Helvetica - Doc about the Helvetica font. Yes, you read that right. It was pretty interesting actually. Not much else to say.

Word Wars - Doc about some scrabble players. Could have been a much better film in the hands of a better director. Still worth a watch because of the feel good ending.

Thin Blue Line - Another wrongful conviction. Revolutionary movie for its time, although it seems incredibly dated now. The doc led to the conviction being overturned, so it has historic value. I was bored throughout though.

Hoop Dreams - Not just the preeminent sports doc, but one of the top docs for any category. Follows some inner city kids on their quest to play ball. Simply one of the best.

I may post more later.

[mayor]

Completely agree on American Splendor and Doubt.

And King of Kong - I loved that one.

I recommend checking out "Tell No One" - a great french movie that you can watch streaming via Netflix. It's a mystery thriller of sorts. I recommend it to everyone.

Also, have you seen "Man on Wire" - I believe it is available for streaming as well. A must see.

[gk]

Paul G. was amazing in 'American Splendor.' Probably one of if not my favorite performances of the decade. I'm obviously not a comic book guy, but I love the way they stitched the comic book and movie, real people and characters all together. My other favorite scene is the one where the actors are laughing at the dialog between the actual people they were playing. It's in heavy rotation in my DVD player. One of those "go-to" movies when I'm not sure what to watch.

"Helvetica" was, yes, a movie about font. I was mildly interested. Very mildly. But I guess it's about as interesting as a movie about font could be.

Finally saw "Hurt Locker" last night. I unabashedly loved it. Very worthy of "Best Picture." Nice to see Best Picture won by something other than a historical fictional epic.

[mayor]

I just realized that Paul Giamatti is the son of MLB's Bart Giamatti.