[rev] Duplicity

Okay, so Clive Owen might get me to see it - but Tom Wilkinson & Paul Giamatti make the movie. One little flash of foreshadowing caught my eye, and managed to keep dragging my attention back to it throughout the film - with the culmination revolving around the one point I expected. It was still glorious to see how the story arrived at the conclusion.

Two spies (MI5 & CIA) meet, screw & then screw each other (well, actually, he just gets screwed). A chance meet up later finds them back in bed & pondering the price of the luxury around them. A $40,000,000 price ticket seems feasible with their skill sets.

They go to work for bitter rival corporations to steal/sell secrets. ... Wilkinson & Giamatti being the corporate owners. These two actors are beautiful in their parts. Roberts & Owen are pleasant. It is a mildly amusing film with a good story line. Who is going to get caught by which company?

The juxtaposition between the two spies' stories and their current roles was nicely played out. Especially since the Owen/Roberts relationship is the reverse gender roles as one might have expected 40 years ago.

There isn't anything truly amazing to analyze or observe. It's a nice movie which doesn't require tons of brain power.

Definitely see it on video.

[movie review] Shoot 'Em Up

Mom said this was awesome. Well, it's staring Clive Owen, which means her opinion is rather suspect. After watching the preview, I hesitated to suggest watching it with Mr.Gopher, who doesn't care for really violent movies. I took the chance. After putting it on pause for something, he went on to other things, commenting in a nice way that 'I don't really need to see the end of it, it will be just as over the top as the first part has been'. He liked it, which quite surprised me.

This was awesome. This was over the top. This was so over the top, it makes James Bond look like 8mm home movies. Holy Cow. If they'd been using real ammuntion, they would have needed to file an Environmental Impact Statement before discharging that much lead into the atmosphere from the sheer volume of bullets. Holy Cow.

What can I say that isn't equally over the top? Paul Giamatti was amazing as the hen-pecked cell-phone wielding hit man; Clive Owen was amazing as the messed up special ops vet who's too dangerous to let loose. Well, they let him loose, and see what happened? Chasing each other around the town over a new-born hours old baby. Two weeks after watching the movie, all I can recall are the action scenes, not why there was a baby.

This will definitely keep you on the edge - action non-stop through 90% of the movie. The 1st and last 5% were sedate. Well, relatively. Well, sort of. Am torn, since I didn't see this in the theater, I'm not sure if some of the chase seens would be better if bigger. A compromise:

4 - Definitely see it on video. (on a big screen/HD TV)