Landing

Today we’ll be reviewing the last three movies I saw.  Two of them are even being shown in theaters, which is pretty unusual.

1. “Up in the Air” is a “good” movie.  You get to look at George Clooney, first.  If we had to show an alien culture what a “man” looked like, George Clooney wouldn’t be a bad choice.  I would never kiss him, or anything, because I assume he’s a self-indulgent, inaccessible character, but that is irrelevant.

This super pretty lady shows up later in the movie, and she wears a lot of very low-cut dresses and beautiful high heels and a swingy haircut, which made me hope that either I was half as pretty as her, or that with a different haircut or her silk blouse or black dress, I might be nearly as pretty.

They also have some clever little talks, George Clooney and the lady.  And as you expected, this film being rated R, they kiss and we get to see them artfully draped after they “do it.”

It’s great for all the women over 30 (like me, hey!) to watch the woman over 30 strut her peacock feathers (although the pretty peacocks are actually boys) and her super grown-up power over the 23-year-old girl.  She owns it.  She knows what she wants and she knows what’s around.

When they show the people talking about losing their jobs, it’s so cutting that I almost wish it was in a different movie.  Many of those people went in for a “documentary” casting call and said what they wish they had said when they got fired.  The guy who talks about Chuck E Cheese made me cry, in the clip I heard before I saw the movie, and then, again, when I saw him in the actual film.

I’m not sure what they’re saying here about jobs or commitment or kindness or honesty, but I wasn’t too mad about that.  I wasn’t sure the main character had changed.  Overall, it wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t compelling, either.

2. “Wendy and Lucy” is a “good” movie.  By good I mean, thoughtful, careful, and authentic.  Nothing much happens, but I get sick of seeing movies that are all about rich, pretty people on the coasts.  (See #1.)  This is about how fragile you are when you are poor.  One snafu can turn you from “migrating” to “destitute.”  People are often nice, but the world is an uncaring place, and people can only help each other so much.  Small, lame mistakes ruin stuff in an insulting way, just like real life.

Also, there’s a cool dog.

You might think this movie is “bad” because it’s slow and plain, but then, you might be a philistine.

3. “Sherlock Holmes” is a “bad” movie, but I would recommend seeing it with someone you can whisper snide remarks to, especially when the music or sound effects go siren-volume.  The best part of this movie is when people talk about how “the fabric of nature is twisted.”  I don’t know what that means, but it its terribly, terribly evil.  And you learn that as old white men attempt to do terribly, terribly evil things using innocent-seeming things like sphinxes, five-pointed stars, and animal bones.

A mystery is solved using hallucinogens and a dream sequence, rather than the powers of deduction, but I enjoy watching Robert Downey, Jr., just as much as I enjoy watching George Clooney, so whatever.  Jude Law’s there, too, if you’re into that kind of thing.  I would advise you to make a lot more jokes about the homoerotic current in the story, if I were you.  I unfortunately limited my jokes to predictions about the progress of the plot, the location of the climax, and repetitions of lines that were completely ridiculous.  (“Death is only the beginning!”)

This is the first movie set in London I’ve seen since I went to London, which was pretty cool.  I was thinking, hey, there was scaffolding and ads posted up all over the side of that bridge when I tried to take a picture of Big Ben!  Awesome.

You’ll also witness such delights as Mr. Downey, Jr. sniffing the air and gazing around intently and describing chemical reactions and their effects (minus any CSI-style animation).  There are a couple of fight scenes so stop-and-start that my feminine brain wanders off, uninterested.  Wait, who’s fighting WHOM with WHAT?  And who won?  But there are secret rooms!  Running through sewer tunnels!  Pig carcasses!  Explosions!  Yep.  I told you it was a “bad” movie.  I used a gift certificate, and as my companion said, “It was worth ‘free.'”