the domestic zoo

- this song

- this short film

- having a night to myself after two VERY busy weeks

To crappy American remakes of much better British things.

I’m not saying that all American remakes are bad, but far too many are. This strikes me as less like the successful formula that brought The Office from the UK to the US and more like the absolute travesty behind, say, the American remake of Life on Mars. Because apparently what American audiences want in a movie is more booty jokes and the word “bromantic”.

There now seem to be three types of films that have consistent January releases: horrific romantic comedies, movies Gary Oldman inexplicably thinks have good scripts, and vengeful dads operating outside the law scenarios. Edge of Darkness is this year’s Taken, minus 90% of the action and 100% of Liam Neeson’s badassery.

the ever-brilliant Liz reviews ‘Edge of Darkness’ at KillsMeDead.com

Synopsis: Two crew members are stranded on a spacecraft and quickly – and horrifically – realize they are not alone. Slowly the spacecraft’s shocking, deadly secrets are revealed…and the astronauts find their own survival is more important than they could ever have imagined. (IMDB.com)

Let’s put it this way: if you want to see a thriller/horror/monster movie (in space!) then you could find many movies that are far worse than Pandorum. But Moon, with only ONE actor and a very limited set, provided more taut psychological tension (in space!) than Pandorum ever comes close to, monsters and Dennis Quaid notwithstanding.

Right about now, I half expected Cam Gigandet (right) to go all James on Dennis Quaid’s jugular.

This is drawn from some online discussions I’ve been in recently. Dad said that while some women have problems with cellulite, I have a problem with celluloid (ha!*). Because I’m a movie addict, you know…

Movies with Great Endings, either happy or sad.

Ghost Town. Just thinking about that last scene brings a smile to my face.

Stranger than Fiction, The Darjeeling Limited and Little Miss Sunshine were all dark comedies with very sweet endings.

Bella was pretty gutwrenching but it ends so, so beautifully. The Constant Gardener was bittersweet – a sad ending which revealed something wonderful.

And of course, A Little Princess and Homeward Bound always leave me crying sappy, happy tears.

Movies with Bad Endings, not necessarily sad, but poorly done.

The International – after all that action and intrigue, the ending just felt really incomplete.

The Savages – blergh. No resolution, and it ended the way it started.

Cassandra’s Dream – depressing movie ends depressingly. Probably shouldn’t be surprised.

The Second Coming – OH WOW do I hate the way this movie ends. It’s so…bad.

Pay It Forward – an contrived cheap shot at the audience’s emotions.

Movies You Wish You’d Been Warned About

Pan’s Labrynth is an amazing movie, but there were definitely disturbing elements/scenes that I wish I’d been warned about. Our local video store had to put up signs reminding people that it’s *not* a kids’ movie.

Babel has one plotline that I wish I had been warned about, not at all indicated in the previews, and Gone Baby Gone has a VERY sensitive secondary story involving a child. There’s also an Afghani film called Osama which, though very well done, is so very disturbing that if I had know I would never have watched it. Same for Turtles Can Fly and Waltz With Bashir.

Everything is Illuminated goes from relatively light-hearted to very dark in about 2.5 seconds. Wish I had known about that.

And this one only sort of counts because I read the book and I was prepared for the content, but I had a lot of friends who were caught totally off-guard by Watchmen. It’s an intense movie. It’s brutally and explicitly violent. It has sex. Do not see it if you’re not sure what you’re getting into.

Movies Based on Books That You Should Read First (though wouldn’t that be all of them?)

- Watchmen
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
- Twilight
- The DaVinci Code
- The Golden Compass
- The Tale of Despereaux (a kid’s book, but a good one)
- Confessions of a Shopaholic

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*movies were never actually made with celluloid. Photographs were.