Week 35: Eastern Promises

I’ve been complaining for a long time that nobody makes a good thriller anymore. And while I wouldn’t exactly categorize Eastern Promises as a thriller, it’s in the ballpark, and it’s surprisingly good. To be honest, I had NO IDEA what this movie was about. I had some vague idea it was another drab movie about demure Japanese people trapped in emotionless relationships. Was I confusing this with the Painted Veil? Perhaps. The point is that I was completely misinformed.

Turns out that Easter Promises is about a maternity nurse (Naomi Watts) who gets mixed up with the Russian mafia when she begins to investigate the death of a 14-year-old girl who delivered a baby in her hospital ward. Watts is perhaps underutilized but it doesn't really matter because Viggo Mortensen (insert dreamy sigh here) is the real star of the film, playing the driver for the mafia boss who becomes entangled with Watts as she pursues the girl’s rapist. I won’t spoil the twists and turns involving Viggo’s character, but there are a few whoppers and I didn’t see them coming (how I love to be surprised).

David Cronenberg directs (he and Viggo worked together on a History of Violence) and the vibe between the two movies is much the same. There is a lot of gruesome violence, some of which feels unnecessary. And, oh yes, you might have heard that there is a Viggo full-frontal nudity scene as well. It’s uh…interesting. He happens to be naked while he’s getting the shit kicked out of him in a bath house, so it’s not exactly “good naked" (insert disappointed sigh here).

We thought this was a very enjoyable movie. Good intrigue. Great acting. Almost thrilling. I almost love it.

Week 9: The Bourne Ultimatum

Man, Ben Affleck's ass must be really chapped about the success of the Bourne series. Just imagine him at the height of his popularity several years ago, stroking the hair plugs J. Lo made him get while he mused over the stacks of scripts studios were plying him with.

I could go Ocean's 11, he must have thought. Nah, Clooney and Pitt are all washed up. I could do this Bourne project. But no, that's probably going to be a bomb. I'll give it to Damon. That should be a laugh riot. Wait. What's this? Daredevil? A script about a blind superhero no one has ever heard of and probably will never care about? This is gold! Theatric gold! J. Lo, put on your mink eyelashes and tell me that you love me. When you're wearing your mink eyelashes, they hide the lies.

Lucky for audiences everywhere, Affleck took Daredevil and Damon took Bourne. And the world is a better place for it. I know this rekindles the deep fear that I am secretly a twelve-year-old boy, but I have to admit I love this series. Love it, love it, love it. It's thrilling, suspenseful and the action sequences are great. Especially since director Paul Greengrass took over the franchise in the Bourne Supremacy and introduced us to the handheld camera action sequence. It's a little dizzying at times, but it's so damn fun to watch, who cares? We were off on vacation today and it's too hot to do anything outside so we rushed off to the theater to see the final installment of the series.

The Bourne Ultimatum doesn't break any new ground but it's filled with the edge-of-your-seat action sequences we've come to expect. I have to admit that there are times in Ultimatum when Matt Damon is banged up so badly you have to question whether or not he has super-human abilities to recover from injuries. I once crashed a car in college and had minor whiplash, which I complained about at length for an entire week. Every time I took a sip of water I winced and re-told the story of my crash to anyone who would listen. I'm not proud of it, but it's true.

By my count, Jason Bourne endured four massive car crashes, including one car heaved over the edge of a multi-story car lot, landing upside down, and yet he still scampered away each time as though he'd just had a run-in with a pesky mosquito.

I'll admit that I never would have pegged Matt Damon to be an action hero, but you've got to give him his due in the Bourne series. He really did a good job. And I just watched him promoting the movie on The Daily Show and damned if he wasn't likable to boot.

Somewhere in Massachusetts sits a man with an incredibly large forehead and an old set of hair plugs, plotting his revenge on the success of the Bourne series. He's stroking the withering remnants of a pair of false eyelashes while he reads the script that he believes will redeem him: Daredevil 2: Still Blind and Rather Uninteresting.

Week 7: Notes on a Scandal

Haven't rented Notes on a Scandal yet? Don't bother. You've already seen it. Only it was called Single White Female. And a cat dies in this one instead of a puppy. And it was much less repulsive to watch Jennifer Jason Leigh put the moves on her obsession, Bridget Fonda, than it is to watch Dame Judy Dench put the moves on Cate Blanchett. Trust me on this one.

I'm not sure when Dame Judy turned 85 years old, but it appears to have happened rather abruptly, which made the site of her shaking, crippled fingers grazing over Cate's young and languid skin all the more creepy. I had visions of my grandma raising the hemline of her geriatric blood pressure girdle at the nursing home in order to impress some young female orderly. Ick.

This movie isn't terrible, but you've seen every part of it before in one fashion or another. Luminous ingenue teacher falls for young Irish muffin who happens to be her student. Latent lesbian older teacher blackmails luminous teacher, making luminous teacher appear all the more luminous and ethereal in various crying, wrenching, sobbing scenes. Secret unravels and there is much shouting at the end. All done, neat and tidy.

Can't anyone make a good thriller anymore? What gives, Hollywood? Too busy working on Eddie Murphy's next tour de force, "The Nutty Professor Three: Clumps in Space"?