I am hoping to get everyone together on August 23rd for a movie night, perhaps the last of the summer and wah!!! the last with Thanya in our midst for a while. Sooo…. who’s up for it? It is Janine’s turn to choose if she can make it!!
Potluck on the patio and screen time after!
See you soon!
Mel
Movies not Books 
I will know better by Sunday what next week looks like. I will confirm then with a definite yes or sorry.
Bonnie
Pretty sure I can come!
Sharon
I’m in!!
Thanya
Shoot! I’m missing all the fun. Flying to Ontario to visit family on the 21st, bqck the 28th, then Liza’s b-day party (tho that’s fun too!), but I miss you guys! Helen
Ok, I’m having a coffee break from Windows File and Storage Services beating out SAN storage and Fibre Optic cabling at Telekom Slovenije to write about the movie last night. I wanted so much to like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but I couldn’t. I was going to rent it anyway, so was glad to have the chance to see if for myself. I really do admire Stephen Daldry who directed The Hours, and his last film, the Reader, with the incomparable Kate Winslet, was a spare, gripping, and unsentimental portrait of a complex woman. But this latest effort was, for me, a cloying, sentimental, and frankly implausible story about a family’s personal tragedy. The acting was well, acting. I never lost the feeling that I was watching a young actor doing a very good job of acting, and Tom Hanks was Tom Hanks, and Sandra Bullock was, once again, America’s Sweetheart. Great actors do not appear to be acting, they are their characters and watching them you lose yourself in their stories. The wonderful emotional nuances playing like shadows over the Nordic planes of Max von Sydow’s face, (still sexy after all these years!) is another story, however. He was the highlight for me.
And did anyone else feel manipulated by the rushed-up sound track that accompanied the scene when the boy finally unburdened himself of all his feelings? Did any of us need to be told that his mind was teaming with conflicting, barely articulated painful emotions? Ultimately this was the main problem for me with the film: everything felt too staged and overly-directed. There is something strangely formulaic about American films: I admit, I’m biased, but this is a good example: everything wrapped up too neatly, the black couple getting back together, the grandparents putting their past behind them, the mother/son reconciliation (“I guess I should have told you I loved you more.” Who actually says things like that????), the boy coming to terms with all his fears one by one, the final swing…. Too predictable for me, by far. If I was to sum up the film I would call it “Incredibly Predictable and Extremely Unbelievable.” Somewhere in there is an oxymoron to add to that ridiculous Tai Kwon Do/ verbal jousting scene…
Love to hear what anyone else thought!
Yes, I did feel manipulated somewhat. However, on the other hand, the kid was the classic kid grieving and I thought it was remarkable how he portrayed that.
I loved the puzzle part of it, the dividing up of the city, the coloured squares. Meeting and documenting all the people. The message in the swing was too cornball, though.
The Grandfather was ok. Not sure why he got nominated. He wasn’t THAT good. He did not make me care about him that much.
What I need to know is the name of the Rufus Sewell series about the Italian Detective…Zen?? and somebody was talking about another series as well. We need to hire a secretary at these things.
Dianne!! The list of ingredients, please!!
also, please use paragraphs, everyone! thanks!
Finally I read the very excellent review Mel posted and will add my 2c worth. I am not as clever in brain or words as the rest of you.
What I found very trying ( and so VERY American!!) is the self-absorbtion – as if they are the only ones on the planet profoundly hurt by this tragedy, and more broadly, that 9/11 is somehow the culmination of all tragedies that have impacted Americans, and indeed, humankind. They were totally caught up in their own lives and their own quests – and they simply were not interesting enough characters to warrant a full movie. It would have been more powerful had there been unresolved issues between the Tom Hanks and the Sandra Bullock characters.
A preferable and more impactful movie addressing the grief of 9/11 would have been vingettes of different families impacted by the event, with their stories and lives interweaving and touching each other.