quantum of solace

in preparation for watching this movie my dad and i rewatched 'casino royale' a week before we went. im glad we did too, because this one takes place right after that one, and it helped a lot in making sense of this one.
now, in full disclosure, i feel i must share my feelings about james bond. i am a big fan of james bond, and always have been. i love everything about it except the movies. they are terrible. sure, sean connery is the greatest bond, but all of the movies with him are really bad. sorry, i have no sentimental attachement to any of the films.
so, when i heard they were rebooting it a few years ago with 'casino royale' i was quite excited! i figured there might actually be a chance that they would make a good movie! and they did. the first one with daniel craig was fantastic. i really enjoyed it. this one is a lot of fun too. it follows james as he tries to seek revenge on the man behind the death of his girl in the last film. this movie genuinely felt like it wasnt so much a sequel as a continuation of the last film. its hard to see it on its own, since it feels like the second half of 'casino royale'. the twists and turns were good, the action was fun, and the story was satisfying. i only have two small complaints: james didnt have any fun! usually we get a bit of the swagger that is bond, but this one was completely missing any sense of james enjoying himself. sure, it probably doesnt fit into the revenge theme of the film, but it was something i missed. my second complaint is for the director: action scenes are fun, but you need to learn how to do an establishing shot! half the time i had no idea what was happening in the action shots. when they arrive at the base at the end, give us some long shots of the action, give us some perspective, let us see the action from a distance every once in a while, it really helps to show us whats going on!

quarantine

for some reason im still unsure of, i went to go see this one in the theater. i kind of knew it would suck, but i went anyway... the film is a first hand account, similar to 'blair witch project' or 'cloverfield', where a local tv reporter and cameraman are following a team of firefighters for the night. they get a call about a old woman having a medical emergency, so off they go. when they arrive they realize something isnt quite right. as they are trying to leave they are locked in and the police are outside quarantining the entire building. the characters dont understand what is going on, and since they dont know, neither do we.

they do a pretty good job of building tension and confusion with the situation. over the course of the time in the building things get stranger and stranger. the characters themselves are actually believable, and do a convincing job of trying to figure out whats up. rarely did the characters do things that were obviously stupid, which is usually the case in scary movies... the ending was a bit strange and doesnt really explain anything, but it sure was creepy!

love actually

i had seen this one a long time ago, and its one of diana's favorites, so we sat down and watched it together. this is one of those movies that have a ton of different story lines filled with different characters that eventually all tie together in one way or another. each of the stories revolve around some form of love. there is a father and son trying to bond after the death of the wife/mother, a married man contemplating an affair, a woman who loves her handicapped brother too much to take any time for herself, a guy who loves his best friends new wife, and a couple more as well. its a study in many of the different forms love can take. some of the story lines are better than others, but over all, it presents a beautiful image of what love can be and how in changes and inspires us. hugh grant and alan rickman are amazing, as always, but the stand out performance in the film is certainly liam neeson as the grieving father. very touching.

labyrinth

i, like so many others, have very fond memories of this movie. i remember renting it while i was in middle school and watching it one friday night while my parents were gone. i loved it so much i immediately rewound it (we only had vcrs back then, folks) and watched it again! i was completely enamoured with it. i loved the big furry guy who would say 'smell bad!' and all the crazy cool muppet stuff.
after having watched it again recently i have just one question: this is a musical?!? i had absolutely no recollection of this movie ever having any songs in it. there are at least 4 songs in the film, but i had totally blocked them out for some reason (well, probably because they were all stupid). unfortunately, this films falls into the same category as so many other 80's movies: good to remember, bad to rewatch.

timecop

the great thing about van damme movies is that they are all terrible. once you start with that understanding, this one is actually kind of fun. the story (i use that term loosely) is about a guy who works for a new government agency that must patrol time travel (just go with it) to keep it safe from the bad guys. he must stop the bad guy from taking money from the past to pay for his presidential election campaign in the future (again, just go with it). van damme tries to stop him and save his wife who died 10 years before.
i think the best part of the film is that there is no attempt to make it look futuristic except for the cars, which look like white crazy garbage trucks. and of course there is a bunch of random fighting (which has aged terribly, you know, pre-matrix and all), and as there must always be in a van damme movie: he does the helicopter kick at least once. i guess as far as van damme movies go, this one is actually not bad.