Movies in September

What with going to the World Fantasy Convention and trying to wind one book down while also winding another book up has been a bit of a time suck. But as I'm getting dangerously close to being three months behind, let's play a little catch-up. Luckily, September was a light movie month.

Lost Season 6, the finale. *Sigh* Well, for me this was a bit like Harry Potter. I adored those books, read them over and over again, hoarded clues and constructed my own ideas about how it would all tie up in the end, spent so much time on it and finessed what was to me such a perfect ending that book 7 was horribly disappointing. But not as disappointing as the last episode of Lost. This one face-planted just at the end worse than Battlestar Galactica. I prefer the ending in my head; I'm going to pretend that's what it all was (my ending didn't leave a decorative fringe of loose ends, I tell you).

Shutter Island was way cool. I think we can label this the point where I started noticing Mark Ruffalo. Remember it; he's going to come up again (an intriguing choice for Bruce Banner/the Hulk. It almost makes up for tossing Ed Norton. Not quite, but almost).

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in Swedish, natch. It made me grateful I hadn't read the book; women as victims is too uncomfortable-making for me and I barely made it through a few key scenes in the movie. I'm guessing the Finch version will be intense as well, although how any other actress could play the main character after this one so thoroughly defined it, and an unknown actress at that... I think they might have made a mistake there, but we'll wait and see.

Pukar I watched, but I'm having a hard time recalling it now. I'm remembering only really liking the songs, which were by AR Rahman, so no duh. Whatever Anil Kapoor and Madhuri Dixit were up to is gone from mind now. Dream Girl is one from the late 60s or early 70s, with Dharmadendra and Hema Malini, whom I adore. This one had a song and dance number in Disney World, including an aerial shot of the park, which was mindblowing. There was nothing out there, just empty space around the Magic Kingdom.

Superman Returns I mostly remember as the movie where one lapdog ate another. The boys liked this one, and Kevin Spacey was a fun Lex Luthor, but the constant playing with the Superman as Jesus theme was tedious and the whole movie was just plain slow.

Finishing up with two Alfred Hitchcock movies: Dial M for Murder was apparently originally a 3D movie, but none of the 3D prints exist anymore. Which is a real shame; it looks like it was a gorgeous, layered popup book of a movie (as opposed to the shit poking out at you that 3D tends to devolve to in most films). Mr. and Mrs. Smith has no connection to the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie film. It's about two people who discover that they were never legally married, and the wife decides that suits her fine, and her husband stalks her in a screwball comedy kind of way. People behaving badly tends not to tickle my personal funny bone (I'm looking at you, The Hangover), so I didn't really enjoy this, but it does have some wonderful shots that let you know it's still Hitchcock at the helm.

Well, that finishes off September. Hopefully I'll get the two October posts up before December hits, in all it's too much to do, too little time glory.