Weekend movies

As usual, I saw several movies this weekend.

The Kids Are All Right. Big disappointment. Great performances of course, but I found all 3 main characters to be deeply flawed and mostly unlikeable. And I just don't get what the filmmaker was trying to say. "People are deeply flawed?" Not sure that was worth $10. Plus the sex was too graphic for me and mostly gratuituous. I just don't need to see people rooting around on the couch to get the general idea what they're doing. Fade to black please. More dialog, less doggy style! The frustrating part is that this movie is made for me! I complain about there being no movies for grown-ups and then they make one and I don't really like it! What's the matter with me???

The Last Mimzy. A very weird little movie. Cool environmental message, but kind of distrubing and a little random. The child actors were good, but it wasn't nearly as entertaining as I expected. Bonus - references to Alice in Wonderland, which were especially fun since we just watched 2 versions of that story.

G.I. Joe. Cal loved this and wanted to watch again. The cast is what drew me (my boy, Joseph Gordon Levitt and the delicious Channing Tatum). It wasn't a bad movie actually. I liked the flashbacks, which added a lot of unexpected depth to the story. And I loved that the ladies kicked ass just like the guys did. It could have been 20 minutes shorter. And it was awfully violent - I don't mind the explosions or the hand-to-hand combat, but did we need repeated swords through the chest and that kind of stuff? I didn't think so. It's not like people are going to get bored - the movie is almost non-stop action. I think the realism in movies aimed at a wide audience is a disturbing trend. I don't have any problem with kids seeing cars flipping over, or even the sort of bloodless gun death that all these movie have. But the more sadistic stuff is just unnecessary unless the movie is specifically aimed at an older audience (the way Saw and Hostel are).