Latest movies

I managed to see 2 movies for my birthday, and watched another on video.  All were flawed, but enjoyable.

In Time - I had rather low expectations for this movie, and it certainly wasn't a perfect film, but it had a terrific premise, excellent casting, and some great use of the time motif, including some wonderful dialog incorporating various cliches. The leads were fun and had good chemistry, but it was worth seeing just for Cillian Murphy, who conveys more with his eyes than most actors do with a whole page of dialog. Fun.

Anonymous - I was more interested in the portrayal of artistic expression as a compulsion, than the conjecture about Elizabeth I's progeny.  I found, and generally find, the court drama to be rather boring and overwrought.   My understanding is that there is a fair amount of support among scholars for the idea that Shakespeare probably didn't write everything that's attributed to him, and possibly didn't write any of it. The theory that Edward DeVere was Shakespeare is really just a fun exercise in "what if" and has no historical support.  I thought the movie itself presented a wonderful and fascinating story, and was very well made, and very entertaining, and quite moving as well. It wasn't a perfect movie, but there were a few really powerful scenes that made the whole thing worthwhile.

Going the Distance (2010) - This movie didn't make a big splash and I can see why.  It has some funny moments, and a strong ending, but it loses momentum in the middle, and you aren't rooting for the couple as much as you should be.  Entertaining, but not exactly memorable. A quibble - I thought the humor was overly raunchy - for example, late in the movie, Drew Barrymore's character gets drunk in a bar and picks a fight with a burly man, taunting him repeatedly, "suck my dick!"  WTF?