Past seven days

The French Film Festival is going on this week and I was able to catch six films of this one-week fest this weekend.  And although I haven't been to as many as I like, I was also able to catch another movie-in-the-park.

About Last Night...
The Billionaire
Carre Blanc
The Chef
Fly Me to the Moon
The Gold Brooch
Populaire
The Prey
Tower Heist
Wings of Desire

The Invention of Lying

In a world where everyone tells the truth, Mark (Ricky Gervais) suddenly realizes he is able to lie, and everyone takes his words as the truth since no one has experienced lying before. The film does not explain how or why this happened to Mark, nor why he seems to understand the concept of lying. Now finally Mark can go on a date with the shallow Anna (Jennifer Garner) by lying about who he is, inflating his status in her eyes. She usually is bored with him but doesn't consider him marriage material due to his unattractiveness. Once Mark finds that he can lie, he does so thinking that it makes his and others' lives happier, but later learns it is a shallow existence with no meaning, and even worse than before.

Mark digs himself deeper in his hole, hoping to help others become better people, but everyone mistakenly believes they can be bad people on Earth since he has previously told them heaven is guaranteed.

Anna begins to question if a storybook life with the handsome Brad (Rob Lowe) is the one she wants, or she wants true love with Mark.

Past seven days

For some reason I thought I had a light week of movie watching since I've been watching a lot of TV DVDs, but I watched a decent amount, six movies this week.  There was a big variety of topics and styles.

Black Robe
Near Dark
The Science of Sleep
The Spectacular Now
The Vikings
You Laugh But It's True

Past seven days

Hot outdoors, cool indoors. Movies anyone?


All That Glitters
Fortress
Fruitvale Station
Girl Most Likely
The Grey
L.A. Confidential

Zzyzx

Make sure you spell Zzyzx right, and don’t confuse it with another movie called Zzyzx Road.  Zzyzx has three main characters stranded on a desert road and you DON’T want to join them.

Two young men, Lou and Ryan (Kenny Johnson, Ryan Fox) are on a roadtrip to Las Vegas. Lou is the dominant one, somewhat a bully to his friend, calling him "Mitch" because it rhymes with...well, you know. Ryan is a humble geek, obsessed with the legend of a cult that once inhabited Zzyzx Road, on which they are travelling. He thinks he can hear broadcasts from the cult, which was active in the 60s, on his radio headphones.

During their ride on the desolate desert road, Lou almost runs a man down by accident. When Ryan gets upset, Lou pushes his buttons and makes a U-turn with the car, implying he really is going to run the man down. Ryan panics, grabs at the steering wheel, and the man is mowed down by accident.  As the young men decide what to do, they see another person coming down the road. In a hurry, they dump the body in their back seat. The new person is Candice (Robyn Cohen), who, through her story, reveals she is stranded in her broken down trailer with her new husband, the man the guys just ran over. The guys join her at the trailer to "wait" for her husband, and Lou plays some mind games with both Candice and Ryan, alongside Ryan's increasing obsession with his cult, and some secrets that Candice has.

There are also some bookends to this main story, about a Mexican family finding some bones in the desert.

The Night Listener

This is a story written by Armistead Maupin, most famous as the author of the Tales in the City stories, and based on a real life experience of his. It is a thriller so it's very unlike his signature piece.

The film stars Robin Williams as a radio talk show monologuist Gabriel who spins stories about his life, usually embellishing them, although he claims to his audience they are facts. The film has a dark and somewhat bleak tone and Gabriel's voice reflects this.  His lover Jess (Bobby Cannavale) can no longer take Gabriel's behavior in their relationship, i.e. always on the lookout for something about the couple to spin into a story for his show. Jess feels this is becoming more intrusive, and feels Gabriel is not committed to the relationship for the right reasons.  Jess leaves just when another friend (Joe Morton) gives him an amateur memoir written by a teen fan of his radio show named Pete (Rory Culkin). Pete's memoir talks about his troubled life of having been sexually abused by his parents and other personal tragedies. Gabriel is moved by his story and starts a telelphone friendship with Pete and eventually his foster mother Donna (Toni Collette).

After a telephone encounter, someone suggests they are the same person. Gabriel is not convinced this but when he tells his secretary (Sandra Oh), she puts more doubts in his head. A couple of instances where face-to-face meetings with Pete fall through makes Gabriel more suspicious than he wants to be, leading him to try to find Pete, and Donna, to prove to himself they both exist.

Past seven days

I had a busy movie watching weekend, at least on DVD.  It looks like I was slacking off but I did also watch a bunch of TV on DVD--Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Third Rock from the Sun, The Weird Al Show, and a Canadian frontier series called Bordertown.

Bottle Rocket
Journey Among Women
Karen Cries on the Bus
Pacific Rim
The Petrified Forest
Super

Past seven days

Heading into a holiday weekend, I expect to be watching a lot of movie, on DVD at least.  But here is what I was up to the past week, and even division between movies out of the house and movies in:

Becoming Redwood
Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Downloaded
Far Out Isn't Far Enough: The Tomi Ungerer Story
Live-in Maid
Neighboring Sounds
ParaNorman
Red 2
Repo Man
Shaolin