About Time

This film might still be playing somewhere, perhaps as a second run. Although About Time takes a somewhat serious premise, it is mostly a lighthearted romantic comedy as well as family drama.

The main character Tim (Domnhall Gleeson) is told by his father (Bill Nighy) that on his 21st birthday he acquires a family power carried by the men in the family. He can return to the past of his own life and if he chooses, make changes. At first we see Tim, being a young man, using this power for what young men have their mind most on--trying to find the right girl. In fact, we see Tim trying again and again to fix and refix his life so that his romance with a woman he meets by chance at a restaurant, Mary (Rachel McAdams), happens with the maximum happiness. But Tim is cautioned by his father that what he changes in the past can change things in the present, for himself as well as for others, so Tim has to be careful how big the changes are. There are plenty of meet-cute moments and romantic-cute moments as Tim often excuses himself so he can go into a dark room (a requirement of the power) to re-fix events.

Later the film gets more serious as Tim sees almost too late that his messed up sister has screwed her own life up, and he tries to help her without, as cautioned before, screwing up events that could be unbuilt by his changes. Tim gets some life lessons from his father (Bill Nighy) who counsels him on whether to live in the moment or try to return to happy times again and again.

Past seven days

A semi-break from work next week means I'll be at home with lots of stuff to watch! In the meantime, here are the last seven days:

The Avengers
Colossus: The Forbin Project
Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
My Name is Bill W.

Saving Mr. Banks

Being both a Disney film and a Tom Hanks film, you know there are not going to be any negative revelations about the iconic Walt Disney. The period is when Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) was trying to convince the author of the Mary Poppins books to allow him rights to make a movie about the character. He's promised things like no animation, and since we know now that there WAS animation, we wonder how he got away with it.

P.L. Travers (Emma Thompson) has been fending Disney off for a couple decades but for some reason this time has allowed herself to be coerced to a face-to-face meeting with him in L.A., most probably because her royalties for the books have faded and she needs money to keep up her home and lifestyle.

She is very protective of the characters in the book and you see why in some flashbacks. As a child in Australia, she was very close to her father (Colin Farrell) who, while he was a loving husband and father, was not a very responsible wage-earner, and he fell to drinking heavily which was his downfall. He was the one who stoked her imagination, although in the adult Mrs. Travers you see little evidence of any joy or whimsy. Although she insists on final approval, the film is pretty much written and planned to Disney's specifications and he believes it is more a matter of convincing her, rather than her idea that she will review the script, change it, then sign on the dotted line. Throughout Mrs. Travers' prickly meetings with Disney and his creative team, you come to see that the characters in the book are based on her family, which she never states openly. In bits and pieces, the guys win her over, although I don't know if they were astute enough to realize her personal connection to the characters (although Disney finally does).

Past seven days

I got to see some films that are not yet out, some opening in a couple days, others not until the new year. Have fun at the movies!

August: Osage County
Beasts of the Southern Wild
Chicago Drawbridges
How to Murder Your Wife
The Kind With a Bike
Saving Mr. Banks
A Serious Man

Past seven days

Caught up on some old tv by re-watching Fringe season 3 during the holiday break, but still have to tackle 4 and 5.  In the meantime, I checked out a couple sequels and a new movie by Spike Jonze:

Her
Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Thor: The Dark World