I watched two movies this weekend. Up front, I didn't have high expectations that I would love them, hence not seeing them in the theatre.
The first was "The Grey", starring Liam Neeson. I didn't think the original trailers showed enough reason for an entire movie and I think that was true. One scene I did appreciate was immediately after the plane crash when a man is clearly going to die a gruesome death, Ottway (Neeson) doesn't tell him he'll be ok, he says, you're gonna die. Let it wash over you. He gets him through the end in a realistic and helpful way - not something you see often.
From there, the movie goes downhill. We do get a sense of the individual remaining characters, but I didn't "care" about them. Probably a good thing as they die one by one. Neeson is a great actor and that was evident in this movie, but I still didn't care about Ottway. We know his wife is gone and he is ready to end his own life. But we don't know why she's gone - did he kill her, did he cheat on her and she left him, did she die in an accident or from sickness? We finally find out at the very end, but by then it just didn't matter. If we'd known earlier, maybe we'd care if he lived.
Beautiful scenery though.
The second movie was "The Artist". A little artsy for my tastes, but I was intruigued - it won all those awards, right? I actually enjoyed the concept, but I think it could have been done in a more clever fashion. The movie was cute, a diversion. NOT better than "Avatar"!!! Initially I felt it was nothing more than a mechanism to do a silent movie - take all the silent movie cliche's and put them together into a spoof. I didn't care much for the rakish main character, although he played the part perfectly.
The dog was the best part! The little bits of sound were integrated cleverly - I just wanted more cleverness. I think doing a color silent film placed in modern times, but with a logical rational would have been much more interesting.
Anyone have concurring or opposing thoughts? Let us know!
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