Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
It is 12/24 and I have to put up something positive.
Taken, with Liam Neeson, works as if — exactly as if — someone somehow got hold of my list of things I don’t want to see in movies ever again, and set out to deliberately avoid each item. The fights are slightly over-the-top, but somewhat plausible.
In fact — Item #1, the woman and man getting into an argument about whether she’s coming with him or not? You even have a scene where Liam Neeson announces, right in front of his ex-wife who is the mother of his daughter who’s been kidnapped, that he’s going to Europe to get her back. It’s a perfect set-up for the tired old “Well, I”m coming with you!” “No you’re not!” “Yes I am!” It’s as if someone behind the camera said “Hold it guys, that’s going to piss off Morgan K. Freeberg of Folsom California, and we can’t have that, so let’s cut the scene NOW.”
Okay, maybe it didn’t happen that way.
There are no 100-pound women judo-flipping 300-pound men. The father-daughter relationship figures prominently in the movie, and yet you don’t have the ritual of the Dad suddenly waking up to realize what a towering asshole he’s been and that he should do better next time (Item #3). Liam Neeson does not have a plucky sidekick (Item #17). When he needs to incapacitate the bad guy, he delivers a karate chop to the windpipe, not to the shoulder blades (Item #34).
Famke Janssen plays an absolutely loathsome, execrable human being. Of course it’s something of a rehash of her character in Don’t Say a Word…except she’s got two good legs in this one…and she’s just a horrible person. But they even spend a minute or so providing an excuse/motive for that, and thus making her just a little bit more sympathetic. It’s like they thought of everything. It’s not like they accommodated everything; it takes a ninety-minute, less-is-more approach. But they at least took everything into account. Everything that’s there has a reason to be there, and everything left out has a reason to be left out.
And “Now’s not the time for a dick-measuring contest Stuart!” is a decent line. You’ll especially enjoy it if you’re in one of those “negotiate with some other household in how to raise my own damn child” situations. And, if you’re sick to death of movie people firing unlimited numbers of rounds out of nine-shot automatics; yes, when the correct number of reports have taken place, the slide mechanism locks back and Liam’s pistol is empty (Item #31).
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I liked that movie, too. And the dick measuring line gave me considerable pleasure. It was really the only right thing to have Neeson’s character say at the time. And Stuart didn’t argue back, which he wouldn’t have in real life, either, but most movies would have had him whip out a zinger of his own.
- Andy | 12/24/2009 @ 08:33AND it had the always reliable get-the-bastard-to-talk-by-stabbing-him-in-both-thighs-with-a-spike/electrode-and-then-letting-him-enjoy-220-volts-for-extended-periods technique.
Thumbing the nose at the waterboard phobes.
- Lance de Boyle | 12/25/2009 @ 00:18Well, I saw that on MovieDeaths which suggested the nails went into the kneecaps. That’s why I rented it, really…but it looked to me more like he had the jumper cables connected to the chair the guy was sitting in. If he drove nails into the guy’s knees or thighs he would’ve been doing it while the baddie was sleeping, which doesn’t seem too likely.
I recall FrankJ at IMAO (somewhere) saying something like “I’m confused. When liberals watch ’24’, do they root against Jack Bauer?”
- mkfreeberg | 12/25/2009 @ 08:49