Sunday, January 31, 2010

Movie Review By Rip Van Winkle

As has been discussed here before, I am the Rip Van Winkle of movie-viewing. I didn't know who Matt Damon was until a few years ago when my husband dragged me to see The Good Shepherd. I'd never even heard of George Clooney until Mrs. G named him Secret Boyfriend #9 and enlisted him to play one of her husbands in the soon-to-be HBO series Bigger Love (also created by Mrs. G).

So! Larry and I just watched Ocean's 11. First time ever. Because, hey, the movie has only been out for 9 years. You know, I'm just glad I'm seeing movies from this century. I spent all of last year trying to catch up on the 1990's. (Office Space, anyone? Sixth Sense? Do you know how humiliating it is to wait 12 years before understanding the line, "I see dead people"?)

Unfortunately, this particular movie contained a large cast of characters and a somewhat complicated plot. Larry had to endure my saying, "Who's he?" and "How did that happen?" throughout the entire film. I'm thinking it's a good thing we had neither time nor money for much movie-watching in the early part of our marriage. If Larry had had fewer years (and fewer children) invested in our conjugal union already, he might have been tempted to throw in the towel after an ordeal such as the one I put him through this evening.

The movie? Oh, yes - 2 thumbs up (does anyone say that anymore?) It was a total eye candy experience. Although that probably wasn't Larry's takeaway on it...

And is anyone still using the phrase "eye candy"? Or is that too 80's?

19 comments:

  1. Eye candy is very 80's. All the hipsters nowadays are saying "retinal stim."

    Try it at Starbucks. They'll know what you mean.

    Seriously.

    ReplyDelete
  2. my husband and i love that movie...and i am proud of you for finally seeing it.

    and i do understand about larry's questions...my husband, who is an engineer and likes things lined up nice and neat plotwise, needed a lot of explanations, too.

    it took me a while to explain the whole vault switcheroo.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I haven't seen a movie in a theater since before my first was born, unless you count Ratatouille, which I kind of don't. We don't think we could keep up with Netflix--it sounds like an awful lot of pressure--and anytime I bring a movie home from the library, it skips. All of which is to say, I'm hopelessly behind too, although I started having kids about ten years after you did, so at least I knew Matt Damon and so on. (I saw Sixth Sense in a creepy old theater in Rutland, VT, while on vacation with my husband, who might have been my boyfriend at the time, I can't remember, and the projector BROKE in the middle. As I said, creepy.) PLEASE tell me you've seen Good Will Hunting? Young little Matt Damon sticking it to those Harvard snobs. Sigh. How do you like THEM apples??

    ReplyDelete
  4. I still say eye-candy, but I am probably not your best gauge on the matter.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I second Good Will Hunting!!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm laughing very hard at "retinal stim." And then I'm realizing I have no clue whether people actually say that. Maybe they do. I'm going to start now and either be 1) a trendsetter or 2) hip. It's a win-win situation. Thank you, Homemaker Man. And thank you too, Suburban Correspondent, for letting me know I'm not alone in my confusion over the plots of movies with characters that look alike. I can't deal with movies where there are two girls with brown hair, or 2-3 men with similar builds. Which is why "Backyardigans" is about right for me.

    ReplyDelete
  7. My husband and I have to work hard to manage one movie a year. Since I prefer things with explosions (or a least a car chase or two, or some decent martial arts) and he has high standards for quality of acting and narrative, it's actually kind of hard to agree on something. (We still haven't seen Oceans Eleven.)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I haven't seen the movie yet. In fact, I haven't seen most of the movies mentioned.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I prefer me some eye candy, the actual boys and the term. I really didn't care about the plot, just to be in the company of such fine men was enough. I didn't mind being clueless. I'm not a big bomb-exploding, car-chasing, automatic weapon firings, kind of girl, but Matt Damon's series of Bourne Identity movies are top-notch. He is quite yummy sweet in those movies.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I can't watch the "Oceans" movies because there is just too much going on. I watch lots of movies, but I like my eye candy one-on-one. George Clooney in Up in the Air for instance.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ocean's 11 is the best of the series; there are 3 of them. 2 is so-so and 3 is meh.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Chin up, there's a bunch of us in your boat. I thought "Snooki" was a kind of toy for children and then last week I learned it was an MTV character. I think it would take me months to catch up with popular culture so I quit trying.

    ReplyDelete
  13. i say eye candy but i was made in the 80s so maybe that's why ;-)

    if oceans 11 is complicated for you do not watch "memento" - i had to stop in the middle and start all over again because i didn't get it. even explaining it is difficult. oh, and don't watch it if tattoos make your retina bleed or freak.

    and guess what, now you can use "i can see dead people" with anyone who you know is still clueless about it!!

    franzi

    ReplyDelete
  14. Like Amy, I haven't seen a REAL movie in a theater since sometime BC (before children).

    The Husband prefers creepy movies from somewhere in the 1930's and 1940's. Some of them are spectacular, but some are just creepy. I also suspect he secretly likes "2000 Explosions and a Supernova".

    I prefer eye candy. (Joseph Finnes in "Shakespeare in Love" anyone?) My real criteria concerns body count, specifically fewer than 5.

    We can't even rent a movie in under an hour...

    ReplyDelete
  15. Oh, Oh, Mom On The Verge, you nailed it! Joseph Fiennes in Shakespeare in Love, is downright scrumptious. That is the epitome of eye candy. And I understood the plot.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I don't know if it helps any that I would still say all those things, and watch all those movies that much later than they came out...What the heck. When you put it off that long, the bright side is you can watch the sequels right away.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Heh. I'm kind of like you, very behind in my movie watching.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Geez - I was feeling sorry for myself that the last movie I saw in a theater was last April...At leat I am not years behind on my movie knowledge!! The befit of having older chikdren. I am too broke to go to the theater, but I have time to watch Netfliks

    ReplyDelete