South Korea - Day 10 - Movie Time!

Our flight out of South Korea left Monday morning at 10am, so we were up before 6am to catch the hour-long bus to the airport. I didn’t sleep at all on the thirteen hour flight home, though, so I had plenty of time to watch movies! Between the flight to Korea and from Korea, I watched nine movies…

Grey Gardens
On the plane they had the version of Grey Gardens that was a remake with Drew Barrymore. It is about a documentary that was made about two eccentric women - an elderly mother and her middle-aged daughter, who lived in a dilapidated mansion. I thought the movie was interesting, but primarily it made me wish I could see the original documentary to understand a bit more about what the women were actually like.



Whatever Works
This is the Woody Allen movie about an irritable old man who is self-proclaimed genius that falls in love with a homeless southern high-school girl who's not too bright. The central theme of the movie is that life is horrible, so if you can find anything that makes you happy, even for a short period of time, you should take advantage of it. The movie is pretty wacky, and while some parts were really funny, a number of the jokes were too corny or over-the-top for me, so my overall reaction is just so-so.


Brother's Bloom
The Brother's Bloom is about two brothers who become con men from an early age. The younger brother decides he doesn't want to be a conman anymore, so his brother convinces him that the next con will be their last. They decide to trick a lonely, bored, young millionaire into thinking they are antique smugglers and going on an adventure with them in which they'll trick her out of a million dollars. Like all con movies, you're constantly wondering which things are a part of the con and which aren't. I thought the movie was really well done, and I really enjoyed it.

Terminator Salvation
I don't think I've actually seen all of the Terminator movies, but I've seen Terminator 2 about a million times, so I feel like I've got the basic idea. I thought Terminator Salvation was pretty good - it's at least suspenseful - Jeff says I was literally at the edge of my seat on the plane. I like Christian Bale, and I thought the overall storyline was interesting and not too predictable.




State of Play
This movie stars Russel Crowe as a reporter in DC trying to unravel a big conspiracy. Ben Afflec plays the young senator who is both Russel Crowe's friend as well as involved in all the unraveling events. Again, the movie keeps you guessing as to what's actually happening, but it's not super engaging all along the way. I'd say this movie is ok, but not great (maybe a good one to watch if you're on a plane and have limited selection).


The Proposal
Why did I watch this movie? I knew it would be ridiculous and bad... and it was. It was corny and predictable, and silly, but for someone who hadn't slept in a quite a few hours, it worked out ok. If you want to watch a cute, happy movie where the jokes are stupid and you know what's going to happen, the movie is perfect.




My Sister’s Keeper
The premise of this movie is that a couple had a child with leukemia, and decided to have a second baby that would be genetically tailored to match the blood type and donation type of the first baby. This would allow them to keep their child alive by providing the blood transfusions and other medical donations she would need. The younger daughter, who at this point in the movie is around eight or so, and her parents are planning to have her donate a kidney to her sister, who will die soon without it. The younger daughter decides to sue her parents for medical emancipation (so she has control of her own medical decisions and won't have to give the kidney). So the movie is a slow, painful look at the life of the dying sister with cancer, the semi-ignored younger daughter who's constantly put through medical procedures, and the overall stress on the family. It's somewhat interesting, but a bit too long and a bit too predictable.

X-Men Origins – Wolverine
I love X-Men and love Wolverine, so it doesn't bother me that this movie wasn't particularly good; I liked it anyway. It had mutants with cool powers and interesting fights and government conspiracies - what more could you ask for. It made me want to re-watch the first X-Men movie.





The Soloist
This movie is about a reporter who meets a homeless person playing a broken violin and finds out that the homeless person once studied at Juliard. He writes an article about him and becomes his friend. He helps to get him a new cello (his real instrument) and to set him up with a shelter and eventually an apartment. The homeless guy clearly has some kind of mental illness - he hears voices and gets paranoia, but since he isn't violent and isn't requesting to be taken to a psychiatric hospital, they don't try to diagnose him or give him medicine. So the reporter basically focuses on how to be his friend while not actually being able to do anything about his mental illness. I found it to be an interesting movie.