Movies

Over the holiday weekend, I saw two movies that couldn't have been more different.

I saw Arrival on Thanksgiving and hated it. I nodded off several times during the movie and woke up to find out that not much had happened while I was asleep. Aside from being incredibly boring, I found a lot of the movie's plot points to be just ridiculous and unbelievable. For example, would the US government really allow a linguist to go unaccompanied into an alien craft? Would that linguist be able to get a telephone in order to call the head of the Chinese government (and actually speak with the man)? If anyone went onto an alien craft, wouldn't that person have to go for a full Silkwood decontamination treatment each time the person returned to the military base? Wouldn't that person also have to endure a period of time (and I don't just mean a day or two) of quarantine before being allowed to rejoin the civilian population? The aliens in the movie reminded me of Kang and Kodos, the aliens from The Simpsons (without the huge eye in the middle of their bodies). Aside from the first half hour of the movie that seemed interesting and believable, the majority of this film just didn't work for me. Also, why does Hollywood keep trying to make Jeremy Remmer happen? He's not attractive and his acting is nothing special, yet he keeps getting parts in big movies like this. When he and Amy Adams were in scenes together, you could tell he was way out of his league. Thumbs down all around here.

The second movie I saw via On Demand was better. I'd seen an ad for King Cobra that piqued my interest when I saw a French movie at the IFC Theater last month in New York. King Cobra is based on a book by a guy who was a gay porno star who got mixed up with some other unsavory guys in the business and two of those guys killed the King Cobra character (played by Christian Slater) to try and steal his star money maker for themselves. I largely enjoyed the movie and I thought the acting by Christian Slater, Molly Ringwald, James Franco, and the rest of the cast was pretty good. Now I kind of want to read the book the movie was based on. Yes, a lot of this movie is sleazy and low-down (and how can you not be given the subject matter), but it moves pretty well and it certainly held my interest. Thumbs up!

RIP, Ron Glass.