Saturday, July 12, 2003

I ventured out of my apartment at around noon to pick up a couple things at the store and to see if Blockbuster had any newly returned copies of Phone Booth. They did - woo hoo!

I also rented Tears of the Sun, Basic (which looks like it might be crap), and Mothman Prophecies.

So I watched Phone Booth as soon as I got home. I liked it a lot, but I had a problem with the voice-over of Keifer Sutherland as The Caller. It was probably easier to do it like they did, but it didn’t sound like he was on the phone with Colin Farrell (who I love more and more with each movie I see him in). But it was suspenseful and different.

I followed that up with Tears of the Sun, which I really, really liked. It’s timely, in light of the conflicts in Liberia and Congo that we’re hearing about. I freely admit that I’m a fan of Bruce Willis. He won’t win any Oscars for this, but it’s good. And it’s made me think about the role of the US in some of those hot spots in Africa.

I will probably watch Basic tonight and Mothman... tomorrow. I’ll add those reviews here when I’ve seen them.

UPDATE (Sun PM): I did watch Basic last night, fully expecting it to be terrible. I was pleasantly surprised that I liked it. John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson, Connie Nielsen (of Gladiator fame), plus a few hot guys. It had an interesting plot with twists that kept me guessing. Just when I thought I figured out something, it turned. So it gets a thumbs up from me.

I do have two issues:

1. The cheesy helicopter-flying-at-night-in-a-hurricane scene in the beginning. It reminded me of the terrible sub-sailing-through-the-night scene at the end of Hunt for Red October. And then I realized that Basic was directed by John Tiernan - same as for HfRO. Sheesh...he needs to learn how to do that better.

2. Connie Nielsen’s accent. She’s Dutch, so she speaks with a slight accent, which I happen to like and don’t have a problem with. However, in this movie she was trying for southern American and only managed to keep it for about half of the movie. She should have stuck with her normal accent, it would have been less distracting for me.