We Amuse Myself

Movie(s) du jour:

My Grade: B/ B+

I'm on the fence about the grade for this movie, because all the trailer's billed it as a comedy, and while it's funny, it's not a hilarious, laugh-out-loud type of comedy. BUT this movie gets major props from me for the ending. It's not a twist or surprise ending but it is interesting and sort of unexpected. I don't want to give anything away, in case you're the type of person who (like me) does not and TRIES NOT to see things coming, but it really made me think more critically of Matt Damon's character(as in applying critical thinking skills to his character, not necessarily thinking badly of him) . Also, even though it's not laugh-out-loud funny, Matt Damon's narration throughout the film is surprisingly entertaining and cuts down scene transitions and other less interesting parts.

I really did like the film, but I was expecting a comedy. This movie is really more of a dramedy. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's a very entertaining dramedy, however it should have been advertised that way.

My Grade: B+/A

My first instinct was to give this film an A, but I quickly realized that was because I had lowered expectation for it that I shouldn't have had. I was expecting this movie to have the funniness of Ghost Town (another Gervais movie), which was funny but not really funny. This movie however is quite funny. And the best part (for me) was that it had a nice message that didn't feel forced. There were actually a couple of messages: one about lying, obviously. I'll just let you guys figure out the rest when you see the movie, because there really are several good messages watchers can take away. To sum it up, I'm going to quote Roger Ebert's review "In its amiable, quiet, PG-13 way, The Invention of Lying is a remarkably radical comedy."

However, the movie does have one aspect that could be seen as a downside. Given that this movie is about people who can only tell the truth, the issue of religion, God and the afterlife was bound to come up and the movie does poke fun at these things. But I thought it was funny and wasn't offended, so there.

On a side note, I'd like to make a little comment about trailers. One of the reason's that I found The Invention of Lying as funny as I did was probably because I had really only seen two trailers for it. The second trailer I saw just an hour before the movie and it only contained a couple of seconds of new things, so nothing really over-spoiled for me there. And both hid the major plot points of the movie well.When I go to see a movie, I like to know it's basic premise and to have only seen ONE trailer that shows it's scenes and stuff. Teaser trailers don't count as trailers in this total. If I see more than one trailer (and in the cases of some movies four or five) I just feel like too much of the movie has been revealed.

While in both the movies talked about here, I saw the trailer for the new movie It's Complicated. This movie has an awfully long trailer (maybe two or three minutes - it's ridiculous). So I really hope they don't release a second one, because I already feel like I've seen to much of it.

Finally, after seeing it's trailer today, I'm really excited about Men Who Stare At Goats. Which had already hooked me anyway by it's awesome title!