The Adjustment Bureau (2011)

I don't know if this ever happens to you but do you ever watched something but not understand why you don't like it? The Adjustment Bureau was just one of those situations. Matt Damon and Emily Blunt are good and they have great chemistry; I didn't doubt that they were in love for a second.  It has a great cast including Terrence Stamp and John Slattery. So it's not that. It looks pretty good too. George Nolfi, a screenwriter by trade aquits himself pretty well in a debut which is not afraid to move around very quickly in its New York setting, looks like a perfectly well-made.  No problem there.
And this is a good strong story adapted by Nolfi, which I'd imagine he had to redraft so many times until it made simple sense and here it's tight enough to bounce a penny on. I mean,  I'm sure that the original Philip K. Rick story made sense also but could understand how you fall into a trap of focusing on Dick's minutiae and detail. What I'm trying to say is that Nolfi takes a complex story and streamlined it down to all you need to know about the sci-fi dynamics. That gives him the opportunity to focus on the love story at the heart of the matter. And it's a great concept for sci-fi, this story of love and and fate;where if there's no free will and everything is planned, how do you explain attraction and curiousity?
This is the point where I try to spit it out like a child who's tasted something bitter, making an 'idontlikeit' face, scraping my tongue with my teeth. Okay I went a bit far there but i'm still not sure why I didn't like it. It kinda just left me cold.
It's not soooo predictable but nothing happens in this film that you don't expect. There some mild peril, they come together, they're separated, they come together again, they're separated again, yadda, yadda, yadda. This is terrible issue to take but... maybe it's too well made. Actually there's a bit that covers this on the film where the political candidate, played by Damon, reveals his image is so micro-managed for his electoral bid, that even if shoes were scuffed enough that he didn't look like a banker to the lower classes and not too scuffed that he looked lower class to bankers; only difference is that this film isn't scuffed enough. It's strange to watch sci-fi and not have questions about the scientific dynamics but feel like, 'yep, i perfectly understand the rules of the macguffin at play here.  I have no questions.'
I hope you've gathered in bear the people involved in this film no ill will. Everybody does a good job basically. But I remember just being bored by it once I understood what the science stuff was and realised it was going to play out as perfectly as if the Adjustment Bureau had planned it themselves...

I watched The Adjustment Bureau (2011)  at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Police, Adjective (2010)

True Grit (2010)

On Valentine's Day, I deliver you a tale of unrequited love.
A lot of the way i explain my opinion about culture is comes across as conflicted.
This may be the most conflicted post i write about a film. It might not be your favorite film but it should be in your top 10 is The Big Lebowski. The perfect marriage of Jeff Bridges and the Coens. The best ensamble cast of any film. One of the most quotable films ever; as i write this, I just heard a rugby commentator use the word 'parlance'. The film that allowed me out of the milky-booze closet; i was drinking/being fed Kahlua before i watched Lebowski and i can give you a note from my mother. So have i been excited about Bridges and the Coens getting the band back together. *inhales deeply* Yeah?
I guess i'm asking for trouble if i'm expecting a western about a trio on a journey with dangerous situations and people. I'm being facietious but asking the Coens to repeat themselves was always gonna be short-sighted.
True Grit is very good. I'm saying it's very good and i believe that. Everybody is great. Hailee Steinfeld is brilliant in-part carrying this film on her shoulder, as this frumpy forthright young girl on her path from justice and avenging her father. You forget she's a teenage girl, she's like a short fresh-faced Katherine Hepburn.
Matt Damon is brilliant as LeBoufe, a name i love. He's a wiley honest steadyhand compared to Cogburn but i love SPOILER the first scene that he and the girl share where he says, speaking with quite some candour that she looked so cute he was thinking about coming over to kiss her! Dude!! Not Cool! (SPOILER OVER.)
I gotta call out Barry Pepper. he's always come close to having a great role in some films but he's really good here; put to great ease by the Coens's evocing a young Dennis Hopper, who incidentally would have been in this sort of western. And of course Jeff Bridges is the man. Better, he's forever the Dude. Yeah Rooster Cogburn is a badass and violent and surley but he's also a collossal bum, a loser. So of course, i think he's great. Not the Dude though. And if you think that's unfair-i'll agree but it's how i feel.
In terms of the Coen Brothers, this is the most commercial film they set out to make to date. The plot is simple. The number of characters are few. The dialogue is quite direct and simple. Well for them it is. People are saying it's True Grit but it's still a Coen Brothers film. I say *hurm* to that. Compared to 'No Country...', I felt this came off as quite mercenary. Watching 'No Country...' i'd say it was unmistakably Coen despite originating from someone's prose. If i didn't know who made this, i can't say i'd feel the same but then i'd likely not judge it so harshly.
Let me be clear before i go straight back to being conflicting- i'm not saying this is The Ladykillers-bad. I'm not even saying it is bad. It just couldn't reach my sky-high expectations. This was my Phantom Menace. Actually that is too harsh but lets just say my objective brain thought it was great but my heart is pouting.
In closing as sisinctly as possible for me, please go see True Grit, if only so the Coens can get money to go back to the business of Coen Brothers movies.


I watched True Grit (2010) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies continues with Dinner For Schmucks (2010)...