Wednesday, December 28, 2011

War Horse & Dragon Tattoo Review


Tom and I discussing recently seeing Steven Spielberg's film War Horse, thought you might enjoy!

Tom: The careful consideration taken not to offend non-adult audiences offended this adult audience. Too many rosy cheeks and adorable geese. But it was still a grand movie nonetheless. Think bullets with no blood, explosions with no severed limbs. Spolier alert! They even blocked out the firing squad of the German boys with the sweeping path of a windmills arm. My daily engagement with Baltimore's traffic can be more traumatic, than the scenes that were watered down in this movie...war without war... struggle without pain.
Jamie: I actually found it comforting to know that nothing traumatic was going to happen (as in Joey being killed)
Tom: Because it often teetered on the edge of disaster, but never fell in, not even amidst a bomb blast
Jamie: I admit I read the NY Times review before seeing so I knew it ended well...
Tom: ...not for the black horse or the German boys or Captain whatever his name was that got shot off the back of Jack or Joey.. it's such a commonplace name you don't know whether it's Jack, Joe or Jim...
Jamie: The music was overbearing
Tom: Somewhat syrupy. It tried to pull at my now non existing heart strings. I felt patronized. I hate that I've become so cynical.
Jamie: It wasn't that bad. I think it made it better that we saw it large in theaters where images and heads were larger than life giving it  a camp or theatrical feel that was appropriate to the staged feel of the movie. I feel if I had seen it on a small screen or on tv it would be disappointing.
Jamie: Nasty golden sunset at the end was gross.
Tom: Calvary charge was solid.
Jamie: Yes the scene where they're charging the German camp was good
Tom: I liked the German Captain scolding the British officer for charging a regiment "do you think a regiment would be unguarded in an open field, what is wrong with you?!)
Jamie: Machine guns were waiting just behind them in the woods which promptly mowed the British cavalry down.
Tom: It brought to light some of the chivalry that still existed amongst the carnage of World War 1
Jamie: You always wonder what happens to all those poor horses that get dragged into war
Tom: it wasn't good and more than likely way worse than we were shown. If you want to educate your children and show them how horrible war is this isn't the movie. Two Women on the other hand..
Jamie: Animals are needed to bring out the humanity in humans!

*


We also recently saw Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. After seeing the original or the Swedish version this one was much more cinematic, highly polished and more carefully thought about. Sweden in the snow was beautiful, the cinematography, cool blues, winter sunset and sunrises, snowy roads and frozen northern forests, the candlelights in the big stucco mansion.. all very beautiful to look at, like eye candy above and beyond the story. I was actually dreading seeing the rape scenes and violence that was in the first but it wasn't as bad, ok it was bad, but the other for some reason read more brutal and real world. Had to see if the new Lisbeth was as good as the old and she is! Not as harsh and cold, she didn't do sullen and bitter quite as well, but still well played, with clear glass eyes, maybe they seemed more open because her eyebrows had been bleached out. Was surprised in most scenes she looked pretty normal, well ok not normal but she had a scarf and a smurf hat, ok Tom's saying she was trying to disguise her gothness, she looked like anyone on the street! It did make her seem more real.  Daniel Craig took a second seat, he tried to play the dumb oaf or bumbling fool of Blomquist but you knew he just wasn't that clumsy, enjoyed the actor in the original who was a natural slob ;D A cat steals the scene and had everyone oohing and awing in the theater, Tom says idiots haha ok it kind of was. I loved that cat too! Christopher Plummer was good! A lot of her lines are repeated verbatim like in the original so you know what to expect. The director is aware that the audience is already familiar with the character and you're able to chuckle at certain scenes, you're in on the joke. The escalator scene is fantastic and timing involved impeccable. Worth seeing, even though it was long, it's very easy to get lost in it.

5 comments:

Hideko said...

ha! i love Tom's comment about Bmore's traffic being more traumatic ;)

thanks for the review, we will hopefully be heading back to the theater soon to check out Girl With A Dragon Tattoo when we have the time (3hr is SO long)!

Cindy said...

i loved your banter and reviews of the movies. we wanted to see both of them and couldn't decide, so we wandered around brooklyn aimlessly, instead.

seems like ww1 is now the hot topic with war horse and downton abbey. it's incredible to think that of the 1,000,000 horses sent by the uk alone, only 60k returned with the others killed in battle or slaughtered for meat in france. he movie does look really good.

we saw the other girl with the drain tattoo movies, but would definitely like to see this one. we also want to see the artist and pina in 3D. that one is at the top of the list this weekend.

wishing you both a very happy new year!

hmstrjam said...

you know it's true Sara! haha!

Cindy- haha have been there;D Haven't heard of pina in 3d will have to look it up! Still questioning The Artist, I think next on the list is the Freud movie- Dangerous Minds and maybe Carnage?

hmstrjam said...

oo and definitely the Renaissance exhibit!! ;D

hmstrjam said...

ps I know that's why we wanted to see it- WW1 is an interesting time period that is not often filmed!