I am always on the lookout for new music, and one of my frequent sources is soundtrack albums. A particularly good soundtrack came from the movie "Out of Time," starring Denzel Washington, Eva Mendes, Dean Cain, and Sanaa Lathan. What a gorgeous cast!
The movie is a good old-fashioned suspense thriller. Denzel's character does some stupid things, but they are realistically stupid things - things people do when they are trying to help other people but don't think it through. Eva is smart and competent (as usual), Dean is loathsome (he's quite good in this), and Sanaa has the juicy part of the duplicitous femme fatale. It's a really effective movie and probably cost twenty bucks to make, aside from paying the actors and commissioning the music.
On the flip side, there is "Transformers 2," which Mr. P and I saw last weekend. I couldn't tell you what the music is like, because there is so much other noise going on! In the past five years or so, I've really let down my guard when it comes to mainstream movies. I still like the "quality" pieces like "The Express" or "Bottle Shock," but I can't deny I am entertained by fast-paced, nonsensical action-adventure stuff.
One of my favorite things about Transformers 2 was the nice big part for John Turturro, one of those actors who often plays the brainy geek/misfit. Since Shia LaBoeuf's character is also a misfit, and the character of his (cute) roommate even more so, it was fun to see an elder statesman of misfitness taking on the big bad alien robots.
The only real eye-rolling thing about the movie for me (being someone who willingly suspends disbelief) was the lame setup for the sequel, where (SPOILER ALERT!) after all that drama about Optimus' resurrection and taking out The Fallen, he lets two of the baddies get away. Come on, people. You've just established that good or bad is a choice (thank you, it's nice to have that pointed out) and that these robot guys also choose their own cultural representation, so why not just have one of the good guys go bad next time? Why be lazy? Tsk tsk.
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