Almost Famous

Almost Famous was one of those movies that happen especially when you're a teenager. These movies when they come along feel like they were built just for you. They describe everything you're from, everything you aspire to be and everything you're afraid of all in one celluloid journey.

I knew very few of those in the cast except Anna Paquin, Jimmy Fallon, Jason Lee and Frances McDormand but I fell in love with so many more after that first viewing.

One of those was Philip Seymour Hoffman. It was the first film that made me take note of him and as others described him as Truman Capote and Brendan Flynn and all these other award winning roles, I couldn't help think of Lester Bangs.

He's still my favorite of his roles.

A Most Wanted Man

I didn't want to see A Most Wanted Man. I was annoyed that a German story appeared devoid of all Germans and the story was by John le Carré so that could vary from awesome to meh.

My mom, however, wanted to see it especially since she didn't want to see my choice of movie, Lucy

A Most Wanted Man surprised me though. First of all, Daniel Brühl is in it; supporting character but still, he gets to say one or two lines in quite a few scenes. He's also looking more like his Fifth Estate self...so cute.

I think he may be the only German in the film...

Still, it is a very excellent film; sharply driven with twists and turns so you can never guess what will happen next.

Lucy

My mom did enjoy Lucy but not enough to ever see it ever, ever again.

I loved Lucy and have been tempted to see it a second time. To me, Lucy was truly amazing and it didn't hurt that it had a random scene of dinosaurs. Random dinosaurs can improve almost anything.

Anyways, Lucy was like this thought provoking exercise of how much could our minds and bodies be capable of if we were able to really push the boundaries of what it could be capable of. How much of our limitations are actually self-imposed because everyone says we can't?

However, it was exploring all these scientific questions with an incredible, enormous amount of violence. It was as if Quentin Tarantino directed an episode of "Cosmos"...which I think would be awesome.

Then, of course, it starred Scarlett Johansson so it was like a Black Widow movie where she gains the Scarlet Witch's powers before ultimately becoming Quasar.

I was trying to describe it to a friend and they thought it sounded like "a ghetto version of Transcendence".

*facepalm*

I know it was originally going to star Angelina Jolie and I know that would have worked for the ass-kicking but not the actual story. The whole point of why it's so awesome and miraculous that Lucy is able to achieve what she does is that she is young physically but especially mentally. She's still in school in her middle 20s, but she has no respect for herself and surrounds herself with those that won't make her change that. I'm not sure Jolie would have pulled that off.

Okay, there were some plot holes but some of what my mom thought were plot holes were things she didn't understand until I explained it for her. Still, plot holes and mistakes...the biggest one that stood out for me were the Iroquois clothing being completely wrong. However, when she was in early New York, I couldn't help hoping that Jeremy Renner would show up in his Immigrant garb.

I actually wondered what this would be like in 3D because some of the shots are that amazing...and apparently shot with Imax cameras.