Taken

There are not many movies that are as fun as "Taken" was. It was Liam Neeson (aka Aslan aka awesome dad from "Love Actually") kicking ass trying to find his daughter for an hour and a half. Yeah, thats all it was, that's all it needed to be. I could follow the plot (or as much of it as there was), i actually cared whether his daughter lived or not (Maggie Grace, aka Shannon from Lost but a lot less whiny), and there were great fight scenes.

My hometown movie critic, Mick LaSalle of the SF Chronicle had given it a good review saying it was very fun and enjoyable because it lived up to its own expectations to be a great Liam Neeson doing crazy kung fu stuff.

I was thinking this morning about why the story seemed so new. There have been films about parents trying to rescue kidnapped children ("Ransom" comes to mind as the best, "Eagle Eye" had a bit), but I can't think of any where it is a father saving a teenage daugther. It changes the formula, because a seventeen year old daughter is not going to be as easily kidnapped/subdued as a kid, so they had to make it seem believable in using a whole giant underground operation in trafficking women (icky). I was seriously creeped out by the stuff, as I'm sure Liam Neeson Dad would have been too. Kudos to the screenwriter for changing the formula. That's how good movies happen!

Then She Found Me

Helen Hunt just made her comeback! I watched a FANTASTIC film last night called "Then She Found Me". It's co-written and directed by Hunt, who plays the lead role in it, and it was great. The part fit her like a glove, I'm guessing she wrote it with herself in mind, it was very similar to her character in "As Good as it Gets", but instead of having a son, she desperately longs for one.

The movie opens with her getting dumped by her new husband (Matthew Broderick), having her adoptive mother die, and then be contacted by her birth mother (Bette Midler, crazy as ever) all within 2 days. Colin Firth plays a love interest, and it must have been scripted for him as well. He played the same bumbling, adorable guy that he always does, but with a very bitter streak in him, prone to shouting and looking unlovable. I get tired of Colin Firth (heresy to my friends) sometimes, so I loved seeing him explode a few times in this!

The whole thing was really well written, very tight. All these horrible things keep happening to this woman who is newly single in so many ways, and she just plucks along trying to get through each day as best she can. And there wasn't a big crying scene of 'I just can't take it anymore' like the formula suggested there would be, so thank you screenwriters for that. Like "Happy Go-Lucky", it was a film about a single woman, confused and trying to get by. The tone was more like a rom-com, but great nonetheless.

Cute. Sweet. Tight. Date movie? Not sure. Girl movie? Yes. Matthew Broderick being a skeeze like he often does now. And Helen Hunt being super skinny and kinda translucent. I recommend Netflixing it.

Last thing: I googled it to put in an image of the poster and was surprised to find several different versions. Compare:

Title.

I took the title of my blog from my recent obsession with director Werner Herzog. His new documentary "Encounters at the End of the World" just got nominated for the Oscar for Best Documentary, which it definitely deserves.

Last semester, I spent about 3 feverish weeks on eBay engaged in various bidding wars to try and get the Werner Herzog Master DVD collection for a certain price. I finally found one, and after carefully reading over shipping prices, I got it. Well, of course, I had forgot to notice WHERE it was shipping from, and it turned out to be Hong Kong. It came in the best packaging I have ever seen. So good I took pictures.

Yeah, it was wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. The DVD's all worked fine, though several of the menu screens are not in English, and there is one random movie in there that is NOT a Werner Herzog film (it has a similar title to one he made though....someone got confused). Pretty sure it was all boot-leg, but it was shrink wrapped and looked legit! That's the story of how i got my sketchy copy of every Werner Herzog movie.