Film Strip

I haven’t caught up with movies over the last couple of weeks, and it seems like there’s a little lull at the box office. By that I mean that there hasn’t been anything I wanted to see come out lately.

But in looking at the blog, I’ve neglected to mention some of the movies I have seen over the past month or two.

My wife and I went to see Inception opening night and Scott Pilgrim opening night. Both were big hits in the Cox household.

I’m usually pretty knowledgable about movies before I see them, from reviews, or previews, so my litmus test is usually my wife who goes into movies with no prior knowledge, and a lot of courage due to that fact if you ask me.

We both really liked Inception. For me, it was second only to Toy Story 3 as my favorite movie so far this year. It was a very cool movie that really had me hooked and suspending my disbelief as it crafted a convoluted but understandable story. Actually, my only problem with the movie is that it wasn’t a little more intricate. I was very surprised that Christopher Nolan didn’t play with the idea of a collective unconscious as part of a plot point along the way. (Or did he?)

Now, I assumed we would both like Inception, but I did not expect us both to like Scott Pilgrim.

I am of course a comic book fan. That is understood here at Film Strip. Due to that fact, I am familiar with the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels and their creator Brian Lee O’Malley. I own and have read the first volume of Scott Pilgrim, and I was somewhat impressed. I also listened to a lengthy podcast interviewing O’Malley, and he seemed like a cool guy. Part of my problem is that I read the first graphic novel in 2009, and it was originally published in 2004. If I had read it then at age 22, I might have appreciated the hipster-geek-indy nature of the story more than I did at age 27. I liked it, but not enough continue following the story.

Unfortunately, that may have been a mistake.

Leading up to the movie, meaning the week before, a local comic shop employee informed me that the story got way better in the later graphic novels. Really? I wish I had known that before.

So we went and saw the movie, and enjoyed it thoroughly, My wife loved the references to old 8-bit video games because that’s the last time she played a video game. Plus she loves Micahel Cera from Arrested Development, so that was going for the movie. I loved the comic, music, and video game references too. Plus, it had that idea of the beta-male figure trying to get the un-reachable girl that most guys identify with. Including me.

Since seeing the movie, we bought the video game off the Playstation Network and have had a blast with the fun old-school beat-em-up style.

So if you’re looking at the showtimes this week wondering if anything is good and you haven’t seen Inception or Scott Pilgrim, forget about horrible looking movies like Takers (#1 last weekend), and find a theater still playing something worth seeing.