Over the weekend we were hoping to see Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, but it was sold-out, so instead we rented a bunch of movies and watched them instead.
We saw: Broken Flowers, Shopgirl, Goal and Lord of War.
Broken Flowers starred Bill Murray and featured some pretty cool music. Bill plays a guy named Don Johnston who has lived his whole life as a bachelor and one day receives an anonymous letter saying that he has a teenage son.
Don’s neighbor likes cheesy detective novels and inspires him to go on a detective roadtrip to find if the letter is real.
There are a few funny parts, but the end is an anti-climax. I won’t spoil it, but I’ll just say that I appreciate the purpose of the movie and I understand the ending, but it could have been finished a little better.
Shopgirl is a movie written and staring Steve Martin. It’s about a girl who works in a department store and yearns for a decent relationship. There was nothing wrong with this movie, story is told well and I really enjoyed the quirky character Jeremy but it just seemed a little bland.
Goal was about a family that illegally migrated from Mexico to the US and the son has amazing soccer/football skills. He gets spotted by an ex-scout who encourages him to fly to the UK and try-out for Newcastle… he ends-up making the team and becomes a big football star.
A fairly predictable sporting movie, but still quite enjoyable.
But by far the pick of the bunch was Lord of War! This movie is based on true events and tells the tale of an independent arms dealer (played by Nicholas Cage). I’m a huge fan of movies inspired by truth an this one was up there with the best. Even thought the actual characters were fictitious, they were inspired by a mix of real people, and according to the director, the filmmakers worked with actual gunrunners in the making of the film.
In one scene there are hundreds of tanks lined up for sale which were actually owned by a gunrunner who had to have them back to sell to another country and they used a real stockpile of over 3,000 AK-47s because it was cheaper than getting prop guns. The gunrunners were also more cooperative and efficient than the studio or the crew.
Before shooting the scene where tanks were lined up for sale, the filmmaker had to warn NATO, lest they think a real war was being started when they see satellite images of the set.
Anyways, the above tidbits will mean a lot more when you see the film, which you really should do… so go on… get out of here and rent Lord Of War!!!