Blades of Glory, John Adams, Fear & Trembling, Michael Clayton, & Richard III

Blades of Glory has a great comedic cast, full of people who are very funny in general, and it also has Will Ferrell and Jon Heder (and Coach, who is not funny). Just about everyone with a speaking part was someone I recognized, which made it all the more painful when Will Ferrell and Jon Heder got so much screen time and were so not funny. Anytime that Will Arnett and Amy Poehler were on screen, there was funny. And even the few scenes with Jenna Fischer and either Ferrell or Heder were funny, but put Ferrell and Heder together, and you get not funny. Plus, the homophobia in these films really bothers me. Maybe if someone made it funny, it would be less offensive, but haha, people might think they're gay just isn't cutting it comedically.

John Adams was long. And it was also great, Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney (who wasn't bad at all) along with the rest of the cast, including Tom Wilkinson, Steven Dillane, David Morse, and Sarah Polley, were all very strong. Famous people agree: it's worth your time.

Fear & Trembling is based on a memoir of a Belgian, born in Japan, who goes back to Japan to work for a large company as a translator and is put through a brutal lesson in Japanese culture. It's quite a terrible job, and apparently she stays there to prove them all wrong and to stare at her supervisor, an attractive Japanese woman, who is 29 and not married. Amelie starts out with actual jobs, then is broken down to an accountant, fails miserably at that (and ends up going crazy and doing naked gymnastics around her office late at night, with the help of a body double for Sylvie Testud), and then spends the rest of her contract year cleaning the bathrooms. It's insane that anyone would keep that job, but it did inspire her to write, which I can only assume is a good thing (I haven't read any of her before). I did have some problems with how someone is that incapable of typing numbers into a calculator, but who knows, maybe she was a little incompetant. And her debasement at the hands of her supervisor... horrible.

Michael Clayton is an extremely well-made film, with absolutely nothing wrong with it at all. The cast, George Clooney, Tilda Swinton, Sydney Pollock, and Tom Wilkinson, all turned in immaculate performances. In fact, the technical brilliance of it is somewhat distracting, as there wasn't much heart there, SPOILER until the final scene, where it completely kicked ass and made the film far better than a techically great thriller had any right to be. END SPOILER. Still, it does fit better in the "Best Picture" category than did Juno, even if I liked Juno more. That said, I have now seen four of the five from last year, and this is the first time this decade where I haven't had some serious problems with one of the five. I should be seeing Atonement sometime very soon, to see if that holds up. Usually there's a couple films I don't like, but I'm still missing two films from last years awards as well. And as long as no more movies like Crash win, I might actually stop complaining about them. Fat chance.

Richard III is famous for Laurence Olivier's performance, parodied many times over the years (I'm sort of a fan of Blackadder, but that may just be me). He is quite good, and Richard III is my favorite of the Histories, easily the worst of the three sections of Shakespeare's plays. In case you were wondering, it's Tragedies (King Lear, then Hamlet), Comedies (A Midsummer Night's Dream, then Much Ado about Nothing), and then Histories (Richard III, then Henry V). Richard III is just such a delightfully happy romp. Of a scheming hunchback who murders anyone who gets in his way. And has some good soliloquies.