Movie Monday: Charade

I've had a goal for a long time now to watch every Audrey Hepburn movie. Since there are several on Netflix, I can get a few movies closer to reaching my goal. (I should probably get a specific list of all of her movies so I know which ones I have left, though...)

Last week I watched Charade, in which Audrey stars with the delicious Cary Grant (seriously, silver fox alert!). Audrey plays Reggie, a woman who arrives home from a ski trip and finds out that her husband Charles has been murdered. In the events that follow, she finds out that he had a big secret - he was a special agent for the CIA, and during World War II his team stole $250,000 worth of gold from the US government. Charles double-crossed his team, took the gold, and sold it, keeping the money. Now the remainder of the team is after the money and they believe that Reggie has it. Along the way she enlists the help of Peter (Cary Grant), a mysterious man who has some secrets of his own, and together they try to find the money before Charles' old team does.

 

I thought this movie was really fun. An old-fashioned spy thriller with lots of humour. Audrey and Cary had tons of chemistry, and being set in Paris helped make the movie even more wonderful. The story was pretty good, and there was a plot twist at the end that I really didn't see coming. That's all I'm going to say on that :)

Notting Hill

Wow, 2 months since I've done one of these? Terrible! Well, I've seen so many movies lately that I had a hard time picking one to do today. But since it's been a while since I've seen a new-to-me chick flick, I decided to pick that one.

I have to say, I am a sucker for Hugh Grant movies. And I don't know how I went this long without seeing it. I love British comedies - I just totally get that humour.

 This scene was fantastic. Definitely made me smile.

So Notting Hill is about a bookstore owner, William, who has a big surprise one day when Anna Scott, movie star of the moment, walks into his store. They have a connection, and after a few mishaps, they find themselves in something resembling a relationship. However, Anna's fame is huge, and Will is just an ordinary man - will their romance be able to survive their differences?

Of course, because this is a Hollywood movie, there is sexual content that I find inappropriate (and is actually featured in a prominent way in this film - Anna is a famous movie star, after all, and scandal seems to follow them like a puppy). However, I still enjoyed this movie. Will's character was sweet and kind - maybe he could have shown more aggression at times, but generally a very likeable man. I think this movie is great to watch alone with a big bowl of ice cream (or whatever your movie watching snack is) when you just need to wind down.

King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

Today's movie shows how much of a geek I truly am.

King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters  is a documentary about the arcade game community and how seriously they take those games. In the 1980s, a man named Billy Mitchell set the world record in the Donkey Kong arcade game. 20+ years later a man named Scott Wiebe set out to break the world record.

The rules in that world are just hilarious. I mean, look, the record-keeper is wearing a striped referee shirt! I love it!

The movie seems to focus on the character of Scott Wiebe versus Billy Mitchell's. Scott Wiebe is a man of integrity, whereas Billy Mitchell is a terrible person. He holds a lot of control over other people in the video game world, which is one of the things that shows his terrible character.

Chris and I really enjoyed this movie. It was actually recommended to us by our wedding photographer, and since it was on Netflix it made a nice movie night in. If you want to get your geek on, then watch this movie :)

Between the Folds

Today's movie is Between the Folds. Chris and I were just browsing on Netflix, and we found this documentary that looked interesting. Yes, we are geeks and think that documentaries look interesting.

This movie was actually really interesting. It highlights the relationship between science and art, and the different ways that people who practice origami use the art in their everyday lives. For example, there is a math teacher in Israel who uses paper folding to help her students understand geometry. I tell you, that technique probably would have helped to understand math in school. I actually really recommend this movie, it is quite interesting. If you like art then you'll like it. I'll show you some examples of what you'll see in the movie.

Blast From the Past

For my first Movie Monday in ages, I'd like to review a movie I watched a few weeks ago on Netflix. I know that a lot of the movies recommended on the home page are not movies that interest me at all. But years ago I saw a few scenes from this movie on tv, and it looked like a fun movie, so I gave it a try when it popped up.

Brendan Fraser plays Adam, a man who was born in a fallout shelter his eccentric father built in the 60s during the Cold War. After 35 years of knowing nothing but this shelter and his parents, Adam ventures to the surface to find the world drastically changed from the one his parents knew and taught him about. In his excursion, he meets Eve, and he enlists her help to gather more supplies for the shelter. Now, with characters named Adam and Eve, you probably don't need to guess too hard at how the movie ends...

I thought this movie was going to be super lame; and granted, it was lame in parts. However, I actually really enjoyed it. I absolutely loved Adam - he was such a gentleman, and he treated Eve in a way she had never been treated before. That was super sweet.

I don't have any huge negatives about this movie. There is a character who is a total burnout, and when Adam comes out of the shelter he takes him to be Jesus. This becomes a running joke for the rest of the movie, and I did feel that it got a little overdone toward the end. But overall the movie was really funny. Since it's free on Netflix, give it a try next time you want a silly, light-hearted movie.