Catching Up - October Edition

Surprise! I didn't miss any reviews this month. In addition to the movies reviewed in October, I saw Capitalism: A Love Story but opted not to review it, so I successfully reviewed every movie I intended to this month. So, there's no need for this post, then?

Well, how about some of the movies on DVD I saw this month?

I rewatched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the hit from last year. It's still pretty good on the second viewing, although seeing Marshall from How I Met Your Mother in the altogether is still disturbing.

I watched Jumper again, also from last year. Even with Hayden Christensen's famous non-acting ability, I enjoyed it in the theater. It doesn't hold up too well on the second viewing but if you haven't seen it once, it's a good pick for when you're in the action mood.

I watched Mamma Mia! not once, but twice. As campy as it is, the musical numbers are just so fun, I couldn't help myself.

I first caught The Cell in August of 2000 and haven't seen it since. At the time I thought it was a decent story with impressive visuals, and I more than think that today. A psychiatrist who goes into the minds of comatose patients electronically is asked to go inside a serial killer's mind in order to find his last victim. It gets pretty wacked inside someones mind - I know mine is - and between the real-world thrills and the inner-mind surrealism, the movie was very tense, very visually stimulating and very well done.

Earlier this year, I caught the preview for The Brothers Bloom at least 10 times. I planned to go see it but then a NetFlix envelope informed me it was already out on DVD. It was released in theaters in May, just not to one near me. It topped out at 209 screens and took in only $3.5M, but it's a much better movie than that. In fact, it's one of the best movies I've seen all year. Starring Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo as the titular brothers. They're great con men, living off the grift. The younger, whose first name seems to also be Bloom, wants out of the life but his older brother keeps dragging him into the cons.

Rachel Weiss plays an heiress with ADD who wants an adventure even after she finds out the brothers Bloom are con men. Rinko Kikuchi steals every scene as the older brother's girlfriend, who is also their pyrotechnics expert. Early on, he says she probably doesn't know more than three words of English and that's exactly how many she says in the entire movie. One is "Campari," said to a bartender, while the other two are uttered after she accidentally destroys a Prague landmark with what should have been a smoke charge. She's also constantly doing quirky things like painstakingly peeling an apple, then tossing the apple and eating the peel.

There were great little touches like that but the big picture is that The Brothers Bloom is a good picture. Seek it out.