The Adjustment Bureau

This 2011 movie starring Matt Damon and Emily Blunt was wonderful. The movie got decent reviews but was certainly not a blockbuster in theatrical release. Still for me it was a great concept, filmed well, with likable actors and some very neat ideas.

Matt Damon, my wife said how could you watch a movie starring Matt Damon without me, plays David Norris. David has just lost his run for the New York Senate and is about to give his concession speech when he has a chance meeting with Elise Sellas a pretty ballerina. They share an instant chemistry. Three months later we see Harry Richardson a man dressed in suit, tie and fedora get an assignment to make sure " he spills coffee on his shirt." Harry waits and then falls asleep and wakes up realizing he has failed. We soon find out he was David Harris and with Richardson falling asleep David gets on a bus that also has on it Elise. They were not supposed to meet again.

This brings David into contact again with Richardson, played by Mad Men's John Slattery who is none to happy with this mistake by Harry. David has to be set straight, they take the phone number from him and advise him not tell anyone. David takes the same bus for three years hoping to run into Elise again, and when he does the adventure really begins.

Outside of the story the movie has some really neat features. The Adjustment Bureau agents go through any door and end up in a different location. When asked by Harris why the adjustment bureau controls people's path the he is told by one of the head agents that when people have been given free reign that bad things have happened. He goes onto explain that the Adjustment Bureau guided folks up to the Roman Empire and then decided to let humans rule themselves without the plan. The result was The Dark Ages. The Bureau takes over and we have the Renaissance and The Industrial Revolution. In 1910 again are humans are allowed total freedom and as he states within 50 years we have had two World Wars and The Cuban Missile Crisis almost destroyed the planet.

It is an interesting take on the whole God knows everything that is going to happen before it even does.

This movie was much better than I expected it to be. It was very good. This movie gets a very high rating from me.

True Grit

We went to see this movie on New Years Day. Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin and a young girl who has never been in a movie.

Having read about the movie beforehand I was aware that the Coen brothers wanted to write from the original book not remake the original movie which most are aware of. Having no strong recollection of the original movie this was not a concern of mine.

The movie: I cannot say enough. I was going to say that perhaps along with a totally different movie Toy Story III were the best movies of the year. Of course I see very few movies so i am not a great judge. But as I saw it on the first day of 2011 I must instead allow it to set the bar for 2011. A high bar it is.

The story of a young girl whose father is killed and her attempts to seek retribution for the murder. She hires a marshall played by Jeff Bridges ( Rooster Cogburn). I do not want to give away the whole plot but the scenery was wonderful.

Perhaps the most entertaining or interesting part of the movie for me was the language, the speech of the movie. The young lady, characters name Maddie Ross, speaks in such a way, with old proper English as do all the characters. To me it was by my description Shakespearan in the Old West.

Some of the deadpan comments by Bridges as Rooster Cogburn such as " That didn't pan out" were spot on and Matt Damon per usual for him was wonderful in his role as a Texas Ranger on the hunt for the same killer played by Josh Brolin,

This movie was a GEM. I give it a NINE

Invictus

We watched this movie Saturday night. Starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, directed by Clint Eastwood it was well received last winter.

I thought the movie was good, not great. The movie was a little slow and for those not understanding of the history a little more backstory might have been beneficial. Why he was separated from Winnie etc.

Matt Damon was wonderful in his role, understated as it was, as the Captain of the Spring Bucks. The movie was Freeman's who with his voice, age and dignity can play any role bordering on God and Nelson Mandela was close to be a deity in those early days of black rule in South Africa.

The story centered around Rugby was interesting, the footage well shot and all in all a good movie.

I enjoyed it