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My pal Joe asked if I wanted to check out The Brothers Bloom at the Independent Film Festival here in Boston a couple weeks ago. Me being a movie nut and a fan of the movie Brick, of course I said yes. We made the drive up to the Somerville Theatre, found some parking, got our tickets, grabbed a beer (beer at a movie, awesome), and found some seats. It wasn’t until we sat down that we found out it was opening night and The Brothers Bloom was the headlining movie. What luck!
If you haven’t heard The Brothers Bloom stars Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo as con artist brothers who scheme a plan to con recluse hobby collector Rachel Weisz out of millions. The twist is that Mark Ruffalo character writes these cons to the level of plays that Adrien plays a part, and typically becomes emotionally involved. After years of coning people Adrien’s character doesn’t want to do it anymore, but his brother crafts one last con and humor ensues. The overall theme is a fairly light hearted comedy wrapped with Rian Johnson’s very sharp writing. Acting is top notice, and some of the characters are easy to like, including Bang Bang, a tiny Japanese girl with an unhealthy fascination with explosives, who hardly speaks through the entire movie. The movie got a little slow at the end, but overall I enjoyed it a great deal. I love crime movies, and the addition of the humor makes this a very enjoyable film. Check it out when it comes out in May.

With all the snow the local Blockbust had almost everything rented, so I fired up Comcast OnDemand and combed around to see the entire Back to the Future Trilogy in HD.  I have seen these movies countless times over the years, but not all three in a single night.  They are fairly silly, but I have to give the writers credit for paying attention to detail.  Christopher Lloyd is insane in this role, and I really can’t imagine Marty being Eric Stoltz at all.

So I got the chance to watch Max Payne recently and I couldn’t even finish it.  The movie was just painful to watch.  As a fan of the games, I was surprised how poor the transition to film was.  The story went no place for me, I finally turned it off.  Also Mila Kunis was just painful in this role.  I’d avoid this movie.