April Movie Watching

I saw two films theatrically this month: just wasn't excited by the month's line up. A third film I saw on March 31: Michael Caine in Is Anybody There? Went to a screening in which Caine appeared. He was very entertaining and took a variety of Qs from the audience. He was so great that I'd hate to pan his movie, but let's just say you don't need to rush out.

The two April films I saw were the documentary, Anvil: The Story of Anvil and Adventureland. Anvil was a fascinating look at failure but didn't quite come together completely and, clearly, the filmmakers did not have an "end" to the story and kind of made one up. Worth perhaps a peek. Adventureland is being TOTALLY mismarketed as a "wacky" comedy, which it's not. In fact Kristen Wigg/Bill Hader's comedy relief comes dangerously close to detracting from the film [the trailer would practically have you believe they're the stars]. Adventureland has a definite "you have to be in the mood" quality, but it's a high point in the 'days of summer' genre.

On TCM saw: One Night of Love (good, but has a lot of cliche moments: It Happened One Night had nothing to fear on Oscar night) I Married a Monster from Outer Space [1958] (a semi-cult classic which was very good, but considering where they could have gone with it, such a missed-it-by-that-much experience; had the filmmakers gone all the way with the ramifications of the relationship between the woman and her "alien" husband, who begins to have human emotions-- it could have been a knockout), and Lubitsch's Broken Lullaby (his "notorious" drama, starts strong, but then gets pretty heavy and the acting's not too hot either; has that early '30s stage bound feeling too; an interesting curio though and definitely no-holds-barred in terms of its antiwar message).