Rentals of Last Week

In case you couldn't tell by my previous post, I had last week off of work. Which pretty much meant I saw movies, drank wine and was generally useless for 10 days straight.... heaven. On top of all the movies I saw in the theater, I also saw a couple rentals which are worth mentioning. The first was the corporate thriller, "Margin Call." I remember seeing that this was in theaters but never knew anyone who went to see it. It's a plot that is very relevant to the current political and economic climate, with movements like Occupy taking off. The movies follows a couple key players in an investment firm the first 24 hours they discover a financial crisis, which probably mirrors the start of the U.S. one. There's a ton of big names in the film, such as Kevin Spacey, Demi Moore, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley and Simon Baker. Quinto (Heroes) and Badgley (Gossip Girl) are primarily known for their TV acting, but they transferred well to the larger screen. The star was really (and I know I've already gushed about him multiple times) Tucci. He really just transforms with every role he takes. The movie was kind of scary, in that if this is how the financial crisis the turned our economy upside down start, based off the decisions of a few wealthy men, I totally get why everyone is hating on the 1%. I hated Badgley's character, who was fresh out of school and making a quarter million salary plus bonuses. I'm not going to lie, I'd love to be in the 1%, I just wouldn't want to get there the way these guys did and I would most definitely donate millions a year to the ASPCA. 

The other rental worth mentioning in detail was "One Day," which is based off the book by David Nichollos. This movie covers off on the whole spectrum of human emotion. There's moments of humor, joy, love, stress and death. I wasn't prepared for the roller coaster of emotion but it was amazing. My parents liked the book, so I think I'm going to have to read it. The leads were played by Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. They had really good chemistry together. And who would have ever though a movie would be able to make Hathaway look homely! Sturgess is supposed to be a ladies man for part of it and while I'm not physically into him, he masters that cocky attitude ladies love. Sometimes you watch romantic movies and it's just hard to get into them because they're so unrealistic, but this story could happen to anyone and is a real kind of love not invented and promoted by Hollywood. The English scenery also made me want to flee to London immediately.

Movies not worth a write-up were the recent remake of "Fame" (I fast-forwared through most of the songs) and "I Hate Valentine's Day" (despite having Aiden from S&C in it).