Take Five

By George Rose

June 2, 2009

The goggles do nothing!

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As I said above, June looks (or at least I hope) to have a surprise hit in the making: The Hangover, opening this Friday, June 5th. I'm not talking a Titanic-sized hit but rather a Superbad-sized one. Its biggest star is Bradley Cooper, who is relatively unknown to the mainstream but has the looks and charm of a less-meathead Mathew McConaughey. I didn't think much would be made of the film but I've been hearing lots of people talk about it in the past two weeks at work. As a part-time server working with 30 twenty-somethings who don't often go to the movies, I was expecting most of them to talk about T4 or Land of the Lost as their "one movie every four weeks" selection. Instead, it appears The Hangover is the talk of the town. I'm expecting a rather comfortable opening weekend, paired with Apatow-style legs.

Which brings me to this week's Take Five picks. No, they are not summer movies that had low expectations with high results, but rather films I had the pleasure of watching this week on TV. I actually managed to score an extra day off this week to sit around, drink some beers and watch some movies. My major surprise of the week (since Up was meant to be big and then followed through – AMAZING movie, people, go see it!) came in the form of Fios. My parents got rid of our Comcast package in exchange for Fios and I must say that I am very, very pleased. The Internet is fast and for less than the price of the HBO/Stars Comcast package you can have ALL the movie channels IN HIGH DEFINITION with Fios! I would quit my job in a second and sit around all day, every day watching TV if it was safe to relocate it into the sun. But it's not, so I won't. In any case, here are some of the movies I have seen in the past (and again in the past few days) that Fios was kind enough to remind me of.




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In the Bedroom (2001)

In my freshman year of high school (2000-2001) I met an older girl, a junior, who was kind enough to take me under her wing. We were both among the less-cool crowd and had a pension for deeper thought, not make-out partiers and weekend binge drinking. Her name was Greer and she was the one that introduced me to the notion of independent movies. She was the first one to take me to an independent movie theater (until then I was only aware of the more massive multiplexes) and showed me that even though a movie doesn't make much money at all or lacks in special effects and big budgets that it can still move you in ways the blockbusters can't. In the Bedroom was one those films.

The cast wasn't A-list (Sissy Spacek, Tom Wilkinson, Marisa Tomei) but was certainly critically acclaimed. Spacek and Tomei have both won Academy Awards in the past and Wilkinson was nominated for two. The film itself didn't win any but all three actors were nominated for awards as well as the film for Best Picture and Best Screenplay. It was a fairly simple plot: a college freshman (Nick Stahl) is brutally murdered by the husband of the older woman (Tomei) he had been having an affair with. The film follows his parents (Spacek and Wilkinson) after the tragedy and how they deal with the loss of their son, the unfortunate release of the obvious murder suspect and forgiving themselves and Tomei for their part in the matter.


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