3 Snouts up for My Brother is an Only Child on Netflix

(:)(:)(:) for My Brother is an Only Child, an Italian film, 2007, on Netflix DVD.  Despite charming beautiful actors and an engaging plot line (two 1960s era brothers in southern Italy love to hate and hate to love each other as one is a fascist and one is a communist), this film falls short.

I'm in a phase right now where I'm letting my husband's Netflix queue introduce me to a number of foreign films that he has researched and been interested in seeing--he thinks this one entered the list circa 2007 and has only just now wormed its way to the top.  This results in zero expectations--my brother's what? what's it called again?  what country is it from? -- but also a high level of hit or miss-ness.   I don't like mainstream Hollywood that much any more (with exceptions) and find that I really do enjoy foreign language films (for one thing the need to read subtitles force me to set down my laptop and actually pay attention to the movie) but I'm actually beginning to believe that foreigners have a higher tolerance for nothing happening than this slighly ADD American.

This is like the 3rd movie in a row we've seen with good actors, good writing, nice setting and cinematography but where relatively little happens.  Actually, this one had the closest to a plot of the latter bunch.  I think that non-Americans have a much higher tolerance for unhappy endings and not tying up loose ends.

This one could be seen just to watch the hunky Italian boys kiss and moon over gorgeous Italian girls.  Special bonus points for the scene with an all-Communist orchestra rendition of Beethoven's Ode to Joy with special new "red" lyrics.

Four Snouts up for Star Trek on DVD

(:)(:)(:)(:) for Star Trek just out on DVD. I didn't get to see this movie on the big screen. My husband did and gave it uniformly positive reviews, something like "the best action adventure movie since Spiderman 2." To me, that meant, well, it's a good movie, and I would probably like it but it didn't get me to rush out and see it.

Well last night I happened to watch it with my son on DVD. I LOVED it! I might even give it 5 snouts up if it weren't for it being about men in funny shirts in outer space and all (I draw the line at calling a space movie one of the best movies of all time, see the key to my snout-based rating system for questions).

Basically, this movie is great because it's very smart and funny. For an action adventure film it's also relatively light on fight or flight sequences. Mainly, you get to learn how Captain Kirk, Spock, Ohuru, Zulu, Chekov, Bones, etc. got their start on the enterprise. This film does a phenomenal job of bridging generations not only of trekkies but of real people. While I'm laughing hysterically and slapping my thy every time the young Dr. McKoy says, "dammit Jim, I'm a doctor not a transvestite" or something, my 14 year old is charmed by the special effects, or simply by the sight of his mother slapping her thy and shrieking.

I made him play the last sequence where the young Kirk takes command of the U.S.S. Enterprise right before the credits over and over. Priceless!

Revising the Snout-based rating system

It has come to my attention that my snout-based rating system, as wonderful as it is, needs revision. Many people have emailed and commented about this (btw, have you seen that I have now made it easy to comment? You don't have to register or anything, you can do it anonymously, so please do comment--many of you email me wonderful comments but only I read them).

The problem with the current system is that it jumps from 3 snouts being "flawed but worth seeing" to two snouts "just atrocious" and then there's nowhere to go but down. The reason there are 5 snouts instead of 4 is simply to differentiate between good movies and best movies of all time.

So here is the revised system:

(:)(:)(:)(:)(:) One of the best movies ever made (American Beauty)
(:)(:)(:)(:) Wonderful (The Big Easy)
(:)(:)(:) Worth seeing (Hair)
(:)(:) Flawed (Syriana
(:) Irredeemably bad (Terror of Tiny Town--all midget western)

I don't have time to revise my page template to reflect it right now, but that's coming. Thanks for your interest.