SALT
Went to see SALT tonight by the venerable Australian director, Phillip Noyce, starring Angelina Jolie and Liev Schrieber. I highly recommend it – especially if you love thrillers and spy thrillers, in particular (as I do.) It’s a classic action-thriller centered on a female spy and delivers on all accounts. I was impressed by how it embraced its genre and charged ahead, delivering a story and experience that didn’t try to hide what it was – exciting and entertaining, a great Saturday night movie with friends. (Thanks Mike for treating with 3 yr old passes that still worked!) Too often, lately, I feel as if genre movies – especially more conventional genres like the spy-thriller, or the action-thriller, feel embarrassed by the act of entertaining, and therefore feel the need, often unnecessarily, subvert their conventions. Which, if done poorly (as so often is the case), or if their are too many cooks in the kitchen, ruins the entertainment factor in the story (Yes, I’m looking at you KNIGHT AND DAY.) So, check out SALT. Jason has a good, to the point post on some of the other cool aspects of SALT, namely that its another original story, instead of a knockoff or adaptation of a game, which is doing gangbusters at the box office.
Not much else going on. Just work, though today was a bit of an unplanned day off. I traveled down to Anaheim and the Disneyland Hotel to steal a few hours with my sister and brother-in-law, Caroline and Kent, who were in town with my nephews, Sam, Will, and Jack (everybody’s getting so big!) to tackle the Disney experience. We sat by the Neverland Pool while the boys swam and caught up a bit. It was wonderful to see them. I wish we’d had more time, but that just means I need to plan a trip to see them, once I get everything ironed out.
I’ve read a number of reviews that say that it’s a really fun movie “despite huge plot gaps” – yet none of them actually go into what those plot gaps were. Do you have any idea what people are referring to? I thought it was pretty tight overall.
And great point about not being embarrassed about what it is. I feel like being self-aware and self-referential might have been fun for certain innovative films (Scream for horror films, Shrek for animated, etc) but now I kind of just want that movement to die. Just tell the story and let us enjoy it.
Well, we covered this, of course. So…good work today! We have almost conquered the beast!
I just saw it yesterday with my mom…we loved it! We both thought it would be great if they continued the story, because it certainly seems as if they could.
Kathie-so wonderful you enjoyed it. I want to see it again, actually. I really hope there’s a sequel in the offing. It seemed like a great set-up for one!