We flew Air Pacific from Fiji to LA, and the film choice was poor. There was only one film that we fancied, and that was quite old: Ice Age. We dutifully watched it, and it was OK but not up to the standards of Pixar. The brightness on my screen was up far too high and couldn't be adjusted, so it looked rubbish too! Two and a half stars.
We saw Paycheck (Paycheque) at the flicks in LA. This is the latest film based on a Phillip K Dick story, stars Ben Affleck and is directed by John Woo. It has an interesting premise (man has memory erased, but has sent himself an odd collection of items from the past to help himself), which was appreciated by Anne's love of puzzles. The action scenes were quite good too. However, I felt that the premise wasn't quite clever enough, and the action wasn't quite exciting enough. Still, an entertaining two hours. Three stars.
On TV we watched a couple of movies, the pretty bad Just Married, a lightweight rom-com starring man-du-jour Ashton Kutcher (one and a half stars) and Bad Boys (two which we saw the sequel in Oz). I'd seen the latter before, and thought it was an entertaining action film, but I have to give this version one star, as it had been edited to a PG rating. People were getting shot, and the viewer only found out if the characters happened to mention it later! Terrible thing to do to a movie!
On our last day in San Fran we saw Lost in Translation at the flicks, an enjoyable comedy drama set in Tokyo - is currently winning awards and nominations. This was a great film to see on the final day of our Big Adventure, since the Adventure began in Tokyo. Like Bill Murray's character, we sang bad karaoke when we were there. We ate confusing Japanese food. We were baffled by the language and culture. And, regular blog readers will remember, like Bill Murray's character, I had a brief flirtatious affair with Scarlett Johanssen.
Hmm, that last bit may not have actually happened. Sometimes the mind plays tricks.
Four stars.
Before we flew home, we checked what films we'd bet on the plane on BA's web site. How many other people do you know who are so movie-obsessed as to do that? I'm glad we did, since we were prepared for the fact that the selection was pretty rubbish. There was only one film we both wanted to watch: Runaway Jury This is the latest John Grisham adaptation. Like other adaptations of his books, this is a solid, fun movie with a good cast. Perfect for a Sunday evening video - three stars.
Anne watched Finding Nemo (I'd seen it when I flew home for the wedding in August) and I watched the dire Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. One and a half stars as it's possibly slightly better than the first Tomb Raider movie (if only due to Lara's wetsuit). However, the plot holes are the same as the ones in the first movie, and the action and thriller elements are bland and uninspiring.
Not a good movie for me to end the Big Adventure with.