Final List: Movies & DVDs from the Summer

On a related note, these are the movies and TV on DVD I managed to watch this summer (sadly, this is as current as I'll be until next May)...

RIP John Hughes

As you've no doubt heard, John Hughes died today at the age of 59. In some ways this is more bizarre and strange to me than MJ's death. I guess it's just that MJ always seemed older while John Hughes wrote for such a young audience when I was young that I feel like should be closer to my age. Or maybe it's just that his movies helped me understand myself and my world in ways that MJ's music, in all its glory and as much as I loved a lot of it, never could.

And so, in honor of John Hughes, the slideshow of movies he brought us that I particularly loved, and a really interesting take on a way that Hughes has affected cultural ideas: a story on bellaSugar about "How John Hughes Made Quirky Girls the Most Beautiful."

Taken - Spoiler Alert!

So I watched "Taken" last night and apparently my expectations were far too high. As much as I feel like I should warn you that this entry might spoil the movie for you, I'm afraid the movie needs no assistance in that domain and it's a disappointment in and of itself. I heard it was very intense and people were on the edge of their seats, never going to talk to strangers again, were sweating by the end of the movie, etc.

I felt misled and under-amused. A few thoughts...

• WAAAAAAAAY too much "character development" (to put it nicely). Why do we spend 20 minutes seeing this ridiculous spoiled daughter that cannot possibly exist in real life? All it did was make it harder for me to root for her to be saved. And make it harder for me to think the ends justified the means. All that sugary-sweetness just made me feel ill. And the time we spend meeting friends of the protagonist/dad character... why?
  
• If the ending wasn't surprising, shouldn't there at least have been a storyline or some intellectual thread of mystery or suspense that kept audiences entertained? I wanted Liam Neeson's previous cases and work and enemies to be part of the whole thing, coming back to haunt him. There was no mystery in the movie. Just mediocre car chases in a glorified Audi ad.
• No sense of justice restored here... most movies only kill off obvious bad guys while the main character rescues the innocent character in jeopardy. Nope. Here the wife of corrupt official gets shot in the arm and no one even blinks. Lower-level guys in horrible economic situations who may or may not know about the bad things going on or may not have any choice in the matter (rather than the greedy bastards at the top - seemed like some of these guys think they're just working security, not unlike what our friend Liam Neeson is doing at the beginning of the movie) are killed and we simply ignore that 10 to 20 people are killed so Liam Neeson can get his daughter back. I like my justice legitimate, not overly excessive (more Jodie Foster in "The Brave One.")
  
• Maybe some intense action scenes could have restored the experience for me, but ultimately some care chases and admittedly badass fight scenes weren't enough for me. I think if the intellectual plotline had existed, that would have been enough for me, but the rest of it was definitely not nearly good enough to stand alone. And the gag-inducing cheese-fest of an ending... umm, wasn't this supposed to be an action flick and NOT a movie only 8-year olds could take seriously as a depiction of ANYTHING? (I'm pretty sure that Walt Disney didn't actually make this as a sequel to Cinderella, but perhaps I should check, as that's the only way the end "fits" into anything.)