005 Movies at the Mall

I decided to go to the mall in the afternoon. I had called mr and mrs Wolfe for a meeting, but they didn’t pick up the phone, so I bought a matinee ticket for The Pursuit of Happiness. I had called Evelyn and Harry the day before and they invited me for lunch, but I also had promised Ray to go to lunch with him, so we sort of decided to meet upon my return end of February.

The Pursuit of Happiness wasn’t really on my list of movies to see, but it was the first available movie, so I got in. Also because the trailer featured gorgeous images of San Francisco. It’s based on yet another true story of the American Dream: sales person with a lot of debts needs to take care of his son as his wife leaves him, as he is kicked out of his house and as he just started an internship as a stock broker. Whatever! BUT the acting was amazing! Will Smith, who I normally don’t like that much, was excellent. Thandie Newton was very expressive in her short part as the disappointed wife. And the little boy (Smith’s own son) was good too. The story was very drama, Hollywood drama, and after 100 minutes I had enough of seeing someone’s bad luck, even though I knew this story would have a happy end. But I also thought it was interesting to see that a movie about becoming homeless can be such a big hit. I was thinking how Ken Loach would have made that movie or de brothers Dardenne. In the end, this story is about a homeless father who has to seek refuge in shelters/ But their style will never reach a big audience and this movie does! Even though I hated the soundtrack and the typical emotional close ups of facial expressions. Still, the end, although very predictable, moved me. Great acting, Will!

This being a movie theatre in the States, I of course went into other rooms to see parts of the movies that were playing as well. I stayed for some 15 minutes in the two week box office topper Stomp The Yard. From what I’ve seen it’s the most ridiculous chart topper of the year. It’s some kind of dance movie with an all black cast about rival school gangs who do a streetdance/krumping performance on stage while stomping their feet on the wooden floor in an urban tap or line dancing style. It was horrible, especially the camerawork who tried to be ‘hip’ by showing some parts in slow motion and than fast forwarding the images. Awful. After that I went in to see that 200+ dollar box office hit A Night At The Museum. I left after half an hour or so as I had not laughed one single time and I was incredibly annoyed by the illogical storyline which is just an excuse for some visual affects. I didn’t even wait to see Robin Williams perform.