Oh, happy day, finally some good films.
The
filmspotting guys are having a film noir marathon now, so I queued up
The Killers and had a blast. Based on an Ernest Hemingway short story (so you know automatically that women are going to be evil), the film is set up so that the main character dies at the beginning. Excellent opening sequence with the killers coming into a local diner to look for "The Swede." The rest of the movie follows an insurance investigator as he tries to piece together the puzzle of why the Swede left everything to a hotel worker whom he barely knew. I enjoyed the flashbacks, the moody cinematography and the great score. Noir rules.
Slither is one of those comedy/horror films that are just loads of fun. A meteor lands in a sleepy little town, infects one of the locals and all hell breaks loose. I laughed alot, especially at the mayor, Greg Henry ("The Black Dahlia"), and reveled in the gore. Nathan Fillion ("Waitress"), fast becoming my new favorite actor, brings some comedy as well as emotion as he tries to save the woman he's always loved from her alien-infested husband. I really enjoyed that the film didn't take itself too seriously. And there were a few tense scenes that played really well. But on the whole, this is a comedy. A good one.
I just saw
Waitress this afternoon, and maybe, with time, I'll come to find some flaws in it. But right now, I absolutely love it. Kerri Russell ("Mission Impossible: III") stars as a small town waitress with a gift for pie-making who is trapped in an unhappy marriage. She's planning an escape when she discovers that she's pregnant. The film follows her through the months of her pregnancy as she tries to find what will make her happy. The dialogue is great. Witty and thoughtful. All of the side characters are fleshed out. And Russell has some great chemistry with Nathan Fillion. The movie takes a few sad turns, but it never drags down too long, with the comedy pulling it back out of the hole. It's a very sweet film. Writer/director Adrienne Shelly also has a small role. And this is the sad part. She was murdered just before the film debuted. So there won't be any more magic. But I'm going to check out her previous films. If this is playing in your town, go see it.