Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Assassination of the Outlaw Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, and The Darjeeling Limited

Let's get right to it.

"Elizabeth: The Golden Age" was like the first "Elizabeth", but not so much. It goes without saying that Cate Blanchett did a great job, and this movie was worth watching for her performance, the costumes and well to tell the truth my memory of this movie is already fading. If you haven't seen the first "Elizabeth" then I can recommend watching that film for sure. The combination of story, Blanchett's acting and the character created by Geoffrey Rush made that film very entertaining.

"The Assassination of the Outlaw Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" is a film that I'm still contemplating. First off the cinematography was distracting and overdone. Definitely unique and to the point, but overdone nevertheless. It was hot down in Mexico in "Traffic", war was hellish on the beach in "Saving Private Ryan", but how cold and dreary can every day have been in the life of Jesse James? I only criticize so directly beacause I found it to be distracting, for the most part I liked the film. What I really liked was that the movie was about both Jesse James and Robert Ford. Just because one of them was present didn't mean that the other was overlooked. Seldom do films take the time to study two characters, and it was especially interesting since we know from the title the course they are both on. There has been much talk about Casey Affleck having a great perfomance in this movie, and I must say that he did a very good job. At the same time, to me it was pretty much typical Casey Affleck. It's one of those films where the director spend a lot of time just watching the actors in silence, their eyes, their expressions, thinking. My guess is that wether it's Casey, Ben or any other Affleck, if you film them for long enough, you'd get enough footage to make them look thoughtful or whatever state of mind you're looking for. That's not meant to take away from the film, only to say that I think the direction and editing probably is causing the buzz about Casey more than anything else.

"The Darjeeling Limited" was not what I expected it to be. Let's preface this by me stating that I loved Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums". Gene Hackman's character, Luke and Owen Wilson, Gwyneth, Bill Murray, Hey Jude, Alec Baldwin narrating, stabbings, etc. It was funny, it was sad, it was quirky, and it just worked for me. "Darjeeling" almost got there, it's almost like it was intentionally getting close but wasn't willing to go all the way. All the biggest laughs almost seemed to be the cheapest ones, like from a typical comedey. The characters were well cast, and perhaps I was expecting too much. But from the beginning when I realized that the Bill Murray cahracter wasn't even gong to make it into the movie, I was dissapointed. Then there is a death, a broken car, and many close misses with humor. The quirkiness was there, there was some cool music and some interesting cinematography including a classic Wes Andreson transition scene, but overall I was dissapointed. On a side not, the short film by Wes Anderson before the film, with Natalie Portman was actually the best part of the movie, I could have watched a lot more of that.