Saturday, August 27, 2005

Red Eye

Vince Keenan is one of the few people I know (besides me and Rosemarie, his wife) who openly admits a liking for Joe and the Volcano. So when he recommends a movie, I pay attention. The other day he recommended Red Eye, so I figured it was worth a look (and not because it starred Rachel McAdams, so stop saying that).

Some of the movie's real horrors have nothing to do with the plot and everything to do with the extreme hassle that air travel has become. Judy and I are flying to Chicago for the Bouchercon next Wednesday, and I should never have gone to this movie. My travel anxieties were high enough already. Now they've been cranked up another notch.

As for the plot, the less said about it, the better. You don't want to know to much going in, or that would spoil the fun. Let's just say that if you thought you've had bad seatmates on an airplane before, you're lucky you didn't have Cillian Murphy sitting beside you. Sure there are lots of holes in the plot, but only a picky person would even mention them. So I won't. Just go along for the ride, so to speak, and enjoy yourself.

Rachel McAdams does a fine job here as the woman in jeopardy who's better equipped to deal with things than you might think at first, and Cillian Murphy is smoothly ruthless. These two characters have to carry the movie, and McAdams and Murphy are more than up to it.

I don't know if Wes Craven of Nightmare on Elm Street fame has directed a thriller of this kind before, but he's certainly good at it. Check it out.

5 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Not afraid to admit I loved Joe v. Volcano. My ultimate *guilty pleasure* and one of my favorite movies of all-time. The bittersweet sentiment of the pic is perfect.

Anonymous said...

Bill, I might take your opinion more seriously if you hadn't admitted you liked the godawful, unwatchable Joe vs. The Volcano. I was rooting volcano all the way. Awful, awful junk that gave me a massive headache.

Anonymous said...

I, too, love Joe and the Volcano, even though I don't much like movies in general or see very many. I've seen it on TV several times, and it's always goofy and sweet (but not saccharine). I don't know why everyone doesn't love it.

My husband does love old movies and today I walked in while he was watching the end of Imitation of Life (the Lana Turner one) without even knowing the name of it. I named it immediately, even though I hadn't seen it since its release, and then started sobbing, just like before.

Anyway, I'm here, Bill, because I'm sifting through Google hits while writing a piece on Dennis Lynds for Jerry Doolittle's blog. It must be time for me to go to bed if I'm so easily distracted.