Logging

Films I watched or partially watched over my honeymoon vacation:

The Wolverine - on plane to Taiwan.  Eh.
Pacific Rim - on plane to Taiwan.  Eh.
The Dark Knight - on plane.  Only watched scenes with Bain.  Enjoyed it in comparison to the other two aforementioned movies.
Thor 2 - was between this and Hunger Games 2 one evening at a random theater.  I think we made the right choice, which is not saying much.
Beyond Beauty -  Taiwan From Above -- I fell asleep many times.  Strange "documentary."
Identity Thief - turned off after 5-10 minutes in the hotel.  Of all the bad movies, this was the worst and most hatable.
Bourne Legacy - turned off after 20 minutes.  Very confusing.  Maybe would have been decent if I stuck with it.
Rust and Bone - I loved it and also wanted it to be over.  Maybe because I was on a torturously long flight home.  Audiard is a filmmaker.  And I suspect he rather likes Michael Mann.  Or the other way around.
Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow - a Taiwanese film by Arvin Chen, a classmate from film school showing on the plane.  Congrats to Arvin on making a real feature film.  Not my cup of tea in terms of subject matter, but a respectable film.
Grown Ups 2 - the surprise on the list.  I really enjoyed it and had quite a few laughs.  I can see how people may hate this movie if they paid to go see it because they are not really rewarded by any narrative pleasures.  But Sandler doesn't care about narrative, he cares about comic bits and some of them work.  What can I say?  It made me chuckle.  There's no reason to find reasons something sucks if you are enjoying it in the moment.  I'd watch this movie any day over a piece of corporate trash like Identity Thief, which is simply aimed at getting butts in the theater.  At least there is a human being behind Grown Ups -- Sandler -- and I'm guessing he likes his own movie.  There is no way anyone involved with Identity Thief can actually believe in the thing.  There is no love or care put into it at all.  No personality.  No nothing, but a clever marketing conceit.  Grown Ups - sloppy as it may be - is actually about something beyond the comedy - about parents discovering the talents of their children, about blue collar family values and friendships, and about a community.  Frankly, I found the movie refreshingly uncynical.