Time out: Let's go to the movies!

Maybe I've just reached my limit on whatever it is that the candidates are dishing out in the run up the Iowa caucuses. I have no idea who is going to win (nor do I want to hear why your candidate is the only one who CAN win).

I'm going to the movies!

Actually, here are two movies we just saw; and a trailer for a third one that just looks funny.

Once

An (unnamed) Guy is a Dublin guitarist/singer-songwriter who makes a living by fixing vacuum cleaners in his Dad's Hoover repair shop by day, and singing and playing for money on the Dublin streets by night. An (unnamed) Girl is a Czech who plays piano when she gets a chance, and does odd jobs by day and takes care of her mom and her daughter by night. Guy meets Girl, and they get to know each other as the Girl helps the Guy to put together a demo disc that he can take to London in hope of landing a music contract. During the same several day period, the Guy and the Girl work through their past loves, and reveal their budding love for one another, through their songs.

Glenn Hansard (from the Irish band The Frames) and Markéta Irglová are terrific, performing all the songs themselves. It's a sweet little love story and the music reminded me a lot of the softer stuff from Radio Head's Tom York, as well as early Cat Stevens and that Belfast Cowboy, Van Morrison.

Here's a wonderful clip. You can get the movie on DVD.

Charlie Wilson's War

Aaron Sorkin, who wrote the screenplay based on George Criles' book by the same name:

Charlie Wilson's War is a great story that we've never heard before. Charlie is a wonderfully funny, brilliant, flawed hero, who put together this war and nobody has ever heard of him. It was the biggest covert war in US history.

Charlie (played by Tom Hanks) in the 1980's was a Democratic congressman from Texas and was extremely scandal-prone. He was forever showing up in hot tubs with strippers and drugs. He was an alcoholic. His nickname was "Good Time Charlie." His office staff in Congress was populated with beautiful women -- they were called "Charlie's Angels." So one wouldn't expect that he'd be responsible for one of the great turning points of the twentieth century.

Wilson, together with an equally colorful CIA operative named Gust Avrakotos (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who had been shoved over to the margins of Agency work, the two of them along with Joanne Herring (Julia Roberts), an ultra right-wing anti-Communist from Texas (and the sixth wealthiest woman in the state) engineered the funding, training and arming of the Afghan mujahideen in their effort to get the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.

They were successful-- they defeated the Soviet Army. It was the only time the Soviet Army had been defeated. In so doing, that was the first domino that fell in the end of the Soviet Union, the end of communism, and the end of the Cold War.

And not only that: Wilson brought together Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan in an unusual alliance to defeat the Soviets. The movie is in theaters now.

Walk Hard

The up-and-down-and-up-again story of musician Dewey Cox (John C. Reilly), whose songs would change a nation. On his rock ‘n roll spiral, Cox sleeps with 411 women, marries three times, has 22 kids and 14 stepkids, stars in his own 70s TV show, collects friends ranging from Elvis to the Beatles to a chimp, and gets addicted to – and then kicks – every drug known to man… but despite it all, Cox grows into a national icon and eventually earns the love of a good woman – longtime backup singer Darlene (Jenna Fischer).

OK, so it's a parody of Walk the Line. Also in theaters now, although judging by the weekend box office, it may not be around for long.

This is the only one of the three that I haven't seen yet, but it looks really funny. Here are a couple of clips. The first one is where Dewey meets Elvis (played hilariously by Jack White of the White Stripes). The second is Dewey barging into a party and being introduced to the ... well, check it out. The last clip is the movie's music video.

P.S. Later today we're going to see National Treasure 2. Loved the original; hope the sequel is half as good.