Extreme Movie Opposites: Helvetica and The Bourne Ultimatum

I've been burning through Netflix rentals like there's no tomorrow, and have recently watched two movies that could not be more different: Helvetica and The Bourne Ultimatum.


Helvetica
I'm a fan of documentaries; I love learning about almost any subject that's foreign to me, unless it deals with violence or a topic that's too depressing. So when I read a blurb about Helvetica, a movie that is all about the FONT Helvetica, I was intrigued. How could an 80-minute movie be solely about a font?!?! I had to check it out.

Right before we watched it, a friend of my husband's raved about it, as she is a graphic designer and knew of many of the famous (in her circles) design gurus that were interviewed in the movie. While I did find it fascinating to learn about the history of this font, and couldn't help but get a kick out of the intense love or hatred that experts in the design field had for Helvetica (trust me, there was no in-between with these people--they had strong opinions!), at many points the discussions were over my head. Miss M was visiting while we watched it, and she actually nodded off a few times. I can't blame her, because it was definitely slow on more than one occasion.

After seeing Helvetica, I now have a much greater appreciation for fonts, that's for sure. I had no idea that they were actually licensed out (that's why I couldn't write this post in Helvetica type, unfortunately) and that there are famous font designers. I also would have never realized how omnipresent Helvetica is. That was the coolest part of the movie... all of the logos and signs they showed from across the world that use that font. Another thing I learned from the film is that almost everybody in that field has CRAZY patterns of wrinkles on their faces. You just need to see it to be able to understand.

While the movie was pretty slow, it only lasted 80 minutes... so if you are even remotely interested in this kind of thing, I think it's worth watching. Though I still can't tell the difference between Helvetica and Arial!

Here is a two-minute clip from the movie to give you an idea of what the other 78 minutes are like:

The Bourne Ultimatum

A far cry from the hushed tones and comfortable pace of Helvetica was The Bourne Ultimatum. As with the other two Bourne films, the third installment sucks you in from literally the first second, and does not let up until the credits roll at the end. I really enjoyed it and would highly recommend it. While there is a lot of action on top of the crazy fighting scenes we've come to expect from this trilogy, it didn't seem violent or bloody by any means. It was suspenseful more than anything else.

Now I really wish I had counted how many words Matt Damon/Jason Bourne even says over the course of the two hours, because I swear it's less than 20 (unless grunting while punching, kicking or jumping counts). But that's fine... we don't need Matty to speak, we just need him to rock those moves and be the bad-ass that he is in these movies. A few of the agents from the previous films were in this one again, but they're very much secondary to the plot. In fact, I say that the next time they make one of these movies (you can bet there will be more, they make too much money to stop), they really shouldn't even bother with an actual storyline. Just have Matt Damon running around and evading the FBI/CIA/KGB/Insert Agency and we'll be happy.

- e