Three Movies
I used to post more about movies I was watching, I haven't been doing that as much anymore. Don't really know why I fell out of the habit, because I actually like talking abut movies (even as I know that most people here will not appreciate my strange taste :-)).
Of course I hadn't been watching anything good for quite a while now, though nothing so remarkably bad that it deserved one of my snarky reviews. Well, a few have come close to being that bad, but eh....
Although I do wish I had posted after I saw Watchmen, I really want someone to explain to me why I didn't like that movie, why it was so fucking boring. There's no reason why it should have been, it had plenty that I like in a movie, the story was actually kind of interesting when I stepped back from the movie and thought about it; and yet the last time I looked at the clock so many times while wondering aloud why it isn't over yet, its been five hours hasn't it, was when I saw Brokeback Mountain, a movie that my mother found boring, and that is truly saying something. Something in the execution must have been seriously flawed, I just don't know. Maybe I should get the graphic novel instead.
Anyway, the last three new ones I saw:
Star Trek
This needs no explanation, right? :-) It wasn't bad, though it wasn't great either. It looked good, I was entertained while I was watching it, and I'm willing to forgive it a lot because it was clearly an introductory movie and it showed just enough promise. Next time around though, I'm going to want something more than decent special effects. Things like a plot, or more importantly interesting villains doing something actually interesting that I can bring myself to care about.
Revolutionary Road
I was interested in checking this movie about because it represented my nightmare growing up, being trapped in a life that I hated and realizing that I'm too far in and I can't get out. I grew up in a suburb like that, and there is this sort of expectation that you will stay there, get married, have a family, have a career (that you will remain in your whole life), settle down just like everybody else does; yeah, sure, that's the way it gets presented everywhere, but suburbs can be a lot more isolated, alternate opinions or options don't get presented when everyone is pretty much doing the same thing. Even leaving aside that I am in no way suited for that kind of life (I need a lot more change and flexibility in my life in order to remain sane), it didn't ever seem to make anyone around me happy - which is not to say I think it doesn't ever, but not for everyone and when it gets presented as the only way to live (and announcing that you want any different in life is usually met with scorn and people bombarding you with how that will never work out, don't go off the beaten path, etc.) everyone ends up getting sucked in. My parents were miserable people that hated their lives, my mother a short while back briefly made some noise about getting out and starting over someplace new (something that she desperately needs and is a long time coming, in my own opinion) and realized that she can't, the decisions she's made has left her with no real way out. She's resigned herself to being unhappy yet again; from growing up with her example, I'd rather die than live like that. So I haven't, I got out of there, and I'm trying my best to live my life the way I want to, and looking into ways to make the rest of the changes I'd want to make.
But I'm not so far removed from all the years I spent believing I had no other choice but to go along with the status quo, and I thought this was about the most depressing thing I ever saw. I've met way too many people like Leonardo DiCaprio's character, that might once have had other dreams and ambitions, but ends up making too many compromises, gets too deep into it and then gets too scared to try anything else. And I could identify with Kate Winslet a little too much, under other circumstances I could have wound up like that. So glad I didn't.
Glad I saw it, but yeah ... not again.
Thirst
I found out about this movie when I walked past The Charles Theater and saw the poster in the window; Park Chan Wook directed a movie I love so much I feel compelled to watch everything he makes, even though I've been less than impressed with his other endeavors so far (with the exception of the short film Cut in Three Extremes, that was pretty good :-)). Thirst is not as good as Oldboy (and nothing ever will be) but it is a hell of a lot better than his other two movies. And a hell of a lot better than any other vampire movie out there for the last couple of years.
I like something Roger Ebert had to say in his review of this movie: contrary to current vampire shit that's out there, a real vampire would not be anything erotic (let alone something that exists solely to fall in love with lame teenage girls), a real vampire would probably look more like a drug addict. That's where this movie operates from and its one of the few that gives me some minor hope that vampires can be rescued from the erotica and brain dead teen crowd. The man in the movie is a Catholic priest (no, vampires don't care about religious symbols, a change I'm fine with since I always found it kind of stupid anyway) that signed up for a medical experiment to try and help people and wound up a vampire as a result of a blood transfusion - yeah, it sounds thin, but this part is brushed by pretty quickly, its not what's important. He's not a bad man, he doesn't want to hurt anyone, but he can't always help himself from doing things he regrets later. And it only gets worse when he hooks up with a married woman; yeah, no fun and erotic romance this one. She's been treated like a slave her whole life by the woman who raised her and her so spoiled he never really grew up son, who is now the woman's husband; she hovers over her husband while he's sleeping and pretends to stab him in the face over and over again, she's a time bomb waiting to go off. Which is part of what attracts him to her, or at least part of him that appeared after he became a vampire; the rest of him wants to get away from her (especially after he sees realizes how gleefully psychotic she really is) and doesn't because he thinks she understands him and he doesn't want to be alone. He tells her his secret before long and, after recovering from her initial shock, she works to turn the situation to her advantage, and it all goes downhill fast from there.
Call it the anti-Twlight maybe. The two of them were so self destructive together, I kept expecting things to get a hell of a lot worse than it did. I enjoyed it, even the moments it drifted over into camp (something the director can almost always be expected to do, part of his style I guess).
Of course I hadn't been watching anything good for quite a while now, though nothing so remarkably bad that it deserved one of my snarky reviews. Well, a few have come close to being that bad, but eh....
Although I do wish I had posted after I saw Watchmen, I really want someone to explain to me why I didn't like that movie, why it was so fucking boring. There's no reason why it should have been, it had plenty that I like in a movie, the story was actually kind of interesting when I stepped back from the movie and thought about it; and yet the last time I looked at the clock so many times while wondering aloud why it isn't over yet, its been five hours hasn't it, was when I saw Brokeback Mountain, a movie that my mother found boring, and that is truly saying something. Something in the execution must have been seriously flawed, I just don't know. Maybe I should get the graphic novel instead.
Anyway, the last three new ones I saw:
Star Trek
This needs no explanation, right? :-) It wasn't bad, though it wasn't great either. It looked good, I was entertained while I was watching it, and I'm willing to forgive it a lot because it was clearly an introductory movie and it showed just enough promise. Next time around though, I'm going to want something more than decent special effects. Things like a plot, or more importantly interesting villains doing something actually interesting that I can bring myself to care about.
Revolutionary Road
I was interested in checking this movie about because it represented my nightmare growing up, being trapped in a life that I hated and realizing that I'm too far in and I can't get out. I grew up in a suburb like that, and there is this sort of expectation that you will stay there, get married, have a family, have a career (that you will remain in your whole life), settle down just like everybody else does; yeah, sure, that's the way it gets presented everywhere, but suburbs can be a lot more isolated, alternate opinions or options don't get presented when everyone is pretty much doing the same thing. Even leaving aside that I am in no way suited for that kind of life (I need a lot more change and flexibility in my life in order to remain sane), it didn't ever seem to make anyone around me happy - which is not to say I think it doesn't ever, but not for everyone and when it gets presented as the only way to live (and announcing that you want any different in life is usually met with scorn and people bombarding you with how that will never work out, don't go off the beaten path, etc.) everyone ends up getting sucked in. My parents were miserable people that hated their lives, my mother a short while back briefly made some noise about getting out and starting over someplace new (something that she desperately needs and is a long time coming, in my own opinion) and realized that she can't, the decisions she's made has left her with no real way out. She's resigned herself to being unhappy yet again; from growing up with her example, I'd rather die than live like that. So I haven't, I got out of there, and I'm trying my best to live my life the way I want to, and looking into ways to make the rest of the changes I'd want to make.
But I'm not so far removed from all the years I spent believing I had no other choice but to go along with the status quo, and I thought this was about the most depressing thing I ever saw. I've met way too many people like Leonardo DiCaprio's character, that might once have had other dreams and ambitions, but ends up making too many compromises, gets too deep into it and then gets too scared to try anything else. And I could identify with Kate Winslet a little too much, under other circumstances I could have wound up like that. So glad I didn't.
Glad I saw it, but yeah ... not again.
Thirst
I found out about this movie when I walked past The Charles Theater and saw the poster in the window; Park Chan Wook directed a movie I love so much I feel compelled to watch everything he makes, even though I've been less than impressed with his other endeavors so far (with the exception of the short film Cut in Three Extremes, that was pretty good :-)). Thirst is not as good as Oldboy (and nothing ever will be) but it is a hell of a lot better than his other two movies. And a hell of a lot better than any other vampire movie out there for the last couple of years.
I like something Roger Ebert had to say in his review of this movie: contrary to current vampire shit that's out there, a real vampire would not be anything erotic (let alone something that exists solely to fall in love with lame teenage girls), a real vampire would probably look more like a drug addict. That's where this movie operates from and its one of the few that gives me some minor hope that vampires can be rescued from the erotica and brain dead teen crowd. The man in the movie is a Catholic priest (no, vampires don't care about religious symbols, a change I'm fine with since I always found it kind of stupid anyway) that signed up for a medical experiment to try and help people and wound up a vampire as a result of a blood transfusion - yeah, it sounds thin, but this part is brushed by pretty quickly, its not what's important. He's not a bad man, he doesn't want to hurt anyone, but he can't always help himself from doing things he regrets later. And it only gets worse when he hooks up with a married woman; yeah, no fun and erotic romance this one. She's been treated like a slave her whole life by the woman who raised her and her so spoiled he never really grew up son, who is now the woman's husband; she hovers over her husband while he's sleeping and pretends to stab him in the face over and over again, she's a time bomb waiting to go off. Which is part of what attracts him to her, or at least part of him that appeared after he became a vampire; the rest of him wants to get away from her (especially after he sees realizes how gleefully psychotic she really is) and doesn't because he thinks she understands him and he doesn't want to be alone. He tells her his secret before long and, after recovering from her initial shock, she works to turn the situation to her advantage, and it all goes downhill fast from there.
Call it the anti-Twlight maybe. The two of them were so self destructive together, I kept expecting things to get a hell of a lot worse than it did. I enjoyed it, even the moments it drifted over into camp (something the director can almost always be expected to do, part of his style I guess).