sometimes I don't spend all weekend cooking
I actually left the house for social purposes today. I went with a friend to see Eye in the Sky, with Helen Mirren and Alan Rickman, and then we had dinner at the local pho restaurant afterwards. (Their food is mediocre, in my opinion, but sometimes even mediocre pho is better than none.)
The movie was excellent and I recommend it lots, though you will not leave the cinema feeling cheerful. It's the only movie I've ever seen, I think, that is entirely about moral questions--specifically, in this case, the morality of a drone strike that will have horrifying consequences if carried out, and probably worse ones if it isn't. It's sort of like an hour and a half of a constantly escalating version of the trolley problem. The writing is intelligent and the acting, as you would expect, is first-rate.
My only reservation is my feeling, from news I don't follow too closely because it depresses me, that real world drone strikes are never given the level of thought we see from the characters in the film. It seems to be more like "yeah, let's blow up this suspected terrorist and never mind if the market/apartment building/village he happens to be near gets wiped out too." So I wonder if the film, bleak as it is, is actually too rosy.
Still, an excellent movie and a worthy last role for Alan Rickman. Rickman spends most of the film in a chair--he may have been already ill during filming, though I don't know that for sure--and is still absolutely compelling.
Crossposted at Dreamwidth (
comments); you can comment here or there.
The movie was excellent and I recommend it lots, though you will not leave the cinema feeling cheerful. It's the only movie I've ever seen, I think, that is entirely about moral questions--specifically, in this case, the morality of a drone strike that will have horrifying consequences if carried out, and probably worse ones if it isn't. It's sort of like an hour and a half of a constantly escalating version of the trolley problem. The writing is intelligent and the acting, as you would expect, is first-rate.
My only reservation is my feeling, from news I don't follow too closely because it depresses me, that real world drone strikes are never given the level of thought we see from the characters in the film. It seems to be more like "yeah, let's blow up this suspected terrorist and never mind if the market/apartment building/village he happens to be near gets wiped out too." So I wonder if the film, bleak as it is, is actually too rosy.
Still, an excellent movie and a worthy last role for Alan Rickman. Rickman spends most of the film in a chair--he may have been already ill during filming, though I don't know that for sure--and is still absolutely compelling.
Crossposted at Dreamwidth (
comments); you can comment here or there.