midnight, double feature, picture show
The film Death of a President is absolutely fascinating, but for reasons completely different that what i was expecting. It's a future-history about the assassination of President Bush, composed out of what looks like stock footage, a few staged scenes, interviews, and fake news reports. . . oh, and real speeches from members of the administration that are cut up, slightly over-dubbed, or in some other way modified. Some of the technical achievements were distracting because of how unnoticeable they were. It's much more of a political/conspiracy thriller in the veins of JFK than I initially imagined it to be, but even so it's a compelling watch. It wasn't as much of a polemic as I initially envisioned, but did pack a punch.
Whereas Fast Food Nation: The Movie: The Ride didn't work at all (except for the scenes with Kris Kristofferson). Everything in it is just so flat (except the Kristofferson, Bruce Willis, and Ethan Hawke), and the biggest problem for me is that it fictionalizes shit that actually goes on. Richard Linklater doesn't give anyone a Hollywood ending, but the ideas this movie is trying to get across would be much better served by a cheap video camera documenting a real person involved (or, you know, you could read the book). I guess the problem is that i'm not one for edutainment.
And that's what makes this unintentional double feature interesting: Death of a President uses real footage to create a believable fiction that has real impact, and Fast Food Nation sugarcoats the truth and distracts us from reality to the point it becomes irrelevant.
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oh, and after the third watching of 300 (promised i'd take my sister 3 weeks ago, and am just now getting to it. i'm a terrible brother), i can't buy that the Queen would put up with that shit. I can understand that 300 needed to be pumped-up time wise, but adding the political thriller sub-plot is just frustrating.
Now if we can only get the Grindhouse/Hot Fuzz at the drive-in. . .
Whereas Fast Food Nation: The Movie: The Ride didn't work at all (except for the scenes with Kris Kristofferson). Everything in it is just so flat (except the Kristofferson, Bruce Willis, and Ethan Hawke), and the biggest problem for me is that it fictionalizes shit that actually goes on. Richard Linklater doesn't give anyone a Hollywood ending, but the ideas this movie is trying to get across would be much better served by a cheap video camera documenting a real person involved (or, you know, you could read the book). I guess the problem is that i'm not one for edutainment.
And that's what makes this unintentional double feature interesting: Death of a President uses real footage to create a believable fiction that has real impact, and Fast Food Nation sugarcoats the truth and distracts us from reality to the point it becomes irrelevant.
---
oh, and after the third watching of 300 (promised i'd take my sister 3 weeks ago, and am just now getting to it. i'm a terrible brother), i can't buy that the Queen would put up with that shit. I can understand that 300 needed to be pumped-up time wise, but adding the political thriller sub-plot is just frustrating.
Now if we can only get the Grindhouse/Hot Fuzz at the drive-in. . .