Hipster Love 2, Aliens 1
I've realized something over my past few weeks of movie watching. For an ex-Cultural Studies student, I kind of blow at formulating coherent interpretations of movies. At least in real life. And especially right after I watch them. Usually I just feel like grunting "Derrrrr, movie bad!" or "Derrrrr, good movie!" before lumbering out of the theatre to digest my popcorn.
Come to think of it, school was a bit of a crap shoot too, with papers ranging from the good (sociological causation in Altman's A Wedding), the bad (monstrosity in Black Narcissus) to the ugly (the cultural myth of Aran sweaters) without any kind of consistency. So, I'll just give you my unstudied, random thoughts on a couple of movies I've seen recently.
Come to think of it, school was a bit of a crap shoot too, with papers ranging from the good (sociological causation in Altman's A Wedding), the bad (monstrosity in Black Narcissus) to the ugly (the cultural myth of Aran sweaters) without any kind of consistency. So, I'll just give you my unstudied, random thoughts on a couple of movies I've seen recently.
- (500) Days of Summer: Like those parentheses in the title? Don't feel they're at all precious? Then you'll probably like this movie. Otherwise you might spend most of the time muttering "Over stylized!" and "White people need to stop whining." to yourself. I felt a little bit of both. The structure annoyed me, but I found parts of it really touching and honest. See it with someone who is as secretly squishy and romantic as you are, under that carapace of cynicism. Or else rent Commando. Again.
- District 9: It grew on me a lot since I watched it on Saturday. Probably because the hangover headache I was battling while watching all the explosions wore off. The general consensus among my friends was that the movie rocked, but that the documentary-like parts were stronger than the straight-up action sequences. Still, it's that perfect blend of excitement over speculative technology that goes boom and topical political paranoia that makes great Sci Fi. Also, has more splatter than most horror movies.
- Paper Heart:If you checked out my quickie list, you probably have a good idea of where this is going. Sigh. It's not a bad movie, just a frequently annoying one. Charlyne Yi doesn't believe in love and her buddy's made a documentary about it. Or is it a documentary? Why, the director's played by an actor! Just what is truth and what is fiction? Do such distinctions even matter in our po-mo society? Conclusion: yes they do, if they mean I have to look at twee-ass puppets acting out someone's life story when they converge. And people should be banned from acoustic guitars once they fall in love/like/whatever.