Netflix Diary
1. Children of Men
Dystopian sci-fi has really been in such a state of overkill as a genre in the last few years, that I've become pretty numb to most of these bleak visions of the future. So it would take a pretty good movie to actually stab through that haze and actually make me feel something, and despite my skepticism, this was that movie. Not perfect, but really impressive on a technical level and as far the way the exposition was largely compressed into the scenery in really subtle ways. There were a handful of scenes (particularly the two very long shots) that made my heart beat faster than any movie I can remember doing to me even once, although I was kind of destracted by all the references to "The Human Project" because they kept reminding me of "The Human Fund". I really hope that this movie introduces a new form of film shorthand: just as men with mustaches are generally assumed to be evil, so should white guys with dreadlocks (although I had NO idea that it was Charlie Hunnam from "Undeclared"!).
2. The Fountain
This was good, I think, but it's just kind of there. The trailer looked visually dazzling and kind of intriguing, but I didn't really feel like anything happened in the movie that you couldn't glean from the trailer and any 2-sentence synopsis. That works, because it's a kind of meditative, purposefully enigmatic movie, but it ultimately wasn't even very thought provoking.
3. House of Sand and Fog
This reminded me in many ways of American Beauty, except more humorless and logistically problematic. And I hated American Beauty. Really just a stupid, miserable, emotionally manipulative movie, that gave away its own ending so far ahead of time that it didn't even come off as that tragic by the time they got to it. Jennifer Connelly is a babe and I'd watch her in just about anything, so it pains me that she's pretty much never been in any movie I liked or would like as far as I can tell, ever.
4. "The West Wing," season 2
Really starting to get into this, could see myself eventually renting my way through the whole run (unless those last couple seasons really are as bad as some say). The frustrating thing about catching up on a show like this a few years after the fact is that, although I heard very little about the plots of the show while it was on, I now have to be really careful about spoilers. A couple times I've been curious about some small thing about the show and looked it up on Wikipedia, and caught wind of some big development a season or two down the road and get pissed at myself and try to forget it. When we got to the assassination attempt cliffhanger at the end of the first season, J.G. freaked out at the end going "next episode! next episode!" and I had to explain to her that it was on another disc from the next season's set, and we'd have to wait a few days to see the resolution (which I guess is at least better than waiting a whole summer like people did at the time). At first I thought it was kind of corny to do the inevitable assassination attempt episode so early in the show's run, but they do kind of make it work in the context of the series.
Dystopian sci-fi has really been in such a state of overkill as a genre in the last few years, that I've become pretty numb to most of these bleak visions of the future. So it would take a pretty good movie to actually stab through that haze and actually make me feel something, and despite my skepticism, this was that movie. Not perfect, but really impressive on a technical level and as far the way the exposition was largely compressed into the scenery in really subtle ways. There were a handful of scenes (particularly the two very long shots) that made my heart beat faster than any movie I can remember doing to me even once, although I was kind of destracted by all the references to "The Human Project" because they kept reminding me of "The Human Fund". I really hope that this movie introduces a new form of film shorthand: just as men with mustaches are generally assumed to be evil, so should white guys with dreadlocks (although I had NO idea that it was Charlie Hunnam from "Undeclared"!).
2. The Fountain
This was good, I think, but it's just kind of there. The trailer looked visually dazzling and kind of intriguing, but I didn't really feel like anything happened in the movie that you couldn't glean from the trailer and any 2-sentence synopsis. That works, because it's a kind of meditative, purposefully enigmatic movie, but it ultimately wasn't even very thought provoking.
3. House of Sand and Fog
This reminded me in many ways of American Beauty, except more humorless and logistically problematic. And I hated American Beauty. Really just a stupid, miserable, emotionally manipulative movie, that gave away its own ending so far ahead of time that it didn't even come off as that tragic by the time they got to it. Jennifer Connelly is a babe and I'd watch her in just about anything, so it pains me that she's pretty much never been in any movie I liked or would like as far as I can tell, ever.
4. "The West Wing," season 2
Really starting to get into this, could see myself eventually renting my way through the whole run (unless those last couple seasons really are as bad as some say). The frustrating thing about catching up on a show like this a few years after the fact is that, although I heard very little about the plots of the show while it was on, I now have to be really careful about spoilers. A couple times I've been curious about some small thing about the show and looked it up on Wikipedia, and caught wind of some big development a season or two down the road and get pissed at myself and try to forget it. When we got to the assassination attempt cliffhanger at the end of the first season, J.G. freaked out at the end going "next episode! next episode!" and I had to explain to her that it was on another disc from the next season's set, and we'd have to wait a few days to see the resolution (which I guess is at least better than waiting a whole summer like people did at the time). At first I thought it was kind of corny to do the inevitable assassination attempt episode so early in the show's run, but they do kind of make it work in the context of the series.
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on Saturday, January 05, 2008 at 10:52 PM.
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