| Steak Ain't Look The Same No More, When Ye're A Butcher |
[Jan. 3rd, 2010|10:59 pm] |
Detailed reviews are a bollocks to write right now. Let us just say that I am essentially a hollow shell of a man, dead on the inside, with a smouldering cinder suspended where my heart ought to be. Until my fiancee holds my hand that is, at which point I am the happiest creature on God's green earth, but for now let us focus on the phenomenon I was affected with in the times I was in an audience seat. As I said, detailed reviews are a bollocks to write right now, so here is a list.
Some of these I watched in the comfort of my own home, and others in the theater, like they were meant to be seen. Some I watched while imprisoned in a giant cylinder of metal hurtling at high speeds through the lower stratosphere to exotic continents.
500 Days of Summer - I was prepared to be pissed off at this movie, and actually was for a while, but it all turned out alright in the end, and I have decided that I like it. A good movie for men who know what it is to have been broken up with.
The Time Traveler's Wife - not supposed to be as good as the book, but if the major plot points are anything alike, I say the whole thing is gimmicky and contrived. Interesting at best, kinda slow and boring at times, pretty creepy/cringe-worthy in a few parts. If you pass this one, you won't miss much. Holy crap, that's Eric Bana, no wonder he seemed familiar.
Julie and Julia - I'm so glad I didn't sleep on the plane when this came on. One of those movies that worked so well because I started watching it knowing absolutely nothing about it. Super, super cute, feel-good date movie, one of those I might be ashamed of admitting that I liked, if only I felt any shame at all.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - it's Harry Potter alright. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) allisino and I have a running joke where, instead of 'Harry Potter', we say 'helicopter' with the same space and stresses as when you would say the name; 'Heli Copter'. Now say it in an exaggerated British accent. It still cracks me up, and I think it improves the series greatly. Just thought I'd share that. As usual, Luna Lovegood is awesome.
Avatar - in 3D, it is a tremendous technical triumph, and a visually magnificent movie.
District 9 - a dark, stark rogue of a movie, hard to pin down, but delivers on the pew pew. My brother gave it to me for Christmas on blu-ray, and I foresee repeat viewings, though probably infrequent and far in between.
The Princess and the Frog - biggest disappointment of 2010 so far (yes, I know it was released 2009, but I just watched it yesterday, ok). People say it was 'classic' Disney, but what I saw was a try. A pretty good try, but in their own words, they were only 'almost there'. I don't think I'll even be owning this one.
Sometimes I wonder whether I've lost something. I can't watch or read anything anymore without running a kind of filter in the back of my mind, one part already dissecting the story and dialogue, weighing the characters and setting, predicting the next plot turn, deciphering the overarching message, another part discerning and judging the moral decisions portrayed and in what light they are presented, and probably a few other subroutines thrown in there that I don't care to psychoanalyze right now.
It... it kind of kills the fun of it sometimes, particularly the first part. It's not really as much a matter of any standard of 'good taste' as it is the fact that I consider myself practicing the same craft as these people, as unpublished and as unpaid as I may be. When you know where to look, you see the seams in things, and sometimes the stuffing too.
Even with the ones I liked, I had to hold out liking it completely until the end, when I had all the information to work with and analyze and synthesize. That is an unfortunate tension, one that I wish I could suspend, particularly for movies that friends, family and the general populace seem to enjoy.
Am I missing something, I wonder, or perhaps I am picking up too much? In the end, it's not really something I can think of in terms of 'is it worth it?', just a growing awareness of how different my perspectives are now compared to when I was younger and less discriminating, and compared to those who have had exposures and experiences different from my own. It's nothing that can really be helped, especially given that I choose to train in just this sort of thing.
At the very least it might be a spur for me to create more. When the day comes that I enjoy nothing that recreational media has to offer me anymore, perhaps that will be day that I say bugger them all and make some of my own, all of it everything that I would rather watch, read, or play myself.
But how to make something that others will watch, read or play, now there's the rub.
God bless~
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