It's a cold snap in February, which means movies galore. When I am not drinking maragaritas and limbo-dancing (courtesy of Patricia and Crispin's post-elopement in Mexico party - oy, my head), i am watching movies.
The past few days we have seen:
Theatre: Match Point you know, it was such a relief to not hate a woody allen movie. Lacking the neurotic twitchiness of his New York endeavours, Match point is like russian tragedy skewered by Evelyn Waugh. It was mean, satrirical, and - meh -metaphysical. The casting must have started off as a joke - the absurd sensuality of Jonathyn Rhys Meyers' puffy lips locked with Scarlett Johansson's pillowed pout - crazy! Like being smothered between two waterbeds. Fave part: The way the protaganist is someone repeatedly disenchanted with the claustrophobic banality of his ambitions. He struggles with his urge to discard them on the cusp of their fulfillment.
C.R.A.Z.Y. A great French Canadian coming of age and coming out in Quebec in the 1970's. I had heard good things and was not disappointed. Great characters, great story.I lilke movies about big Catholic families. Fave part: When the protaganist gets caught singing Major Tom to his own reflection. (I was a big 'sing to myself in the mirror' teen. more on that another time)
DVD: The Fog of War The first time I saw this i napped in the middle, so it was good to see it again. Mcnamara is a riveting subject - so mind-boggling how a fiercely intelligent, natural philosopher with an aptitude for efficiencies in the business world (he was president of Ford) could enter so deeply into something as inefficient and morally troubling as Vietnam.
Fave part: The "empathize with your enemy" lesson. Hearing his description of a conversation with his vietnamese couterpart, 20 years later, when Mcnamarra was told that the Vietnamese would never have become pawns of communist china - that they had been fighting for independence from imperialist forces for years (and China for 1.000 years). And that the Vietnamese saw the US as another colonialist invader, like the French. While the US had seen Vietnam as another domino in the cold war.
King Arthur Um. I like King Arthur stories. And this was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it was an interesting approach to the legend. Tho Keira Knightley always sounds like she is faking a British Accent. I'm sorry. She just does. Fave part: The celtic she-fighters.
