Babel
 

Okay, so Netflix brought this to me to continue with the catching up on films I'd missed in 2006.

Well, I think I could easily have missed this entirely. Meh and grim and the plotlines and interconnecting was pretty obvious after the first 20 minutes. I was surprised my roomie did not get it, but I squirmed on the couch for nearly the entire film.

I need to watch something really good in the next few days.

Watched two movies over the weekend on DVD that I remember being critical darlings in my mid-teens but were a bit too adult (read: boring) for me at that point in time.

The Grifters. Other than the first The Addams Family movie I've never cared for Anjelica Huston. Still true. Didn't help that the whole movie is bland neo-noir wankery of the worst sort.

Reversal of Fortune. Took a bit for me to buy into Ron Silver as Alan Dershowitz but eventually I did. Jeremy Irons seemed a little too stilted but for all I know Claus von Bulow really was like that. The Claus von Bulow cas is before my time but it is one of those names that seeped into my childhood consciousness without me knowing the context. I remember hearing a Denis Leary CD in college and he made some joke about comas and von Bulow and suddenly realizing that I had no idea what the connection was.

So it was an interesting movie in that regard, to learn the details of an incident that captivated the nation but was then quickly forgotten by the same nation. But it wasn't such a great movie; the legal philosophical questions were telegraphed and then acted out. I liked one bit of dialog though for its precognition of another case Dershowitz would be involved with just a couple years after the movie. One theory being pursued is that because Sunny von Bulow's kids believe Claus tried to kill her they manufactured evidence. A person on Dershowitz's team says "they may have framed a guilty man." That is a sentence that was heard a lot during the OJ trial talking about possible police misconduct.

Anyway, if these two movies are examples of the best of the late '80s then it really was a crappy time for movies.

I watched The Night Porter for the first time last night. But I'm gonna keep my thoughts to myself, I think. [wink]

I'm amused that the IMDb page for The Night Porter says that if you like it they also recommend Life is Beautiful.

Yeah, that makes NO sense. LOL. Swept Away would make more sense, though The Night Porter by far and away the superior film.

I'd think more Death and the Maiden than Life is Beautiful...

Yes. Except Death and the Maiden wasn't what I'd consider to be an erotic play/film. And say what you will about the subject matter, The Night Porter was definitely erotic.

Please allow me to briefly vent:

AAAAUGH! I hated DEATH PROOF! WOW did I hate it!

Okay, calming down now. Just got back from Grindhouse. I guess I'm just too old for this **** anymore. It isn't that I didn't "get it." I understood the in-jokes, the format, all of that. I even chuckled here and there. But my main thought as I left the theater was, wow, I guess I don't need to bother with Tarantino ever again. (Maybe not Rodriguez either.) Eliminate a few more points from my Guy's Guy scorecard, but this was nihilistic, boring and depressing to me. I suppose I ought to give specific reasons why, but I really don't want to waste more of my life thinking about it.

Maybe I should go watch The Night Porter instead.

Except that's pretty nihilistic as well. Heh.

Yeah, I know. I have it. Hey, if Charlotte Rampling had been in Grindhouse, I might not have had such a negative response.