Miscellaneous Movie Musings

[Alex]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Blood Diamond is apparently not being given the glorious exhibition opportunity by a whole lot of people (i.e., it's a box office disappointment), but I don't know why.

It's a terrific actioner

I got around to it last night and I'm going to have to disagree. It was a decent genre picture but not a great one. The character development was pretty standard and the ultimate conclusion was apparent from the beginning.

I'm always uncomfortable when an action movie is set against the backdrop of an important social issue. When an entire societal calamity is reduced to an opportunity for one scumbag to rediscover his humanity.

It is very well made and obviously wants to be an important movie. If people see it and decide not to be consumers of diamonds then that is good. But it is easy for me to say that. I've never owned a diamond which made the decision, more than a decade ago, that I never would an easy one.

Plus, I'm tired of movies not being able to focus on the problems of Africa without giving the leads to white actors. I know the western journalist is frequently the avenue of inserting the audience into the story but I am tired of it. That is one thing I liked about Hotel Rwanda and I'm sure at some point some studio executive said "can we beef up the Nolte character into more of a lead?"

ETA: Oh, and I've been told by a linguist friend who knows the languages of those parts of Africa that Di Caprio's accent is pretty darn good. But it is also very distracting since you know it is fake.