Movies

"Kings and Queen" - Unfortunately, this one was a victim of my newfound ruthlessness and impatience with movies that don't grab me and hold me tight. I watched for a while, and I very much enjoyed looking at Emmanuelle Devos, but I ended up deciding to go to bed rather than watch to the end. A woman's father is dying, her ex-husband is in a psychiatric hospital, and . . . and that's about all I got.

"Sin City" - This one was a blast! It's truly a live-action cartoon (which can't possibly make sense unless you see it), complete with tons of gratuitous violence of the cartoony sort: Someone gets machine-gunned for a whole minute but doesn't die, that sort of thing. I wasn't surprised to see that Quentin Tarantino was a "special guest director" (whatever the hell that means), because it definitely has his flavor. Only Andy could recognize the heavily made-up Mickey Rourke (that's Andy's special genius); Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, and Clive Owen are also in it. It's all done with a very noirish/forties-style sensibility, so of course all the good guys end up taking a fall for what's right

"Mail Order Wife" (Would it have killed them to hyphenate "Mail-Order"?) - There's nothing I hate more than going into a movie knowing too much about it. I don't read reviews beforehand and I cover my ears and chant "LALALALALA, I'm not listening!" when people discuss movies they've seen. Sometimes it's unavoidable, though. Well, not this time. I got taken in a big way last night. We rented "Mail Order Wife," which is billed as documentary but is in fact a mockumentary, and I didn't know it! I totally fell for it! The reason I'm telling you is that you should go into knowing that it's a spoof, mainly because parts of it would have been laugh-out-loud funny instead of frighteningly disturbing. I also wouldn't have wasted my breath muttering, "Men are such shit!" if I'd known it was satire. And it is obviously very good satire, because it wasn't until quite a ways through the movie that I realized it just couldn't be true. (Andy figured it out much sooner, but the beginning definitely had us both going.) It tells the story of a filmmaker who is making a documentary about this schlubby guy who "buys" a mail-order wife from Burma. The filmmaker learns that the guy is mistreating her, so he steps in to rescue her, and that's when the thot plickens. And I believed it. All of it. It is in fact a bitterly comical view of the typical white man's dream of the geisha-wife, who will cook and clean for him, sleep with him, and not make any demands on him. I'm going to bet there are lots of people out there who start watching it in good faith and end up turning it off because it's so upsetting, before they realize what's going on. I'm glad I didn't give up this time!

Comments

[scott]

Interesting take on Sin City. I myself loved, loved, loved the comic book style. But some of the violence even I found disturbing. Mixed bag for me.

[kontakte66]

"Sin City"

Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been driving around the country with that DVD in my briefcase for over two months now (Netflix just loves me, LOL). I finally watched it this morning because of your endorsement. All I can say is WOW. Or, more appropriately, Oh My God.

BTW, Quentin Tarantino PAID Robert Rodriguez a dollar for the opportunity to direct his own particular sequence in the film.

I found it to be absolutely brilliant.