I got that Blockbuster version of Netflix thing for Christmas and it has changed my life. Like TiVO and the iPod, the two best singular inventions of the 21st century, this Blockbuster Online subscription is damned sweet. No longer do I have to worry about going to the video store and seeing if they have Stand By Me. Which surprisingly has dropped off the face of the earth in the immediate Yorkville video stores. Regardless, it’s a great deal with movies that I can see rather than worrying whether the store has it.
Since Christmas I’ve viewed: Stardust, Eastern Promises, 3:10 to Yuma, Waitress (this was a Bee request) and Tekkonkinkreet.
Stardust, based on a Neil Gaiman novel that was illustrated by Charles Vess, was how I see alot of Gaiman’s work: not my thing. Though, I haven’t really ever given Gaiman’s prose or comic work a try. Besides his recent work with Marvel 1602, the Eternals and his novel American Gods, (which held my attention for about fifty pages before I moved onto something more interesting). Regardless, the movie was…not great. I’m not going to lambast every little bit of the movie that I thought was derivative and un-original because no one wants to read another internet nobody criticize movies, instead I’ll talk about what I did like: Robert deNiro. Twenty years ago, people would have said you were crazy to think that deNiro could do comedic roles, but now its literally what he clings to. He’s hilarious it started with Analyze This, and now he plays the most eclectic, weird and funny role ever. He’s a cross dressing, blood thirsty sky pirate who steals LIGHTNING from the clouds. Now if anyone could tell me if they thought that Robert deNiro would do a role like that, I’ll shut the fuck up right now. He was hilarious and ridiculous at the same time. Pretty much the only thing worth mentioning regarding this movie.
Eastern Promises, which revolves around the Russian mob in London and is the usual Cronenberg straight laced soft but with a hard edge for violence, but a story full of too many coincidences. People have written far more eloquently than me on Cronenberg’s expert dealings in violence, and A History of Violence is probably as close to a perfect display of film violence on film. This movie, does that as well, but not as deftly handled as the previous. The whole concept of the nurse finding the girl’s diary leading her to this Russian mobster to translate the diary who actually had the girl killed is ridiculous. The sudden change with Viggo Mortensen’s character as the second plot point was handled well. Though, it kind of came off to me as the viewer as a point, “Oh you didn’t know this? You dumb ass; it’s obvious.” That bath house fight scene that everyone talks about was disturbingly raw and totally bad ass in that Cronenberg style of stretching the limits of violence.
3:10 to Yuma is just forgettable. I think that its been a while, that I don’t really remember anything that came out it as being memorable. I remember Peter O’Toole getting thrown off a cliff, and being a rowdy old coot. And Russell Crowe drawing his people before they die. Its an interesting dynamic, but not as good as it should have been between Christian Bale and Russell Crowe, but I’m just blanking on anything that made it memorable.
I’m not going to get into Waitress. I spent the entire movie trying to figure out what Adrienne Shelley died from, when I get those things in my head that I can’t put my finger on, I tend to obsess over it until I get to it. Which caused me to barely pay attention to the movie.
Doorman and I watched Tekkon Kinkreet and were completely mesmerized by it. That shit straight rocks. Based upon the Korean graphic novel by Taiyo Matsumoto, and borrowed from some of his art but in color. The characters’ bodies are so abstractly designed to the point that it calls special attention to the insanely detailed city the two main characters patrol. The scenes of the two brothers, Black and White, and their journey battling Yakuza and corrupt police, and their solitary brotherly moments watching over Treasure City, their city, were breathtaking. The detail in the art is with how detailed the city is with little aspects of it, so well refined. The gutters, the tunnels, the jewels hanging randomly on buildings. That’s what this movie was, a treasure. Its going in my To Buy pile.
Up next on my Blockbuster queue is The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, the first season of The Wire, The Descent and Factotum.
This weekend, depending if money comes through, I’ll finally be able to see There Will Be Blood.
