Tuesday, July 21, 2009

A couple movies

I don't understand why anyone would make a film about Mark David Chapman. I've seen two now and with both, I kept asking myself, first, why am I watching and second, what's the point of making these films to begin with. I saw Chapter 27, with Jared Leto playing MDC. It was a stupid film, that seemed to try to make the audience sympathetic to his motives. Hey, guess what his motives were ... HE'S A FREAKING PSYCHOTIC LOONIE. There, that's it. Why make a film about it??? I fast forwarded through some since the script was just him rambling, rambling rambling ... I mean, I've seen movies on disturbing topics, but this one just takes the cake. Heck, watching Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer didn't tick me off as bad as Chapter 27.

Blindness was a film from last year. My tivo picked it up as part of my effort to watch everything that has Gael Garcia Bernal in it. It's about a world where a mysterious blindness takes over the world affecting everyone but 1 person. The film starred Julianne Moore, who I usually loathe as an actress ... she usually plays annoying harpies and I deplored her Maude character in Lebowski. I guess I never saw what the big hairy deal was with her. But in this film, she was really really good as the one person who didn't go blind. Apparently, when this film came out, advocacy groups for the blind were all in a tizzy, which was really stupid. Kind of like how the Catholic Church got their noses bent out of shape because of the DaVinci Code ... seriously, some people need to chill out. Anyway, the film was very graphic and depressing. It was easy to imagine how it would be if something like this really happened. Gael Garcia Bernal kept up his choice to play really unsavory characters. Why does he do that????

I've been watching a lot of Ovations tribute to African American artists .. I think I mentioned Jimi Hendrix earlier. I watched 2 shows about Miles Davis. First, The Miles Davis Story was a 3 hour show about his life. Came from a very middle class background, trained at Julliard (!!!!) and then onto greatness. Ok ok, I'm not a big Miles fan. I like So What (who wouldn't), but once he went electric, his music was ... I don't know ... mush. I tried listening to Bitches Brew once ... it's probably better appreciated while high, but I don't get it (at least I can admit it). Another show was called Miles Davis Electric. Apparently, Miles did to the jazz world what Boby Dylan did to the folk world, he had the gall to introduce electric instruments to jazz, including eletrifying his trumpet. I can understand the big hubbub behind it, but I still don't get the music. It's all very jam session-y ... who knows, maybe it was supercool live. The show concluded by playing his piece "call it anything" from the Isle of Wight festival in 1970. I think I like the idea of Miles better than Miles himself.

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