2 surprisingly good films

After having a "meh" experience with The Reader, I mananged to prove once again, that it's not the films that win awards or do well at the BO that are true quality pictures.

Ok, I'm biased, I love most .. not all Michael Winterbottom films. Just couldn't figure out that silly Tristram Shandy movie ... if anyone cares to explain it to me, I promise not to appear completely stupid. Wonderland was alright, but then he makes masterpieces like Road to Guantanamo, Welcome to Sarajevo, Mighty Heart and In This World. But he'll always have a fan in me for 24 Hour Party People ... yeeee ha!!!! I Haven't seen all of his films ... The Claim is still on my playlist ... because for some reason, American movie channels just don't play his films often.

Watched his 2003 film, Code 46. Incredible. It's a modern, futuristic Oedipal Complex film ... It's hard to follow and I ended up having to read a synopsis to have my "a ha!" moment, thank you Wikipedia. It's a futuristic authoritarian society where people are told where to live, when and if they can travel and who they can have sex with ... it's bleak to say the least. The issue I had is that the film is so short. This would explain why it was so hard to follow because everything was rushed, nothing was explained and the dialogue was hard to hear. The soundtrack, as with all Winterbottom films was wonderful. And Winterbottom just films well ... everything flows cinematically. The big problem was editing ... it was edited to death. The film's main characters were played by Tim Robbins and the ever waifish Samantha Morton, who plays damsels in distress like no other. The problem there is that Robbins is like 8 feet tall and Morton is about 4 feet tall, so their love scenes were clunky. Wish they could have made the film a full 2 hours, it would have been better.

Years ago, I watched American History X with Ed Norton as the main skinhead ... great film, btw. But I think I may have found a better one called The Believer, only this time Ryan Gosling, who has to be the strangest actor on the planet. He does mainstream stuff and then he does downright WEIRD movies like Lars and the Real Girl ... what's up with that?? And then does crap like The Nooooooooooooooooootebooooooooooooooooooook ... blech blech blech and kicks butt in The United States of Leland ... tried watching The Slaughter Rule and Stay, but found them boring and kept falling asleep. Maybe I'll try again. Anyway, The Believer is based on a true story ... don't think X was. Gosling is much scarier than Norton was. Would love to see them work together sometime. Gosling is a jew who hates jews and you find out why he has such hatred for them as the film goes on ... justified? Well, it's up to the viewer. I can understand why, but I don't agree and maybe that was the point. Good film.

Watched The Middle last night too ... ugh ... would somebody PLEASE tell these dumb writers that if they want to portray Indiana ... please get it right ... Warsaw is not in southern Indiana you idiots!!! And yea right ... the Dad drove Sue up to Gary to sell cheese and sausage .... for god's sake. What a load of crap.