Movie #1585 - The Lower Depths
Right on the heals of Tokyo Story, I got this 1957 Kurosawa movie from Netflix. Probably because, When I was mid-adding-binge, Netflix saw that I added one old Japanese movie and decided I would want lots more old Japanese movies and recommended it. After watching Tokyo Story, I saw this and went "Another old Japanese movie? eh, maybe later."
When I finally did watch it, I was reminded why I love Kurosawa so much more than Ozu. Where a lot of the camerawork and acting in Tokyo Story felt, for lack of a better word, awkward, the camerawork here is masterfully executed, and he gets some great performances out of a rather large cast.
It's interesting to see an actor who's usually as scene-stealing as Toshiro Mifune sink back and just be part of an ensemble. He's still one of the strong points of the cast, but definitely not the star on this one.
This movie has an incredibly abrupt ending, but, in the context, it really really works.
This movie is based on a play, and you can tell. That said, as an actor, I would love to be in a production of it. The drawback to this is that the clear act breaks, combined with my ADD, made it take me, like, a week to watch the whole movie, even though I loved it.
TV: Two episodes of Lost.
This post is getting long already, so I'll try to keep the Lost part brief.
I'm so happy about the direction the alternate universe is taking. I've been waiting for pretty much this exact thing the whole season. And of course it's Desmond who changes it. Of course. He's the one for whom reality just works differently.
I'm also happy that in some universe, Hurley gets some. Good for him.
Movie #1586 - Moon
Holy crap. This movie is weird in a really awesome way. I'm usually unabashed about spoilers on this blog. It's just something for my readers to accept; there are usually spoilers here. But I'm sort of hesitant on this one.
I'll say this much. The premise is fantastic and takes a question I'd always had concerning a certain sci-fi topic, and answers it really interestingly.
Kevin Spacey makes a great, surprisingly non-evil, computer. He's basically Hal 9000's nicer brother. And some Rockwell must have peed his pants when his agent handed him this script. There are, for all intents and purposes, three characters in this movie. Two of them are played by Sam Rockwell.
Corporations in Sci-fi movies are always mind bogglingly evil. Not just the real ways in which lots of real corporations are kind of evil, but caricaturish, Snidely Whiplash evil. Someday I'd like to see a sci-fi movie with a corporation that's okay. Sure, maybe they underpay their workers a little, but other than that, they're essentially fine. Besides, look how much they donated to that humanitarian effort for the refugees from Blornium 9. Man, that meteor strike was just terrible. I hear they're doing a new "We Are the Galaxy" for it. That Justin Beiber guy is in it. Remember him? What is he, like, 90 now?
Anyway, I'll try to be more conscientious about updating this thing.
