Cloverfield

See it.

Please.

* * *

The email I sent my sisters:

I know y'all aren't movie goers and that any advice on movies you will take with a grain of salt. but i really think you should go see cloverfield. it looks like a monster movie, but don't let that fool you. it's all about the human drama involved. it could just as easily have been about the Iraq war or 9/11 (and in fact invoked references in my mind to both events). But the way it was made is absolutely revolutionary. it is without a doubt unlike any other major film ever made. Even if you're skeptical, you must go see it for the historical value. i can't stop thinking about it. i can replay every scene, shot by shot in my head. it was so good that even though i just saw it last night, i'm going to go see it again tonight. My palms were sweating, my heart was racing. I felt it in my gut. The fear and anguish. I've never been more compelled by or attached to action on a screen. This wasn't like a moviewatching experience. It was like dreaming, but more like stepping into the mind of another person and living through a catastrophic event. I felt like they had attached sensors to my nerves, inducing responses. When I left the theater I was in a daze. Gleeful that the world still existed, that there was no monster terrorizing NY. That I was still alive. And yet the impact did not leave me. Imprinted on my mind were the images of giant reptilian claws smashing through skyscraper walls raining chunks of concrete and dust down on the pedestrians below. And even as I walked home, I kept my eyes on the horizon, peering down the long streets to make sure the creature had not come this way.

Don't wait for DVD.

SiCKO

Poignant and enlightening piece of filmmaking this. Even got a few chuckles. Someone must have been on set to calm Moore’s typically offensive demeanor, but he’s obviously still the same impudent assh***. Fortunately you don’t have to put up with this kind of behavior in the film (can’t say that I really blame him for his tyrade on CNN though, considering the smear piece they ran right before his eyes). Anyway, I was always curious about how healthcare worked, in the US and abroad. I was also curious why Americans seem to hate their healthcare, and Canadians love theirs, yet Americans hate Canadian healthcare..

Tangent. Does it make me a socialist if I’m skeptical of information proctored by corporations with assets at stake? So many confusing things make sense when you follow the money trail. Until some infocorp spins your logic on its head, and tells you to stop trusting your intuition and believe the statistics. So you become disillusioned and downtrodden, and like two-thirds of your neighbors tape your mouth shut.

Afterall, the world is far to complex for us ordinaries to understand. That’s why we need our kings.

See this movie, it may change your mind about some things. Just try not to take his escapades too seriously. And for the moment try to forget that:

“He’s more of a left wing promoter than Hugo Chavez for crying out loud.”
Lou Dobbs

Speaking of Mediocrity...

I saw Danny Boyle’s Sunshine tonight.

Here is my brief review:
It’s like 2001: A Space Odyessey and Armageddon got married and had a beautiful, but slightly retarded son.

Here is my slightly less brief review:
Fifty years in the future, scientists are a lot cooler than they are now. They look like football players at the peak of their game. They are rash, emotionally unstable, and generally foolish. Unfortunately during this lull in scientific prowess, the sun decides it’s time to die. The people of earth hold a beauty contest to choose six people to be astronauts. The other two are chosen in a random lottery. These eight mediocre people are shipped off on a super high tech spacecraft (that none of them seems quite capable of operating) to detonate a stellar bomb to reignite the sun.

The sophomorically shallow characters aside, there are a few absolutely spine tingling scenes and a timely moral lesson to be learned.