Monday, May 30, 2005
Five good movies
My friend Eagle1 is collecting favorite movies. Here are some of mine:
1. Saw Crash on Saturday. Great movie.
Not really a spoiler warning, but stop here if you are really spoiler sensitive.
Crash is not realistic. The racist cop does things that cops don't do. The boyhood friends turned criminal are more normal than real criminals are. But all the exaggerations are used to give brilliant force to the underlying message: that racial wrongs propagate, and the dynamic can work the other way too. Treating people as individuals regardless of their race sweeps the facade of race aside, and the goodwill that springs from recognition of each other's individual qualities propagates, just as does the bad. In this contest between the wrongs created by treating people according to race, and the good done by treating people as individuals, race conscious government becomes the pump primer of the negative cycle, and Crash's indictments of race conscious government are devastating.
Great themes, punctuated by many powerfully encapsulating moments. A little bit of foolishness of the gun-possession-turns-law-abiding-people-into-murderers sort, but given the perfect scenario that this foolishness enables, I can't even complain about it. In theaters now.
2. Team America: World Police. This movie was never properly marketed and a lot of people who would have loved it didn't see it. The trailer tried to avoid alienating any part of the audience by promising to alienate everyone equally, and reviews mostly did the same, presenting the movie as sophmorically ridiculing both sides in the terror war. In fact, Team America is a total, over the top, leftist-crushing, terrorist-crushing, Kim-Jong-Il crushing patriotic romp, as moving and right as it is insanely funny. Be careful when you sip your soda. It is likely to come out your nose. I hear that in the DVD, they grossed out the sex scene (between marionettes, mind you), so be ready to cover your girlfriend/wife's eyes.
3. The Incredibles. Saw it for the second time when I took my mom to see it. She loved it. As with Team America, I don't have to worry about giving any dollars to stinking left-wing Hollywood actors. Yay.
4. On the Waterfront. My candidate for best movie ever made, and that was BEFORE I knew it was an allegory on the morality of outing Communists.
5. Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery and The Spy who Shagged Me. For a full year, whenever my girlfriend and I wanted to watch TV and there was nothing on, we would put in one of these. I even became fluent in Dr. Evil's rap. Just don't expect too much. It is incredibly stupid, but it never gets old, like Curly of the Three Stooges.
1. Saw Crash on Saturday. Great movie.
Not really a spoiler warning, but stop here if you are really spoiler sensitive.
Crash is not realistic. The racist cop does things that cops don't do. The boyhood friends turned criminal are more normal than real criminals are. But all the exaggerations are used to give brilliant force to the underlying message: that racial wrongs propagate, and the dynamic can work the other way too. Treating people as individuals regardless of their race sweeps the facade of race aside, and the goodwill that springs from recognition of each other's individual qualities propagates, just as does the bad. In this contest between the wrongs created by treating people according to race, and the good done by treating people as individuals, race conscious government becomes the pump primer of the negative cycle, and Crash's indictments of race conscious government are devastating.
Great themes, punctuated by many powerfully encapsulating moments. A little bit of foolishness of the gun-possession-turns-law-abiding-people-into-murderers sort, but given the perfect scenario that this foolishness enables, I can't even complain about it. In theaters now.
2. Team America: World Police. This movie was never properly marketed and a lot of people who would have loved it didn't see it. The trailer tried to avoid alienating any part of the audience by promising to alienate everyone equally, and reviews mostly did the same, presenting the movie as sophmorically ridiculing both sides in the terror war. In fact, Team America is a total, over the top, leftist-crushing, terrorist-crushing, Kim-Jong-Il crushing patriotic romp, as moving and right as it is insanely funny. Be careful when you sip your soda. It is likely to come out your nose. I hear that in the DVD, they grossed out the sex scene (between marionettes, mind you), so be ready to cover your girlfriend/wife's eyes.
3. The Incredibles. Saw it for the second time when I took my mom to see it. She loved it. As with Team America, I don't have to worry about giving any dollars to stinking left-wing Hollywood actors. Yay.
4. On the Waterfront. My candidate for best movie ever made, and that was BEFORE I knew it was an allegory on the morality of outing Communists.
5. Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery and The Spy who Shagged Me. For a full year, whenever my girlfriend and I wanted to watch TV and there was nothing on, we would put in one of these. I even became fluent in Dr. Evil's rap. Just don't expect too much. It is incredibly stupid, but it never gets old, like Curly of the Three Stooges.
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