the movie question

I have recently discovered the Netflix app for the Xbox 360, which is one of the first telemedia-based things in several years to make me go "ohhh sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeit!". Since then I have gorged myself on (arguably) bad TV like 30 Rock and the American incarnation of The Office; I partially blame Faye for this. Wait, I take that back, but I *do* blame her for the near month-long Project Runway glut that occurred at some point this year. Also, I have watched Ghostbusters like 5 times, and half-watched about 8 documentaries about how fucked up the war in Iraq is and what a bigass dummy the President is / was / will continue to be.

Probably the movies that will stick with me the most out of any I've watched this year are Chan-wook Park's trilogy on revenge: Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, Oldboy, and Lady Vengeance. Especially Oldboy. Brian, you especially must watch Oldboy. Now. It's so fucking disturbing, and you see the disturbing part coming, and you think you're ready for it, but you're not. In more concrete terms: the camera work has a nice hint of disjointy fracturedness to it, and the narrative arc of the films always feels tighter than Brooke's Calvins. It's not really an action movie, not really a thriller, not really a drama, not really a Sophocles retooling, but something in between all of those.



Honorable mention goes to A Certain Kind of Death, a documentary about what happens to people when they die with no next of kin. The best part of this one is there are no titles with "This is Jim Fucktard. Jim just died of cancer."..[blackout].."There's only one problem..."..[blackout]..."Jim has no living relatives or friends." That gets pretty heavy-handed in a documentary reeeeeeeally fucking fast (cf: all those Iraq documentaries), and is only a few short intellectual steps removed from the shit this video lampoons. A Certain Kind of Death just shows film of documents, people talking, scenes from the deceased's room, etc. to tell their version of a story -- no overt exposition. And there's no morality play encouraging you to go out and have tons of babies so This Doesn't Happen To You, which is also (somewhat) uncharacteristic for a documentary, in my experience. And welcome.

Fanz, I've been meaning to watch the Kenneth Anger collection for months now. Maybe I need to do some AMT or something to get me in the mood. Instead I'm (probably) wasting my time right now watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (the first animated series that came after the first two movies). Not nearly as good or weird as Lain (which I also watched this year) but explores a lot of similar issues with technomeat blur / [insert some other madeup lingual characterization of cyberpunk Jean Baudrillard things here].

Also worth checking out if you haven't: the Kieslowski "Three Colors" trilogy (which, like the revenge trilogy above, aren't *really* interrelated in the narrative Harry Potter sense, but more of a pairing of similar thematic explorations) , and The Double Life of Veronique, which is more digestible than the trilogy. I am betting that Kevin is also nursing a secret crush on Irene Jacob, or will soon be. Kieslowski is a Christian (I'm betting most of you will want to know that going in), but he doesn't beat you over the head with it or even really mention religion at all. Not in these movies anyway.