my movie weekend.

So my internet went out for a day and a half... it was rough. Quite dehabilitating. Which is interesting considering ten years ago (or maybe a little more...) no one really had the internet and thought nothing of it. I suppose it's good to take a small break every once in a while.

My Dad/Bro went to Ohio for the weekend, my mother is in Eastern Europe, and (as usual) my sister is in California. Home alone for the weekend.

I decided to watch movies. And that is what I did.

Here are my thoughts: (I realized if all I do is watch movies and then think nothing of them afterwards, I am wasting time... so this is part of my process of digesting flics I see)

Mystic River:
Um, great film. Ol' Clint has a way of directing that is refreshing. I'm a fan of Tim Robbins. I feel like he does a lot with out saying much. A mix of emotions are brought forth. Sad (heartbreaking perhaps?), anger (fing Sean Penn), etc. So if you're into good movies, watch this one.

Pretty in Pink:
80's classic that I thought I should enlighten myself with. Enjoyable. I prefer The Breakfast Club. Falls into a lot of cliche teen movie plot lines (or maybe started some of them?) but doesn't have the societal influence I think The Breakfast Club gave. Fyi, the reason I compare it to The Breakfast Club is because those two (along with Sixteen Candles and St. Elmo's Fire and probably a few more) contain characters known as the Brat Pack and the Brat Pack is a group of 80's teen actors who were in a lot of movies together... and thus their movies are often grouped together. Anyhow, fun movie. Nostalgic (even though I really didn't live in the 80's... who really remembers anything from the time before they were 3 years old?)

A History of Violence:
Crap. Poor acting. Vaguely interesting plot but felt old and re-used from other movies. I'm not sure how it got so much critical acclaim...

In the Bedroom:
So good. I swear, any movie with Tom Wilkinson in it is good. Besides that, this slow moving film dealing with loss, grief, revenge (and more) portrays those emotions so well. And when I say, "slow moving," I mean that in a good way. There's beauty in subtleties. Reminiscent of Mystic River in that it deals with some of the same issues but it's reacted to in slightly different ways and it hightlights different emotions in addition to being set in [beautiful] coastal Maine (as opposed to Mystic River's Boston). Basically, different atmosphere. But yeah, I endorse this one.

Magnolia:
One of those crazy "hi, we have 8 different storylines that vaguely interact" type of movies. Which I only first noticed with Crash but have since realized has been around for a while and is a common story telling technique (and btw, Magnolia was released in 1999... more than 5 years before Crash). I'm trying to see an overall theme to the movie but am having a hard time. I should probably rewatch but I don't know if that'll ever happen with it being a whopping 3 hours long... perhaps forgiveness. Making peace with those who hurt you or those you've hurt. Yeah, I'll stick next to that. I read a whole chapter on this movie out of a book which compared movies to Ecclesiastes and now I can't remember anything it said... lame. Anyhow, interesting film. Oh, it also has the other guy from Talladega Nights in it. And I really like him outside of roles where he's trying too much (.... like in Talladega Nights).


Ok, two things.

1: I got all these movies through the library. How baller is that? Mystic River skipped a little bit but otherwise, good times.
2: Most of the movies are rated R (excluding Pretty in Pink (PG-13)) so there's content. Yeah.