I feel kind of weird being down to just two movies a week. I'm totally going to watch more, I swear.
V for Vendetta (2006): It is about as good as a V for Vendetta adaptation can be, even if it (necessarily) streamlines some storyline and more obviously ships Evey and V (he's a bit more cold-blooded and ruthless in the comic, although he keeps a good portion of the crazy in the movie). Something else I miss from the comics is the villains being more well developed -- especially the leader -- although I do greatly enjoy the irony of John Hurt playing the totalitarian leader. (He plays Winston Smith in the movie version of 1984.) But, with all that said, I do like the movie. Read the comic if you haven't, but the movie is no slouch.
Let the Right One In (2008): This is one of the few times I am sad the novel a movie is based upon completely answers questions and ambiguities in the movie. Now, this is just from reading about the plot, so it could be executed really well and I don't know about it, but what the movie ambiguities suggest is a lot more interesting than the reality of the book's plot.
For instance, the book apparently makes it clear that Eli's handler is a pedophile, and that is basically why he has stayed with Eli for so long. There are hints to this in the movie -- Eli brushes his/her hand across the guy's face, and he shivers with obvious pleasure, which set off every pedo alarm in my mind. However, there is also genuine devotion in the guy's actions. I mean, he wouldn't disfigure himself with acid for just any random person. And he also allows Eli to kill him. The ending shows Oskar running away with Eli ... so what if Eli's former handler was once a kid like Oskar who fell in love with Eli and stayed with Eli all his life? Now that is interesting and lends a subtle tragedy to the ending if Oskar is being set up for that same miserable life. It also ties in with Eli telling Oskar that they cannot be friends -- there's the whole vampire thing, yeah, but maybe Eli has already seen the fate Oskar could potentially have. But once feelings start moving ...
Hooray for random plot discussion only people who have seen the movie will care about! I really enjoyed this movie, obviously. It's grisly and violent but not particularly scary (although it has some intense moments). What really makes it worthwhile is how it develops the relationship between Eli and Oskar; at heart, they are two extremely lonely, miserable kids who need some way to escape. The story is pretty touching if you can get past how dark it is. The only thing I don't like about the movie is that there is this one scene with cats that is completely ridiculous and hilariously awful. Let the Right One In spends most of the movie masking the violence, to good effect, but in one of the few times the movie decides to show everything ... really bad. But not so bad that it ruins the movie.
On the queue for this week: Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) and other things. Really.
Total Movies: 143 (Gaslight, The Last King of Scotland, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Darjeeling Limited, This Film is Not Yet Rated, Diary of the Dead, Bullets Over Broadway, Interiors, Husbands and Wives, The Professional: Golgo 13, Lars and the Real Girl, Lolita, Quills, Hamlet, Iris, Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, The Savages, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Stranger, Love and Death, Harold and Maude, Spartacus, Scarlet Street, Sabrina, Zelig, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask), Stardust Memories, Barry Lyndon, Be Kind Rewind, Radio Days, Deconstructing Harry, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Creating Rem Lazar, Undefeatable, Ninja Terminator, Ninja Dragon, Rumble Fish, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, In Bruges, The Bank Dick, Marathon Man, Clannad, Air, Tokyo Godfathers, Millennium Actress, MirrorMask, Slither, It's a Gift, Splendor in the Grass, Waitress, North by Northwest, Monkey Business, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro, The Brave One, 3:10 to Yuma, Bringing Out the Dead, Gurren Lagann: Gurren-hen, There Will Be Blood, Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder, The Princess Bride, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, Spellbound, Frenzy, Anatomy of a Murder, Clue, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Changeling, Shadows and Fog, Into the Wild, Rosencratz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1987), Synecdoche, New York, Carlito's Way, Shoot 'Em Up, Evangelion: 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Up, Yor: Hunter from the Future, Tropic Thunder, True Romance, Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie, A Woman Under the Influence, Casablanca, Frost/Nixon, Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Le Samouraï, Inland Empire, The Reader, Doubt, Arachnophobia, Manhunter, Wild At Heart, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, The Omega Man, Hitman, Leaving Las Vegas, Cape Fear, Say Anything ..., Fullmetal Alchemist: The Conqueror of Shamballa, Chasing Amy, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Point Break, 500 Days of Summer, Man Bites Dog, Burn After Reading, Glory, Training Day, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, White Heat, All About Eve, The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), The Big Heat, Death at a Funeral, Valkyrie, Shane, Stalag 17, Secondhand Lions, Bride of Frankenstein, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Witness for the Prosecution, In a Lonely Place, Dracula, Escaflowne, Dark Passage, X/1999, Watchmen, High Anxiety, Point Blank, Murder, My Sweet, The Thing from Another World, Revolutionary Road, Commando, Coraline, Rachel Getting Married, V for Vendetta, Let the Right One In)
