Category: Film

Unbreakable

I watched the DVD of Unbreakable last night. I thought it was pretty cool, except for the hastily tied up ending. Surely they could have left it a bit more ambiguous, couldn’t they? M. Night Shyamalan (whom everyone calls “Night” in the documentary. Cool.) seems like a great guy, but I’d suggest for his next movie, he casts someone other than Bruce Willis, gets rid of the kids, and remains twist-free. Maybe he could direct the next Adam Sandler flick? Nah, Paul Thomas Anderson is already doing that. By the way, I’m rating all my films over at IMDB now. I’d give Unbreakable an “8” even despite its weak ending, and the DVD is really nicely put together.

CriterionDVD

Aflutter with anticipation regarding the July 10 release of Withnail and I:The Criterion Collection, I was searching for info and found the excellent community at CriterionDVD.com. It’s a much better site than the official one, and has a great forums area. If you’re a cinephile, come and join in! Update: June 2002: Due to some bandwidth issues, the site is pretty much closed down. I’ve migrated to the fine film fora over at DVD Talk.

Sex And The City

I’ve spent the past two days watching eight episodes from the first season of Sex and the City. I’d never watched it and was slightly curious, so I rented the set on DVD. Although I giggled a few times, I wasn’t really impressed. These women have conversations that are just as shocking and insightful as any of us have (which is to say, “not very”.) Just because they’re having them on television is no reason to get excited. I find each episode’s topicality annoying. The conceit is that Sarah Jessica Parker’s character writes a weekly column, and just happens to find material in her friends’ lives. Conveniently, they all seem to wrestle with the week’s chosen “issue” at the same time. Sure, it’s a TV show, but something this contrived just fails to resonate with me. It’s the television equivalent of junk food.

Worse, Sarah Jessica Parker’s habit of stopping mid-scene and addressing the camera drives me crazy. Funny thing is, the same thing used to drive me crazy about her husband (Matthew Broderick) in his work. One hopes their real lives aren’t filled with these dramatic parentheses.

Another weakness is the way every character is so easily assigned a “type.” There’s the good girl, the slut, the gay friend, the geeky straight guy, and then whole legions of rich “toxic bachelors.” The funniest is the character of “Skipper” (I kid you not), a late 20s “website designer” who has the demeanor and brains of a lost puppy.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s a girl thing…

Toronto Rocks

Toronto rocks. Truly, this feels like the cheapest place in the world to buy media. Today, for instance, I purchased the following DVDs (multiply prices by .67 to get $US):

I’m surprised more Americans don’t visit Toronto just to buy DVDs and CDs.

And Mac owners, check out this strange and compelling game: Tranquility. A Windows version is on the way.