Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Sep 172010
 

I’m not really sure how I never saw this movie until now.  I think it came out in that period between 2002-2007 where I didn’t really watch movies.

Such a shame, because it is really a great film.  I had previously only seen Adaptation, and I could never understand what the appeal of Charlie Kaufman was.   After ESOTSM, I totally get it.  It was like watching an Italo Calvino novel.

What a boring movie Adaptation was.  Now I see that it wasn’t Charlie Kaufman’s fault, it was Nicolas Cage’s fault.   Or maybe Spike Jonze’s.

After checking Wikipedia, I see that Spike Jonze has directed three movies:  Being John Malkovich (written by Kaufman, which I haven’t seen), Adaptation, and Where the Wild Things Are (which is terrible).  I think perhaps Spike Jonze’s reputation is a bit overblown.

The Lovely Bones

Sep 082010
 

My apologies for not updating this in awhile.  In order to try and make myself update more regularly, I’m going to try to put reviews of movies/music that I have recently seen up here.  Since I usually see movies about a year after they come out, I will not feel bad about posting spoilers.

The Lovely Bones.

I never read the book, but I’ve heard many people have.  It seemed like there was a lot in this movie that would be better with a deeper exploration, the kind you can do with a book that is harder to do with a movie.  I don’t feel I am the kind of person who needs a happy/satisfying ending every time, but it really seemed to me that the ending of the film said that it didn’t really matter that these children had died in terror at the hands of a brutal killer, so long as they had each other in heaven.  It was pretty unsatisfying.  Because I wanted a little justice in my ending, it made me feel like a movie watcher with totally unrefined and pedestrian tastes.