jwalkernet

Haven't updated in a while. Not like it matters, because no one reads this anyway. But I still feel bad.

I've been renting movies like a madman over the past month or so. Since my current financial situation doesn't allow me to purchase DVDs (though I've got quite the impressive collection already), I've rediscovered the joy that is renting. I think it was simply the evilness of those evil Satan-worshippers at Blockbuster that turned off in the first place, so now I'm going to Bayou Video, a little video store that resides between the Dollar General Store and a barber shop. It's small, but it's got class. And movies are cheap, plus no one there worships the Dark Lord Lucifer, at least to my knowledge.

Here's a list of the movies I've managed to rent there, along with a brief capsule review (I am planning to start writing full-blown reviews to add to my film reviews section, but this will do for now).

The Truman Show
What a great movie. When people talk about the 1999 Academy Awards, they usually talk about the "injustice" that was Saving Private Ryan's failure to win Best Picture (an award that went to the vastly superior Shakespeare in Love). But what few people remember is an even greater injustice: the nearly complete shutout of Peter Weir's stunning The Truman Show. A satire that manages to be both funny, pointed and moving, Truman features a brilliant performance by Jim Carrey and one of the great moments in all of cinema: Truman's reunion with his "long-lost" "father," all orchestrated by his unseen director, Christof (played superbly by Ed Harris). And the stunning climax, when Truman comes face-to-face with God and turns away. A true masterpiece.

(Rating: Essential #60)

Punch-Drunk Love
It's now official: writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson (who also gave us Boogie Nights and Magnolia) is the best American filmmaker working today. Punch-Drunk Love is the romantic comedy for people who don't like romantic comedies, and the Adam Sandler movie for people who hate Adam Sandler. Sandler's Barry Egan is strikingly similar to other Sandler creations like Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison: lonely, sexually frustrated, prone to violent outbursts. But unlike those characters, whose emotional deficiences are celebrated and played for laughs, here he becomes a object of pity, as we see him tormented by the relentless childish teasing of his sisters. He falls in love at first sight with the glorious Lena (Emily Watson) while avoiding the henchmen of the sinister operator of a phone-sex company (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Yeah, it sounds bizarre, and it is, but what would you expect from the guy who had Tom Cruise strutting around a stage screaming "Respect the cock and tame the cunt"?

(Rating: *****)

The Evil Dead
I'd been waiting to see this for years. I'd heard so much about the greatness of this cheapo horror flick. I was skeptical -- after all, it was the film debut of director Sam Raimi, whom I've never been fond of (the man behind the horrible The Quick and the Dead, the cheesy For the Love of the Game, and the wildly overpraised Spiderman). But last night, I finally got a chance to see it. And....wow, did it suck. Sorry, people, I just don't get it. The first thirty minutes or so are pretty good, but it eventually decends into an endless stream of gore splattering across the screen. And it's just not scary at all. Sorry.

(Rating: *1/2)

Terminator 2: Judgment Day
This just might be the greatest action movie ever made. Do I really have to say anything else?

(Rating: Essential #38)

Unprecedented: The 2000 Presedential Election
George W. Bush is Satan. I wonder if he ever worked for Blockbuster....

(Rating: ****)

The Game
The film David Fincher made between Se7en and Fight Club. Anything is going to look bad between those films, and it doesn't help that The Game is pretty predictable. Looks great, well-acted, but the script lets Fincher down.

(Rating: ***)

Rushmore
The only movie I can think of that is actually funnier in retrospect than it is while you're actually watching it. Kinda like high school. A great movie, and what might be Bill Murray's best performance.

(Rating: ****1/2)

And that's it. I also rented Moulin Rouge!, but I think I'm going to write a full-blown review of that one. Gotta go now -- I have to go to the video store.


"I wish he would have done this for me when I was a kid."
"But you didn't have a drug problem then."
"It still would have meant a lot to me."