A Few Loose Ends

A quick hit list of films I saw but couldn't be bothered to write a whole review for (like the few ranting paragraphs I usually write would pass for reviews)

Hostel. This film was hyped as the scariest, grossest film in a long time. I've seen scarier and grosser and worse films. I liked it ok from a pure exploitation point of view, but it was meaningless and pointless. 2 out of 5 rating units.

Serenity: I downloaded this and burned it to DVD and watched it on my 32" TV. This is the first film I've ever downloaded and burned to DVD. If mine was the typical experience people get when downloading films, I have to wonder why they bother. The file took 2 days to torrent, and it was encoded in AVI so the transfer to DVD was crap. I'll keep going to theatres with the expensive concessions and mouth-breathers talking through the film so I can watch quality and crappy films they way they're supposed to be seen. Ranting aside, I like Serenity a lot. It was funny in parts, and smart and enjoyable. 4 out of 5 rating units.

Munich. Munich was well done. It made a conscious effort to tell the story from both side, showing both as human. Neither side was demonized, in my opinion. A solid film. 4 out of 5 rating units.

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The New World

Today, I saw the matinee of the new Terrence Malik film, "The New World."

Terrence seems to have a knack, or innate skill for taking an historic story, scene or setting and filming it in absolute beauty and making it godforsaken boring.

The movie is the story of Pocahontas. One must assume all of this since nowhere in the film are any but one of the main characters actually given names. The one character who's name is spoken is "Smith", played by Colin Farrel. Pocahontas' name is not spoken until her name is changed to Rebecca. Her husband's name is unknown, and is her child, and everyone else living in Jamestown. I suppose if you're interested in names, you can just look it up.

How can a movie that's two and half hours long leave out details like the main character's names? It's easy when there's only 10 minutes of actual dialogue in those two and half hours.

The movie progresses like this:

5 minutes of gorgeous nature shots
10 minutes of people looking at each other, then averting their eyes, and furtively touching each others faces
5 minutes of voiceover poetry about what they're thinking and feeling
5 minutes of gorgeous nature shots
5 minutes of voiceover poetry
10 minutes of people looking at each other
2 minutes of people speaking to someone, but the other person not answering, just staring back or looking away.

Repeat for two and a half hours.

There's a short battle scene or two in there as well.

At some point, this pattern became clear to me, and I began to look for instances where someone replied to a question or statement made to them. I counted no more than 6 times during the entire film where there was actual dialogue. There was lots of poetic voiceover.

After watching Terrence's previous film, "The Thin Red Line", I asked the question to my friend, "Why did the army put all of it's poets in the same unit?"

Near the end of "The New World", I began to ask myself, "Why did England send all of it's poets to Virginia?" Thankfully, once they arrive in England, there was still one poet in England reading a scroll in the Royal court.

I'm not asking for explosions, yelling or screaming, or dancing and singing raccoons. People talking to each other would go a long way to keeping me more interested in the film.

On the other hand, I am somewhat impressed with Mr. Malik's ability to tell a story without people actually conversing.

I'll give this one 2.5 rating units.