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Since it's been about minus 1000 degrees around here lately most nights, I've been spending most week nights laying around inside watching 1-2 movies a night and playing poker and/or writing. Here are some of the more interesting, quality films I've watched (as always, I'll keep the description brief in case you want to check them out yourself, since I think films are better when you go into them knowing little about the plot):
Brick -- Best described as a mystery movie that has a stylistic feel similar to Requiem for a Dream. It also has Eden from Heroes and Claire from Lost in it.
Death at a Funeral -- A pretty quirky, ironic comedy with a simple plot that is fun and easy to follow.
Paris, Je T'Aime -- A dozen or so shorts that are almost 100% unrelated, which had me feeing like the movie was pretty pointless -- until it was over, and then I had an "uh-huh" moment and realized it's a supurb masterpiece that says a lot about love and how an environment (in this case, Paris) can shape love in all its crazy forms. Bonus points for Natalie Portman being in it for five minutes and being awesome as always.
The Dead Girl -- Another movie with several short stories, except these ones are slightly more related. I could see some people getting bored by the movie but I thought it was very thought provoking and well-directed (especially the end story with Brittany Murphy).
Charlie Bartlett -- It's the Ferris Bueller of the 21st century, you heard it here first (maybe? we'll see, I think this one has cult-classic written all over it). Such a simple, stupid, light-hearted movie that also features the oft-underrated Robert Downey Jr. being great as always.
Keeping with the movie theme of this blog, today I ordered 41 movies off Amazon... I'm pretty pumped since a majority of them I haven't heard of or know little about, or else are old classics -- but all of them seem to have gotten great reviews. I think I've only seen one out of the 41 on this list (Love The Hard Way):
The United States of Leland
The Visitor
Double Indemnity
Edge of Heaven
Maachuca
Children Underground
Love the Hard Way
The Way I Spent the End of the World
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Voices in the Tunnels: In Search of the Mole People
Bomb It
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu
Green Street Hooligans
The Orphanage
Dead Man's Shoes
Cool Hand Luke
Bottle Rocket
Rebecca
The Philadelphia Story
Young@Heart
Doctor Zhivago
Lars and the Real Girl
Dark Days
Adam's Apples
My Flesh and Blood
Cowards Bend The Knee
Best in Show
Sunset Boulevard
Wall-E
All the Real Girls
The Hustler
The Devil's Backbone
This is England
Lust, Caution
M
The Squid and the Whale
The Sound of Music
A Streetcar Named Desire
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days
Vertigo
Me and You and Everyone We Know
Thanks to those who gave some movie comments a few blogs ago.
Also a few days ago my nice SLR camera arrived. I don't really know how to utilize all the features the camera and various lenses I purchased offered. It's pretty clear that learning how to get the most out of my camera is going to take some reading and practice (and maybe even signing up for a class or two), but it's going to be a fun challenge. Here is one picture I took that I think is artistic though you are certainly fine to think it sucks, but I could see it being usable in a game room or certain type of environment:
I would call it "winegraine." A play on words between the in-focus wine bottle, and the medicine jar that is out of focus and also reflecting within the wine bottle. Wine and soda are often causes of migraines, and the meds relieve them. Haha pretty stupid, but I was just fooling around my place aiming at random things and seeing what kind of things resulted when trying out various lenses. I'll get better with time and practice.
More later folks. Stay warm!
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