Last movie you watched......

Dumb and Dumber. Still so damn good.

 

Next Three Days (Russell Crowe, Elizabeth Banks). Horrible. Ridiculous plot. Thankfully it was a free PPV from dishnetwork.

 

"Shutter Island."

Still trying to process it. For 60-90 minutes, I'm thinking, "Why the hell would Scorcese make this unrealistic drivel?" I can't figure out yet if all the revelations are enough to save the rest.

It could be Hitchcockian. It could be hackery. Considering the director and cast, I'm leaning toward Hitchcockian. But I have to watch the first two acts in light of the third, kind of like "Sixth Sense."

 

Given the broad library available -- especially if anyone's younger, and hasn't plowed through the bulk of what's worthwhile within the historical catalog of world cinema -- SI simply isn't worthy of the time/trouble. And I love Scorcese -- when he's not repeating himself.

 

Anyone see the Freakanomics documentary, based on the book? It was really interesting, especially the name portion. It's on Netflix, FYI.

 

Not yet for me, thanks, but I'd be interested in hearing a review from a political neutral. No righties, please -- they'd just be singing hymns to themselves.

 

The sumo wrestling section is a must in the midst of what is going in Japan right now. I thought they really could have made a whole 90 minute doc on that alone.

 

It doesn't really have anything to do with politics unless you regard the Wall Street cheats. It's about things in popular culture: naming children for success, bribing children with money to achieve higher grades in high school, and sumo wrestlers cheating in Japan to stay atop the sport. Definitely worth a look, it's only 1 1/2 hours long.

 

Don't know whether it's covered in the feature referred to, but their read on global warming is laughably-righty.

 

I didn't realize Freak-onomics was considered righty propagandish. I know that it came out of the University of Chicago, which should be a hint, but I recall a friend of mine who is a devoted country club Republican had a book on his coffee table called "Patrio-noimics" or some other such nonsense that purported to be a real American's answer to the liberal "Freak-onomics" hogwash.

 

Trying to think of how many movies have mined this same plot twist. "Fight Club," of course. "The Others." The movie with Michael Douglas where he had killed his wife. The movie with Johnny Depp where I think it was the same thing ("Secret Window" maybe?). There's a million of them.

I guess what I like about "Shutter Island" is that the first 3/4 of the movie seem to be this note-perfect tribute to Cold War-era film noir, down to the way the characters talk, the hard-boiled DiCaprio backstory, and the suspicion of a Manchurian-like commie plot. But then, when all is revealed, it's like, "Ohhhhhh ... of course that's why it feels ripped from the 1953 movie house idea of what such a plot would entail ..." When I tried to read the novel, by the way, the lack of believability caused me to put it down about 100-150 pages in. It was worse there. For example, I'm pretty sure the anagrams came much earlier, and there was a bunch of silly math. I probably should have trusted Lehane more to stick with it.

Also, it's not a recent Leonardo DiCaprio film if there's not a dead wife involved. Bonus points if said dead wife appears only in his dreams.

 

Stone - Trainwreck. Avoid.