suddenly nothing happened

Of course no sooner do I make a post about how I'm back then the shit hits the fan in my life, in a big way. Things are pretty nuts right now, and to be honest I'm not quite ready to blog about it yet. So I'm pretty much just going to go ahead and make entries as though the events of last week never happened, and I would appreciate it if those of you to whom I have spoken about those events would be discrete and do the same.

Yes, I know, I'm a dreadful tease.

some movies seen in theaters recently

The Squid & The Whale -- 3 stars -- I saw this at the behest of war_pug and I'm really glad that I did (and not just for the half-dressed Anna Paquin, although that was a definite bonus.) My respect for Laura Linney grows with each movie she appears in. It was significantly less surreal than the Life Aquatic without losing that wonderful essence of Baumbach. There was nothing in the movie that wasn't believable, although Jeff Daniels's performance (while excellent) did occasionally verge on hyperbole.

The Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor) -- 4 stars -- Obviously I've been anticipating the big-screen release of this one for months, but thanks once again to war_pug (EDIT: OK, actually apparently sleetfall, my bad) I got to see it for free. I even got to fill out a little audience response card and get some free merchandise out of the deal (all of which said "Coming Summer 2005" of course.) It was even better than I was expecting; the subtitles were integrated into the film in a really effective way and just added to what was already a very pretty movie. I can't wait for the sequels.

Syriana -- 1/2 star -- Yet another war_pug choice, as part of his recent movie-seeing kick. I guess he can't be right all the time. Steve, Pete and I all went to the theater together. Pete slept through most of the movie, Steve enjoyed it, and I split the difference by mostly staying awake but really thinking it was pretty worthless. Its not that I don't appreciate the message -- I do -- its that I'm bothered by the complete disregard for storytelling conventions. The filmmakers seemed totally content to forever drop the audience into a tense scene right at the important bit, leaving us struggling to figure out just who all the multitude of characters are and forever lagging behind the plot (such as it is) of the movie.

Ultraviolet -- 0 stars -- Of course, as much as I didn't enjoy Syriana, it can't hold a candle to this steaming pile of excrement. Now I'll be honest, I went into this one expecting it to be bad. I would have been satisfied with nothing more than a pretty Milla action flick, but this movie couldn't even deliver that. It was offensively bad, and in the end not even that pretty. Its yet another movie that's fallen victim to the regrettable trend (which in my opinion began with the Bourne Identity) of not letting the audience see the fight. I went in wanting gun kata, and I barely got 30 seconds of it. And I can't even bring myself to discuss the horrific holey plot or the skin-crawlingly bad dialogue. I award you no points, Kurt Wimmer, and may God have mercy on your soul.