Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Here today, gone to Maui.

It's 78 degrees in Honolulu right now, according to the forecast on Knickers the iPhone. There's no point to my mentioning that, just the observation that it is seventy-fucking-eight fucking de-fucking-grees in fucking Hono-fucking-lu-fuck-lu right fucking now.

New York, meanwhile, is clocking in at a balmy 18 degrees with the wind chill. Jealous, Hawaii?

I'm beginning to wonder why I keep the forecast for Honolulu programmed into my phone. I used to think it was a goal. But right this minute, it feels a lot more like pointless masochism, as opposed to the more poignant masochism of suffering through a movie directed by Clint Eastwood. Seriously, that guy should change his name to Clint "Piece of Shit"wood, to more accurately reflect the content of his "artistic vision." Mystic River made me want to shoot someone's brains out on the banks of the Charles River. We should bury that movie. We should bury it deep.

Word. Out.

2 comments:

Pete said...

Guess that you're not a fan of Million Dollary Baby or Flags of our Fathers?

There's a certain drawn-out melancholy that runs through the movies he's directed. Sometimes it plays well, sometimes it doesn't.

(I liked Mystic River).

As for your obsession with the weather in Honolulu, I think it means you are supposed to go to Hawaii. Clearly, it's calling you. And you will never want to leave once you get there.

How come Laci never comments on here?

Smokey Robinson (aka Matt) said...

I honestly don't know how you could have liked that movie. But I'm outraged that it was up for award consideration. Best screenplay? Seriously? As one IMDb reviewer wrote, "honestly, this was some of the least compelling dialog since the silent era."

The same reviewer also referred to Eastwood's films as "plodding" and "paceless," adding, "he has to lugubriously draw your attention to the most mundane details just to make sure the audience doesn't miss anything. And the character through lines? 'You're the hard case of the group,' says the kidnapper to the young Jimmy, who we've just seen write his name in concrete, so now we'll know who's who when they're grown up. This is what passes for character development in this absolute joke of a film."

Look, I know we live in a multi-sensory world, and that most of us suffer from advanced ADD at this point, but surely we can place greater demands on the audience than having to tell them so directly who the hard case of the group is, can't we? Think about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade for a minute, how they made it clear that River Phoenix and Harrison Ford were the same character by making physical assignations, showing the trademark hat, and even having the young Indy split his chin experimenting with the whip, which dovetailed oh-so-cutely with Harrison Ford's chin scar. I hate to hold up a River Phoenix bit as the standard for developing character, but that was oodles better than Mystic River.

Also, bad editing. I was ready to fall asleep during that first pan of the river. I'm pretty sure Clint Eastwood must have gone comatose during editing. He probably shit his adult diaper too.