Predators

I was betrayed by the Washington Post with this one. Their review said the movie was a rollicking good time, light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek action. Which is the kind of thing I love. And while the movie's outright absurdity and bizarro plot does make it occasionally entertaining, it's ultimately just too stupid to merit the time - especially the last half hour.

The opening is vaguely interesting, and at first, it's kind of like action on Lost island - all kinds of weird shit is going on, and the characters are vaguely mysterious. They are also ridiculous cliches, but that's sort of fun. There are some genuinely creepy moments, and some quite amusing ones as well, when the film just turns to deadpan outright ridiculousness ("It's 5:00. Time to go rape some fine-ass bitches."). But then it attempts to get somewhat philosophical (moral quandary! Save yourself or work with others!) and then it realizes that it can't figure out how to solve the dilemma its set for itself and ends, clearly threatening a continuation.

One vaguely interesting aspect is the gender dynamic and the way it works against the power dynamic. Adrien Brody (who will hopefully be getting a large paycheck out of this one, because that's gotta be the reason he did it) sets himself up as alpha male pretty much immediately. The only potential challenge to this is the token female, who is thankfully pretty badass and quite attractive. She also, of course, is a team player, but this gets justified throughout the course of the film, and we're also shown that when it comes down to it, she does put survival first. So she's kind of the second-in-command, and what's intriguing to me about that is that I think her gender is crucial to that fact. I mean, it helps that she IS badass, and that the other characters might be but that's irrelevant because their real purpose is to be expendable and/or create suspense, but nonetheless - I really do think being female allows her to sort of sidestep the power struggle and be second top dog, so long as she's under the alpha male.

But yeah. While it's fleetingly entertaining and occasionally creepy, and the plot is wacko and the mystery guest star appearance is indeed amazing, there's ultimately not enough bad-assness or, well, quality, to make it worthwhile to spend the money on seeing this one instead of renting the original.

Meditations on First Philosophy, by Descartes

I know, you're probably thinking boring, dry philosophy, I think therefore I am, bla bla bla. That's what I was expecting myself. But I'm working on a chapter on Beckett, and having re-read The Unnamable for the umpteenth time, I realized that it behooved me to check out what is obviously a source text. I had also, not so long ago, attended a lecture where the speaker talked about how the thing about Descartes is that his works aren't so much about the claims or conclusions, but about the process, and ought to be read as a kind of activity of contemplation. So I decided to give it a shot. And it turns out - I loved it.

The joy of reading Descartes is indeed the process, the lyrical unfolding of a solitary mind trying to understand itself and the world. If you enjoy angsty first-person narrators (Sartre, Dostoevsky, Beckett), then you really must do read Descartes. Not that he was the first to invent the practice - there are plenty of contemplative mind at work bits in Augustine's Confessions, for instance - but he does it so beautifully, and it really does set the stage for the later versions.

One of the astonishing things about the narrative is how tangible it is. He's trying to figure out whether the universe exists, and meanwhile, you have these scenes where he's looking at a piece of wax, and it's so shockingly vivid, it's gorgeous. A nice example, incidentally, of the power of literature and its ability to evoke, and how it can be in a tension with the ostensible claims being made.

The argument itself is interesting, though flawed at moments. Though I probably should be giving some kind of analysis of its points, I won't, partly because I'm not really prepared to make one yet, and partly because I'd rather tell you, dear readers, about the beauty of the book instead. There are many arguments out there to read this work, but pleasure is generally not among them, and it turns out to be the best one of all.

Be With Me

This is not a very good movie, but there are a couple interesting things about it.

To begin with the weaknesses - the film is meant to be three interwoven stories. The interweaving is the least compelling bit of it - the characters do appear in each other's stories, but in a highly coincidental, and not particularly interesting fashion. Secondly, the fact is, the movie isn't really that interested in two of the stories - they're really just kind of there, it seems, to beef up the primary one, namely, the story of a woman named Theresa Poh Lin Chan, whose autobiography provided the material.

Theresa is indeed a fascinating individual. At the age of 10, she became blind and deaf. Yet, she somehow managed to learn English - this completely blows my mind - and even to SPEAK it. The portion of the film dealing with her is ostensibly about her friendship with a lonely widower, but really, it's mostly about her. And she is really interesting. Curiously enough, she spends a lot of time talking about how miserable her life has been. But she's also sort of resigned to it, and puts her faith in God. This may sound uninteresting, but when you watch her, there really is something magnetic and tremendously inspiring about her. The movie is almost worth renting just to see her.

The other somewhat interesting aspect is the narrative mode of the film. In that a lot of the story is conveyed non-verbally, through text messages and internet chats, or a letter that one character is trying to write. In fact, most of the speech in the movie is Theresa's. But there are also a lot of shots of people speaking to her, namely, signing into her hand. There's something really neat about the way the film propels itself through all these various modes of communication. It makes me think about realism and storytelling, and what the most appropriate form of a realistic story would seem to be.

Ultimately though - it's not that compelling a movie, mostly because the first two stories are basically tired cliches. So there you have it.

Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, by Roddy Doyle

This book is in some ways very similar to another one of Doyle's, The Woman Who Walked into Doors (which I really liked). It's the same stream-of-consciousness, episodic narrative style, where you're seemingly getting everything with the immediacy of the character's perspective. The problem is, unlike the other book, where the narrator is a middle aged woman with a lot to say, the narrator here is a ten year old boy. Who doesn't have a whole lot going on in his life outside the usual 10 year old stuff, except for what appears to be the dissolution of his parents' marriage. So where The Woman has a compelling narrative arc, and a kind of progression, Paddy Clarke just sort of ambles along. The real merit of the book is the voice, which is indeed rendered quite well. But ultimately... I just don't find 10 year old boys all that compelling.

One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding, by Robert Grover

An interesting idea, but ultimately not as good as you'd like it to be. Written in 1962 (and very much of the time), the novel is about a white college fratboy and a black prostitute, and the weekend they spend together. The twist is that the chapters alternate between their perspectives, and the fun of that is supposed to be that neither can understand the other. They're practically speaking different languages. I think it was probably a really important book at the time it was written, but it's clearly dated now.

The thing is though, there's not much in the way of development. Neither of them really learns much from the encounter, and the plot is mostly pretty predictable. There are moments where it seems like they could actually come to some sort of understanding, but they never do. Also, the characters are both basically caricatures - the guy, especially, is so annoying that you get incredibly sick of him (and his pretensions and prudery) very quickly.

Still, it's kind of an interesting read. And quick - I got through it in less than three hours.

Georgy Girl

Oh man. This movie is so weird. It got some attention recently with the passing of Lynn Redgrave, and shot up to Very Long Wait on the Netflix, but by some miracle, I actually got a copy (despite the fact that I've been waiting a good 3 months for Malcolm X, which is listed as Short Wait).

So, the plot revolves around Georgy, a chubby 22 year old virgin. She thinks no one will ever love her. Her roommate (a very young Charlotte Rampling, which is kind of fascinating) is a party girl. I don't really wanna give away the plot, but basically, 2 men end up vying for Georgy's affections, and she has to decide what to do. But that's not really the point.

There are two really weird things about this movie.

One is that it's this really bizarre anti-abortion propaganda film. It's so weird. There's a scene where a woman casually refers to "destroying" babies and mentions having had multiple abortions. When she ultimately does have a baby, she basically ignores it and wants to give it up for adoption immediately. She has absolutely no maternal instincts whatsoever. It's comedic in its cruelty. Meanwhile, Georgy, as it turns out, really just wants a baby. She's not necessarily asexual, but by the end of the film, it's pretty clear that she really just wants to be a mother. It's so weird, because on the one hand it's really disturbing and kind of disappointing, but on the other hand, she's kind of likeable and quirky so you sort of want her to get what she wants.

The other weird thing, which I actually loved, is the song-and-dance routine in the middle of it. I tried to find it on youtube, but no luck (you can, however, watch Lynn Redgrave on the Muppets show, which is nice). The scene is like this awesome throwback to the silver screen starlets of the 20s and 30s like Rita Hayworth or Lena Horne. The scene is totally random, and rather out of character, but it's just amazing.

It goes along with this thing that I really liked in the movie, which was Georgy's proclivity for randomly shouting sometimes. I have a similar tendency, so I particularly enjoyed it.

But yeah. It's a really strange film. In a way, it's charming, but it's also just... odd. You sort of have the sense that it's capturing a kind of ethos, but one that's in a kind of tension with the film's actual plot. Still, there are some really wonderful scenes. But overall, yeah, I can't really make up my mind how I feel about it.

A Prophet

For whatever reason, the preview for this movie didn't make me want to see it. I kind of thought it'd be gratuitously brutal and just not that good. But it was playing at my local campus theatre, and I kept hearing it was really good, so I figured I'd check it out. I'm so glad I did. Wow. This movie is stunning. Visually, it's jaw-droppingly incredible. It's so incredibly shot, it's just exquisite. The plot, while a little bit confusing (to me at least) keeps you interested, and really, it's particulars are less important than the development of the main character, which is incredibly compelling.

Malik goes from being a basically mute guy who falls afoul of the law to being a self-assured, educated criminal. The simultaneous development of the criminality and the self-assurance is the really fascinating part. You're always cheering for him, even when he's doing some pretty fucked up things. Partly, this is because he retains a kind of innocence - there's an absolutely breathtaking scene where he flies on an airplane for the first time, but there's also this moment in a scene where he's basically executing some guys where it suddenly switches to silent slow-motion and he's just kind of floating in this pile of bodies in a vaguely Christ-like way. It's really impressive.

This isn't something that I tend to notice much, but the sound in the movie was phenomenal. There are, to my recollection, only 3 songs in the film, but each of them is so fantastically effective in setting the scene. Aside from those though, the sound is kind of... barren, in a way, which makes it somehow more powerful. Really impressive stuff.

It's not a perfect film - some of the sideplots are slightly less compelling, and it feels a bit cluttered at moments, but still, it's a really incredible movie. Very much worth seeing - on the big screen if you can, because seriously, visually, it's a masterpiece.