but is Alexander, the Oliver Stone disaster, one of the most hypotically awful movies ever made? I never saw it in the theatre, and I haven’t really seen it now, but I’ve watched two disconnected segments of roughly 30 minutes each recently, and I have to say I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It has Stone’s usual can’t look away coked, peyoted, God knows what else melofire indulgence mixed with the usual pageantry and terrible expostion that comes with the modern (or past) Roman sandal movie. I haven’t seen it all the way through, so this is not a review, and I admit that I’m writing out of partial ignorance, but something this bad (but bizarrely juicy, sort of entertaining) from a director of some esteem would almost have to be satire. Or maybe Stone’s satire of a satire of a satire.
Speaking of Tunnel Vision….
It wasn’t by design but it looks like we’re going to be in a low-key horror groove for the next few days. I will probably have a post about The American Nightmare at the beginning of the week as well as Mr. Brooks and maybe the just released 1408. I know, I know, I should be important and watch and pretend to like Ms. Jolie’s Mighty Heart, but I just can’t. It looks like a big load of ego to me, a letter from Angelina Jolie to Angelina Jolie congratulating herself on both her global importance and her acting ability. Of all the BIG!! IMPORTANT!! social dramas Hollywood makes each year, I maybe find one or two to be watchable. In this case, I think I’ll pass, if I see the film on DVD a few months down the line and turn out to be wrong I promise to eat a healthy bit of crow.
Posted on June 22nd, 2007 in Bits & Pieces | no comments
Trailer: Margot at the Wedding
Bits & Pieces: The Sopranos Series Finale
Did it really surprise anyone that Sopranos creator/mastermind David Chase didn’t satiate our collective lust for some huge arching melodrama? The man and the series have been deftly commenting and tweaking our need for catharsis for the last seven years, and I didn’t expect anything different from the finale.
The last fifty odd minutes of “The Sopranos” was one of its finest hours, a mini-State of Things masterpiece written and directed by David Chase. The finale was less about the family and more about our country, and the American way of numbing ourselves with pop culture and selling out the first chance we get.
And it can cost us at any given minute. The fact that this came off as neither pompous nor pretentious is a testament to the supreme skill of everyone involved on both sides of the camera. Yes, the feud between Tony and Phil Leotardo was resolved, but it couldn’t have been anymore besides the point.
