My sister and I review movies we've seen with each other every month, I'll just cut and paste what I sent to her this morning:
Saw Crash this weekend. I really liked it. It's in the style of movies like Short Cuts and Magnolia -- a dozen or so characters whose paths keep crossing in coincidental ways -- which annoys John, but I've always enjoyed that sort of thing. There was only one point where I found the coincidence so farfetched that it annoyed me. And there was one other moment in the movie that bothered me, involving the use of a child for a particularly cheap bit of emotional manipulation. Even still, the writing is so sharp, the acting is incredible, and I think the movie is a must see. Great performances from Sandra Bullock and Terrence Howard; alson on hand in this large ensemble cast are Don Cheadle, Brendan Fraser, Tony Danza, and Ryan Phillippe, who I'm beginning to think is going to be a very good actor in five or ten years, when his prettiness wears off enough that we can see past the pretty face.
The next night we watched John's pick, Black Hawke Down. This is not my kind of movie, but I have to say, I was engrossed from beginning to end. Its the harrowing recount of a disasterous 1993 Special Forces mission in Somalia which resulted in 19 dead Amercian soliders and about 1,000 dead Somalis. Not warm and fuzzy, but a really good movie.
On the lighter side, we also watched Curb Your Enthusiasm, Season 4. This was the weakest of the CYE seasons so far, but it was still some of the funniest stuff I have *ever* seen. There were parts where I was laughing so hard it hurt. We both just love Larry David. I mean, what a genuis this guy is. He figured out a way to play himself - he gets to walk around LA whining and moaning about everything, gets filmed doing it, and makes a boatload of money as a result. What's not to love? Told John to put this on my Christmas list, I want all 4 seasons of this to own.