As I predicted I cut down a bit on the viewing of new films with the heavy dosage I got from WIFF. I did see (not including watching Deathproof and Kill Bill Vol. 2!) 3 movies over the past weeks.
FANTASTIC MR. FOX (2009)
Absolutely wonderful. So innocent yet off-kilter. Gives you a warm fuzzy feeling after watching.
One week later....
THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE (FIRST SEQUENCE) (2009)
I could spend paragraphs failing to rationally explain to the average friend how, somehow, there's some deep disturbing place in my mind that really wanted to see this. But I really want to be honest in my disclosure of the types of movies I seek. I'll just say that no movie since Battle Royale offered a concept so bizarre and so unfathomable that imagining how this movie was going to be became a pathological distraction. Every boring meeting, every idle moment, allowed my mind to wander to this movie to the point where I had to see it as soon as possible, even going so far as to pay, full-price, for an HD version of the movie on-demand.
And it delivers, in awful awful ways. I don't really want to see it again, and I don't want to discuss this film with anyone if I don't have to. Sometimes things just have to be seen.
I can't begin to understand how the scenes from the Human Centipede still stick with me, while the happy pleasant memories of Fantastic Mr. Fox fade away.
EDMOND (2005)
And this weekend I returned to reality... somewhat... with a character whose neuroses are nearly as off-putting as any monstrous medical procedure. Written by David Mamet... with that same rhythmic dialogue, but this time it's delivered almost entirely by William H. Macy in a manic performance. It's very low-budget and anti-epic and gets a little absurd and pointless by the end. But it still is gifted in how the script rounds out a character while giving you barely a hint of what motivates them.
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