Movies... lots of 'em through Tuesday.

I'm proud to say I took mostly full advantage of my 3-day weekend... although I never got to tackling my list of WIFF 2009 selections (tricky since the WIFF 2010 is coming right up!).

As an aside I started the weekend off my rewatching No Country For Old Men (2007). Upon second viewing, it's MUCH better, and by that I mean it's definitely more coherent, and incredibly more depressing and disturbing.

Then we hit all new movies through Netflix Instant

DOUBT (2008)

Oscar season is around, and all the neat actors nominated for this movie convinced me to see it. Powerful performances, morally ambiguous story, but it very much felt like a filmed play. Nothing wrong with that, of course, just feels different.

PURPLE RAIN (1984)

I knew I'd be pretty tired but I started this movie at 11pm at night anyway... thought it wouldn't require much thought. I did have kind of high hopes for this, since I heard rumblings over the years that this was one of the less atrocious 'music' movies. I think it reached the low bar I set for it, but it didn't go too far beyond it. I thought Prince had some more fantastical elements to his persona that would have required some more out-there visuals to match the astounding music, but it wasn't incredibly coherent. Hardly picky though, when the music and performances were awesome, I guess it was too much to ask for a plot behind it all that didn't seem tacked on... Computer Blue was dancing through my head at work today though.

SYNECHDOCHE, NEW YORK (2008)

HERE'S a movie you have to pay attention to. This takes the whimsy with mental memory moving the narrative of movie that worked so perfectly in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and takes it completely to a more dark, and so much more confusing place. But I don't think it's just confusing for confusion's sake. It is just layered so much, that it's not a film to be simply enjoyed, it has to be understood, even if comprehending the backstory of Philip Seymour Hoffman's character is a futile task.