Movie review: Mr. Brooks

I know, I know, another one... I promise I'll at least try to think of other things to blog about instead of just an endless stream of movie reviews/musings about Vincent D'Onofrio/fawning and having cognitive dissonance over the (conservative) guy from the news with the eyelashes. Now that that's out of the way.

I watched this movie on a whim; in fact, I didn't know that it existed until tonight, the same night I decided to watch it. I was reading r/unresolvedmysteries and someone happened to comment that the plot of this movie was similar to something someone else had commented about. I was drawn to this movie because the title and the eponymous (I love that word) character shares the name with someone I actually know. I will see this someone on Monday and at current I am debating on whether to share this information with them, that there is a movie with the same name as them. The reason I am debating over it is because the movie is about... a serial killer. I am not completely sure that the Mr. Brooks I know would be thrilled to learn that he shares a name with a fictional serial killer. (I wonder if he's already aware of the movie, either of his own accord or someone else has already informed him of this namesake) I don't really think many people would be particularly enthused about that, honestly. (also, watching this movie has made me sort of try to imagine the Mr. Brooks I know as a serial killer, but I just can't do it. He's too nice. [if you ever read this, Mr. Brooks, which I am really pretty sure you won't, but if you theoretically do, you're too nice for me to be able to imagine you as a serial killer, which is a compliment! A strange one at that, but a compliment.])

Anyways, on to what I thought of the movie. Having just recently watched Shutter Island, which was brilliant, this one didn't exactly compare. It was supposed to be a thriller, apparently, but it was rather/somewhat boring. I wouldn't say it was a complete waste of time or anything, but it certainly wasn't great by any means. There was sort of a dual plot going on, partly about Mr. Brooks and his addiction to murder (which is how he described it himself) and partly about a female detective who is after him and also going through a gnarly divorce. This caused the movie to feel disjointed, even though the detective is supposed to be hunting for Mr. Brooks. I didn't particularly enjoy the parts about the detective; she just didn't really click for me. She did however look sort of like the character Emily Prentiss from Criminal Minds. And also sort of like one of my mother's friends who is a Republican. For that matter, Mr. Brooks the murderer looked sort of like Daniel Craig (ever so faintly) in some instances and at other times (also ever so faintly) like James D'Arcy. If the pursuit of Mr. Brooks had been more explicit, it might have been better - if the detective had gotten a bit closer to catching him, I guess. Something like that. In one part, the detective and someone who has been assigned to bodyguard her are entering a house where they expect to find a suspect, with guns drawn and holding flashlights. And here is a nitpicky little detail (error, perhaps, in my opinion) I happened to notice. They are holding the flashlights wrong. In other things I have watched that involve law enforcement characters, they hold their flashlights in an overhand sort of grip (the fingers go around the top of the flashlight as opposed to the thumb being on top). In fact, in a certain episode of SVU you can see John Munch explain this very principle for yourself. I believe the reason cops (are supposed to, I guess, at least according to tv!) hold their flashlights like this is so that if necessary, it's easier to clobber someone with them. Try it for yourself, holding a flashlight in both ways, and it really would be easier to hit someone if you needed to if you hold it in an overhand manner. The SVU scene I remember specifically, but I'm pretty sure there have been some other scenes (in Criminal Minds, Law and Order CI, other episodes of SVU) where you can see some "proper" flashlight holding in action. I digressed there. A lot. (for the record, I did end up googling about this in the past, probably after seeing that SVU scene, and there was an article that came up about flashlight grips. Probably just google "flashlight grips" or something along those lines and you can read it for yourself.) 

I don't really have anything else to say here about this movie, except that next I think I'm going to watch Se7en, a movie also about a serial killer. Sometime in the nearish future, there'll probably be a review of that. 

tl;dr: a quick note about the content of this blog, I actually know someone named Mr. Brooks, the movie was average, it could've been better/more interesting but wasn't a complete waste of time, I go on a long tangent about how there is a scene where the detectives hold their flashlights wrong, this tl;dr, some ending notes. 

This was a better movie than Full Metal Jacket/Apocalypse Now because it didn't leave me with the feeling that I missed the point. I would even probably say it was a little better than Zodiac, perhaps because I didn't really know what to expect with this one, whereas with Zodiac I was familiar with the case and thought that they could have made an interesting movie out of it, yet they just weren't able to and it was a disappointment. 

Movie review: Shutter Island

Yes, another one. I didn't exactly intend for this blog to be fully about movie reviews, but there have been quite a few of them. It just so happens that I watch movies and then feel compelled to write about what I thought of them on this blog that probably nobody reads, but whatever. Maybe I like shouting into the void. 

In any case, let's get to the point. First, I have to say, whoa. This movie was quite something. It was a bit of a mindfuck but in a good way. Really brilliant. It's a good thing too, since I was getting sort of fed up with watching movies that left me with the thought "that was strange..." and not in a good way. It reminded me of sort of a combination of the movie Dream House (which had Daniel Craig in it) and American Horror Story: Asylum. And maybe some other stuff too. Leo was lovely in this movie. He was quite pretty to look at, among other things. His character reminded me sort of of Goren from Law and Order CI, which I certainly didn't mind. I kept thinking of him as either Leo or Goren even, although that actually did not detract from my enjoyment of the movie. 

I'm writing this fresh off of seeing the movie, having not yet read anything about it like I like to do after I watch movies/read books. Apparently this was based off of a book, which I didn't know about until the end where it said so in the credits. I'm going to have to try and read that book, perhaps. This movie reminded me a bit of Stieg Larsson's work, which again, not a bad thing at all. There weren't any boring parts and it really kept my attention. The cinematography I think was sort of understated (not super obviously gorgeous/grandiose like in Skyfall, for example) but I did like it; it was nicely done. It was sort of interesting to see Mark Ruffalo again, this time in a movie that actually turned out to be good. His hair was shorter in this movie than in Zodiac so I think maybe that made him look a bit less like Vincent D'Onofrio. I think it sort of would have been cool if Vincent had played Mark Ruffalo's part, but that's not surprising coming from me. 

I would certainly recommend this movie for people who are fans of thriller type stuff. I thought it was really good and it's another Leo/Martin Scorsese film, like The Aviator and I think Gangs of New York. I watched at least part of The Aviator years ago; I think it must have been on television or something. I haven't seen Gangs of New York but I might watch it in the future. I'd like to watch David Fincher's Se7en sometime in the future, since I've heard that one is supposed to be good. Hopefully it'll live up to my expectations and not be a disappointment like Zodiac was. And Requiem for a Dream is on my to watch list. Someday. Still haven't finished reading the book that's based off of, which I'd like to do before I watch the movie. And Inception I guess. That one is also supposed to be good. And it has Leo. Maybe someday I'll finish watching his entire filmography. Anyways, now I'm off to go read about Shutter Island, see what people have said about it. At the time of writing this, I'm sort of leaning to the view that the guy was delusional and insane, although the last part of the film is most fresh in my mind where they presented that perspective, so maybe if I went and watched the beginning again, I'd think differently... really interesting way to frame the plot; it really makes you think.. 

Related in some way to Vincent D'Onofrio: yes
Mentions of Vincent D'Onofrio: 1 (or two?) 

You give me cognitive dissonance

I was going to write a new post about something else awhile ago, but then this just came to mind now. First off, let's take a look at the definition of cognitive dissonance: 
the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes

An (particularly striking) example would be believing that murder is wrong, yet happening to kill someone for some reason that I won't specify in this example. Use your imagination. Maybe it was self defense. Anyways, this person who has murdered someone else is going to have cognitive dissonance because they killed someone, despite believing that murder is wrong. We try to get rid of cognitive dissonance by justifying our actions that were in opposition to what we believe and/or changing our beliefs. The degree to which we experience cognitive dissonance is based on how strong our beliefs are and how much our action is contradictory to our beliefs. As an aside, I'm sure there are people out there who do not believe that murder is wrong. I'll leave it at that for now. This post isn't intended to delve into a discussion about the morality of murder. Maybe some other time in another post. 

So now that I've (hopefully) explained what cognitive dissonance is properly, back to the topic at hand... the "you" referred to in the title is the yet unnamed commentator on CNN with the lovely eyelashes and eyeballs. Seriously, they're brilliant. He is going to remain anonymous because I have the inkling of a suspicion that this whole eyeball/eyelash thing (mind you, the rest of his face is pretty nice too) would be even weirder if I mentioned exactly who he is. I dearly hope he never reads this stuff. 

This brilliantly eyeballed and eyelashed man (you can say things like "pale skinned" or "golden haired" so I'm sort of extending that to the words eyeball and eyelash..) is, (sort of unfortunately, see here, is the source of the COGNITIVE DISSONANCE)... a conservative. (*gasp!*)  

The contradicting beliefs here are: 
a) He is a conservative (I am not. I am a liberal.) 
b) His eyeballs and eyelashes are wonderful. 

Being a liberal, it's... decidedly cognitively dissonant for me to appreciate conservatives for whatever reason. I realize that his political orientation has no (probably? Maybe there's a correlation? Look at all that psychology vocabulary.) bearing on his physical appearance. Yet, it still feels weird (cognitively dissonant) for me to think, wow, his gorgeous eyeballs and eyelashes!! and also (gingerly) he is a conservative. Now, my mother has a conservative friend who I don't really have this problem with. I'm not sure if it's the fact that I've known her for much longer than I've seen this commentator on the news, or that political discussions are not the focus of the friendship. Perhaps it's a combination of both. This commentator, it's literally his job to be on the news and talk about his opinions (as a conservative). So the conservativeness of this guy is a bit more in your face if you will; it's harder to ignore. 

Now, onto how I might resolve this cognitive dissonance. The likelihood of me (or him, for that matter) changing my political beliefs (ie, becoming a conservative) is very low. I guess currently I am justifying my belief about his eyeballs and eyelashes by thinking that his political beliefs are irrelevant to his appearance. It doesn't get rid of the cognitive dissonance entirely though (otherwise I wouldn't be writing this post..), so it would be ideal if he just weren't conservative. But alas, he is, and that's just how it's going to be. 

So there you have it, a personal anecdote about an experience that I am currently experiencing regarding the concept of cognitive dissonance. 

(ps: this post didn't really have anything to do with Vincent! Maybe sort of, tenuously, since Vincent also has nice eyeballs and eyelashes [no, I promise I'm not going to go on about that again here] but it's more about this other guy and the cognitive dissonance that he's causing me.)