Movie review: Jarhead

So begins the task of watching the entire/as much as possible filmography of Peter Sarsgaard, my newest favorite actor.

This movie is a war movie, which I purportedly do not like, but still for some reason continue to watch... the reason for watching this one is because of a certain actor being in it. He looked pretty nice in this movie despite being nearly bald as a Marine. At least he didn't have awful facial hair. He talked nicely in this movie, and I enjoyed that. In some interview of him I think he mentioned perhaps he has a nice voice because he's from southern Illinois (or was it Indiana? One of those midwestern I states). Regardless of how it came about, he has a pleasant sounding voice. He should read an audiobook as well. I would pay money for that, which is saying something.

It was sort of different than what I guess I expected. The colors were.. notable in that the movie looked very bright. It did take place in the desert so I assume the brightness was to convey the brightness of the middle eastern desert. Sam Mendes directed this movie, which is interesting because he also directed Skyfall, which is one of my favorite movies. I didn't know that he had directed this movie until seeing his name in the opening credits. The cinematography was also done by the same person who did the cinematography for Skyfall, which was very well done in terms of cinematography. Interesting, right? 

The beginning of the movie bore similarities to Full Metal Jacket, replete with the "There are many like it, but this one is mine" and other boot camp particularities. There was actually less killing in this movie, it seems, than there might have been, which was kind of unique for a war movie. My favorite quote from this movie is "Every war is different. Every war is the same." The movie was based on an autobiographical book/memoir which might be interesting to read if I can get my hands on a copy sometime. I would say that I actually decently liked this movie, which kind of surprised me. I haven't watched any movies set during the Gulf War aside from this one, so the change of war settings was interesting. This movie was definitely less brutal than Saving Private Ryan. 

I found this interesting interview with the director.

As a closing thought, I wonder why the Middle Eastern countries can't seem to get it together. Since before I was born there's been violent conflict there. And it continues to this day. At least Bush isn't president anymore (not that I was really old enough to truly realize the significance of his presidency when he was president, but regardless), but what we've got now is decidedly worse for other reasons. 

Movie review: The Magnificent Seven

Well, I eventually did end up watching this thing. It was not quite as much of a waste of time as I had feared it might be, but it wasn't particularly striking or anything. Very meh. But somewhat better than Apocalypse Now, at the very least.

Most of the movie consists of people shooting at each other, which... eh. In that aspect it was rather similar to a war movie, one of which I rewatched earlier today. 

It takes place in the wild west which like I have mentioned before is not my favorite setting. The actors in it, for the most part, looked rather rugged and rough. Which is not my preferred look. Not to mention the facial hair. There was an abundance of facial hair. This was definitely not one of my favorite Vincent roles. He had this very weird accent in the movie. It completely did not sound like his regular voice at all, which disappointed me because I like his regular voice. He was large and hairy and unattractive looking in this movie. I still like him as an actor, I just don't particularly care for this particular role of his. 

Peter Sarsgaard played the villain in this movie, and although he did have a bit of an accent, some of his regular voice shone through, which I was pleased about. Spoiler: Unfortunately his character got killed by one of the other characters, and even though he was the villain, I was still kind of unhappy that he had to get killed off. Alas. 

One of the characters is a knife thrower and I thought that was interesting and now I kind of want to learn how to throw knives. I wonder how difficult it is. I also wonder if I'd ever theoretically have an occasion to use my knife throwing skills in the event that I learn how to throw knives. 

Although they are only in the background in some of the scenes, I thought that the wild western prostitutes had interesting outfits in this movie. It could be interesting to incorporate some of those fashions into my wardrobe. 

It would be quite something (in a bad way) if current times were like the wild west where everyone had guns and was constantly shooting at people. 

Full Metal Jacket, revisited

You-know-what came back on Netflix this month, and since I'm reticent to watch that one western movie, I decided to rewatch, of all things, Full Metal Jacket. 

So, I think that maybe I have found a new appreciation, or something, for this movie.. yes, I still think it's kind of weird, but it's... fairly decent. It's better than Apocalypse Now, at least. I wonder what kind of statement Stanley Kubrick was trying to make with this movie. I also am still not really sure what the significance of the singing in the last minutes of the movie is. It kind of reminded me of when I caught the last ~30 minutes of some other war movie on television one morning and the ending was of the soldiers' family members in a bar/restaurant singing a patriotic song. It was kind of weird. 

Speaking of war movies, I do not think that I would want to be in the military based on what I've seen in war movies. I wonder how accurate war movies are to the actual experience of being in the military. If I ever have the chance to strike up a conversation with someone who's been in the military, I'd like to know what it was like for them since that's not something I'm familiar with. 

Rewatching this movie also gave me an idea for a graphic t shirt design. "Born to Kill" and a peace sign. I think that could be interesting. I wonder what people would think if they saw someone wearing a shirt that had that design on it. Would they recognize it as a reference to Full Metal Jacket? Would they even care? 

I got to thinking about what, theoretically, I would make a war movie about if I were a movie director and directing one. As far as I'm aware, there haven't been any well known war movies directed by women so there's a hole in the market there. I think I would want to do an in depth look at how a soldier is affected (destroyed - more so mentally, probably, but also possibly physically) by war. I would want it to be kind of brutal, but also thoughtful and beautiful in a way. It would be a war movie with a feminine touch. That's probably not something you hear all the time. I would want it to be the Requiem for a Dream of war movies, with all that that entails. Although Requiem was actually not directed by a woman. It's still a very good movie, in my opinion. So now the only question is, which war do I set it in? I think it would be interesting to have the main character be drafted, as it creates the situation of him being thrust into the war out of his control and I like that idea and the dynamic it creates. I wonder what it takes to be a famous director like Stanley Kubrick or Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg, etc. I'm not sure if David Fincher and Christopher Nolan and Darren Aronofsky are quite as famous as the others, but they're still up there somewhere. 

There actually happens to be a war movie that Peter Sarsgaard was in, so I'd like to watch that, probably, sometime eventually. You can definitely expect me to review that. 

Blog appearance

Wouldn't it be weird if I died somehow (maybe by murder, maybe by a more innocuous method, who knows) and people read my blog after my death??? I wonder what that would be like and what kind of an impression my blog would leave on people. I wonder if this blog gives off the impression that I am fascinated by death (and drug addicts). Speaking of drug addicts, I think it could be interesting to learn about drug addiction from a sociological standpoint. Sociology and linguistics (and pyschology as well, I guess) are areas that are very interesting to me and it angers me that linguists are not as appreciated as engineers. I wonder what it would be like to work in a modern art museum and choose the artwork that gets to be shown in the museum. I think that would be an interesting thing to do, among other things. Maybe someone would do artwork about drug addicts and I could choose to have that exhibited in the museum. I wonder if there's a museum about drugs somewhere. Speaking of drug addicts, it turns out that the National Institute on Drug Abuse has their office not that far away. Maybe I should pay them a visit sometime. I wonder if there's anything worth going to their office for, however. 

I forgot that the Champions League final was the previous weekend and therefore I wasn't able to watch it. I didn't want for Real Madrid to win. 

Anyways, there look to be some new themes available for blogspot blogs, which on one hand are kind of nice looking, but on the other hand I like the functionality of my current one, rather than a newer more funky looking modern one.

I wonder when/how I'll stumble upon my next favorite actor, and also who it will be. I haven't seen eyelashes guy on tv in awhile. The last time he was on, I didn't even really pay attention to what he said. His eyelashes are still nice and eyelashy though. I wonder if he hasn't been on as often as in the past and that's why I haven't seen him. Or maybe it's because I haven't been watching the news as much.  

Double review

I watched two things recently that I'm going to review here. One was a movie and the other was a documentary, both on Netflix.

We Need to Talk about Kevin
This movie was about a mother who has an unpleasant and detestable son who does bad things that eventually turn into violent things. It was told in a non-chronological fashion, which was kind of interesting. Overall it was a decent movie, but not brilliant like some things that I've watched. I think it could have been better, somehow. 
A vast majority of the movie was Tilda Swinton's character, the mother of Kevin, having an anguished expression on her face. It was somewhat... schadenfreudenly pleasing that the name of the son who was bad in this movie is the same name of an awful person that I had the misfortune to know of in real life. I hope he gets run over by a truck or burned to death in a fire or something and then the world could be rid of him. Wouldn't that be wonderful??? 

The Thin Blue Line
I didn't exactly pay as much attention as I maybe should have, so I think some details might have been lost on me and therefore that I need to read about the case so I understand what happened more clearly. This was a documentary from 1988 about a man who was wrongly convicted of murdering a police officer. The events happened in Texas so the people in the documentary had southern accents, which I thought was going to be distracting but their accents were actually surprisingly mild, and gave them an amiable feel. I thought it was a well done documentary and it didn't feel particularly dated - I guess the general elements of a documentary don't change that much over the years. The title refers to a concept that law enforcement is a "thin blue line" between society and anarchy, which is kind of interesting. Currently, it is also a symbol that represents support for law enforcement. 

I still want to watch Requiem for a Dream again. And I need to find time to watch the Wolf of  Wall Street. Plus ideally I would like to watch some movies that Peter Sarsgaard has been in because he is one of my new favorite actors. 

Alas

The situation to which the title refers is the existence of a certain fairly recent movie, which has (now) two of my favorite actors in it.
Ostensibly (it took me awhile to remember this word) you would think that I would want to watch this movie, especially since it has two of my favorite actors in it. And I sort of do, but I also sort of don't. The reasons that I don't want to watch it is because a) it is a western movie which isn't my thing. I prefer to watch things that are more sophisticated and/or deep, which I don't expect from this movie. I feel like if I watch this movie I will end up having a similar feeling to the one I had after watching Apocalypse Now. Although I might have a very slightly more positive opinion since this movie has some actors that I like and Apocalypse Now didn't. Regardless. The second reason is that Vincent, who is in this movie, does not look particularly appealing in his role. He is large and covered in facial hair (which I guess was the style back then) which is not my preferred look on him. I don't think Peter Sarsgaard looks particularly tasty in this movie either (this is an oblique reference to the British version of the Office, which I have been watching recently since it's now on Netflix).

So those are my hangups regarding this movie and I will continue to fret over them and possibly eventually give in and just watch the damn movie, but I haven't gotten to that point quite yet. I wonder if Leonardo DiCaprio will ever be in a western movie. Or maybe he already has been and I'm not aware of it. I wonder the same about James D'Arcy. There's probably less of a chance for him because he's British and western movies are an American thing. But who knows. I think he can do a pretty good American accent. And hmm. I just remembered. A few years ago I watched a science fiction western movie that had Daniel Craig in it. It was... not that good, as far as I can remember.

Postsecret review #2

As promised, here it is, although it's nearly the end of the week. 

"I got back with my ex because I needed editing software." A truly utilitarian relationship. Although certainly there have to be other ways? Let's hope that this person's ex isn't a terribly loathsome person and therefore that it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to get back with him or her for the use of their editing software.

"I turn 18 tomorrow and I could not be more excited for the rest of MY LIFE!" Ah, the optimism... I'd say that I can be fairly cynical at times. Maybe this person has ended up/will end up becoming a drug addict (one of my favorite topics to consider...) Or maybe they met an unfortunate end somehow, by murder or a car accident or a house fire or something. Who knows! I certainly didn't have that kind of optimism on my 18th birthday. Instead, in recent years I have felt old, even though relatively speaking, I'm young compared to many people. Alas. Hopefully this person had something worthwhile to look forwards to, I guess, because I can't think of any other reason someone would write a secret like this. I can only imagine being that optimistic... (says the possible future starving linguist) 

"I look at chandeliers above me and wonder if I'd move fast enough from it smashing me." I like this one because it's sort of eccentric and also somewhat morbid. The perfect combination. I think it embodies me perfectly, among other things.

"I once stole herbal supplements because I couldn't afford my prescriptions" Good for you! And I say this without sarcasm. I hope this person doesn't feel guilty about obtaining those herbal supplements by any means necessary. 

"I smoke and take drugs so that I have more interesting stories to tell" Well, that's one way of doing it, I guess. Maybe it's cheaper than traveling the world, or even just the country. Imagine telling the story of how you overdosed and nearly died! Or maybe you won't survive the overdose and therefore won't be able to tell the story... "Bad choices make good stories" and "Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse" are some quotes that this secret makes me think of. 

Those were the only secrets that spoke to me enough that I felt compelled to comment on them. Unsurprisingly, there were a number of sex related secrets in this week's batch. Come on, Postsecret guy. I'm telling you, there are things that are more interesting and less vulgar (or at least, vulgar in other ways) than the sex related secrets that seem to pop up rather frequently. Why can't someone write a secret about, say, really, anything else? There are tons of other things in the world to write secrets about. 

And with that, I conclude this week's edition of my Postsecret review. More to come sometime after next Sunday, at least that's my plan.