Thanksgiving was a good time. I went to my friends Stephen & Lisa's house (at their invitation, of course; I didn't just show up for turkey!!!) and had some quite excellent food and food stuffs (whatever they might be).
So, we watched Stealth after their children went to bed. It was slightly better than what I expected. Jessica Biehl, while very attractive, didn't really convince me in her role (I still think of her as Mary from "7th Heaven"). Jaime Foxx was his normal self, what you would expect him to be, Ray not withstanding. The only one remotely interesting was Josh Lucas, and even he didn't do that good a job. Of course, with bad material, there's only so much one can accomplish. Anyway, it's not a total waste to watch this, but I can think of many other things I'd like to see. I can say two good things about this flick: (1) there was a great transition from flying over water to the XO walking on the flight deck, and (2) there was an incredible explosion that I would love to see the backstory on how they did it (it did make sense in the story, not just mindless stuff).
After I got home, I finished watching La Grande Illusion (1938). This is an interesting war movie (it's interesting to not that when I was young I would refuse to watch war movies because I thought them boring and :::ugghh::: black and white. I grew up. Even if you don't believe it, I did.) about some captured French pilots and soldiers. I guess France used to fight. Anway, the setting is during WWI, so no Hitler or Gestapo or SS to hate. The German officers were portrayed rather kindly, as were the prisoners' housing conditions. I have no clue how accurate this might be. Definitely worth seeing.
Finally, last night, I watched Divorce Italian Style (1961), apparently the precursor to Divorce American Style (1967), starring Dick Van Dyke and Debbie Reynolds (and which I now must see to compare to the original Italian). Anyway, this movie is about a man (Marcello Mastroianni) who is trying to figure out a way to kill his wife "legally" so he can marry his young cousin (and not have to pay his wife alimony, though in his position, divorce might not actually be a viable option). It's rather a dark comedy, but not necessarily a laugh-out-loud comedy. The ending is definitely worth watching the movie.
My only problem with these two movies, and it's more pointed at me than the movies themselves, is that they're subtitled (which I don't mind at all). However, to watch them, I have to really pay attention, which I should really be doing anyway.
Before these three movies, however, I watched David Lynch's Lost Highway (1997), an extremely spare DVD. It's dark and moody, contains some really good music, and makes me question whether I ever want to see any other David Lynch movie. Between this and Eraserhead, I don't hold much hope of enjoying anything he does, except perhaps for The Straight Story. After reviewing his filmography, I admit I enjoyed Dune, but that story was not his. And the mini-series on Sci-Fi was a much more faithful adaptation, but Lynch's movie was not bad at all (unless you ask my mother).
I don't mind thinking about a movie and having my head messed around with (Memento comes to mind), but this movie is ridiculously obtuse, strange for the sake of being strange, irrelevantly explicitly sexual in multiple places, and does not build me up in any way, shape, form, or fashion. A viewer's review on Netflix indicated that you need to watch this movie many, many times and read all of the other viewers' takes on the film to get an idea of what it's about. That is ridiculous. The Emporer's new clothes are non-existent, people, and this is not worth fauning over. As much as I detest Eraserhead—the single most disturbing movie I have ever seen—it's a far more interesting movie and could actually be worth tracking down all the interpretations and trying to figure out more.
I started watching Creature Comforts - Season 1 (1989), by Nick Park. Comedy of circumstances and situation absolutely rocks. Not knowing the full background of the series, it seems like British people were interviewed, and their voices were animated by clay animals in the style of Wallace & Grommit. Very funny stuff, and well worth your time. I've only watched three or four of the thirteen episodes, but it's really quite good. (Each episode runs under nine minutes.)
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