Completely missing the point cinematically.

I’ve watched a few movies lately that I just didn’t get into. Not a big problem, except they’re movies that most people seem to really like.

The first was the Korean monster movie, The Host. It wasn’t un-entertaining. The cast were pretty good and I found it interesting that the entire film was told from the point of view of one family whose youngest was abducted by the monster. With no authorities willing to help them get her back, they have to take matters into their own hands. The family dynamic was great but the film loses its pace too often and towards the end, the story just seemed to be wandering around aimlessly like a 2 year old lost in a mall.

Then came Audition – A Japanese thriller by renowned director Takashi Miike. It’s the story of a middle aged widower played by Ryo Ishibashi who, after being told by his son that he should remarry, allows himself to be convinced by a friend that the best way to find a new wife is to stage a fake movie audition. This one starts slowly and the premise of the movie is the kind of thing you might see in an Adam Sandler movie but by the third act has started turning into something you might see in an Eli Roth movie. Audition has been described as “a swan dive into razor wire”. Very interesting, but I just didn’t feel any love for it. I think I may need to watch this one again.

The last – Suicide Club – was kinda interesting I guess. Who can resist the morbid temptation of a movie that starts with 54 Japanese schoolgirls jumping in front of a train. Well, I guess I should have. This one starts in the land of horrific and creepy but quickly departs and, after a quick stop off in the realm of weird Rocky Horror death cult crap, ends up like those weird pseudo-philosophical bits in the Final Fantasy games. Meh.

This has thoroughly demoralised me so I figure that next I should watch something universally regarded as a classic. Fight Club maybe. I KNOW I love Fight Club. Or The Godfather. I think I saw that years ago, but I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll just watch a lot of The Sopranos.

Rumours of a cyclone have been greatly exaggerated, it seems.

Well, that wind and rain never came. Parts of New South Wales were “lashed” – I believe the news term is – by strong wind and rain, but we were pretty much untouched. So now we just have a backyard full of stuff with bricks on it for no reason.

Along with our complete lack of power-outage comes the opportunity to watch lots and lots of downloaded TV episodes. I’ve nearly finished watching the third season of The Sopranos – just one and a half episodes to go (it was late and I was tired). I’m pretty sure someone’s going to get wacked but it seems someone always gets wacked at the end of every season of that show.

I already have seasons four and five to go on with right away so there will be no interruption to my viewing schedule. I just have to get to the end of season six without someone telling me what happens.