akashiver: (Default)
akashiver ([personal profile] akashiver) wrote2012-10-07 11:25 am
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What I've been watching: Movies

The Master - aka Paul Thomas Anderson's film about the early days of Scientology, starring Joaquin Phoenix as a crazed veteran-turned cultist -- is pretty much everything you'd expect from the director of Magnolia and There Will Be Blood. In other words, I'm still not sure what I watched. It was good, and Phoenix's performance was amazing. But the pacing of the movie was strange. It didn't hit the narrative beats I was expecting, or make them the focus of the scene when it did. I could talk about what I think the movie was about, but there's no point spoiling it.

I will say that at least one person walked out of the film screaming that it was disgusting, which was strange. This was made stranger by the fact that the "sex" scene that offended her wasn't even a real sex scene, but an odd masturbation scene, and the angry lady had sat through much weirder shit by that point. So this is a film that can really push people's buttons, apparently. Or, bore them to the point they fall asleep (the person in the aisle next to me.) So... yeah.

Cabin in the Woods was all it was rumored to be. I was charmed by it, and by the killer unicorn, and by the Japanese school girls with the happy frog. My only complain is re: the appearance of the Lovecraftian gods. THAT'S NOT WHAT THEY LOOK LIKE. The end.

A Separation -- the Iranian domestic drama that picked up the Oscar last year -- is definitely worth a watch if you like foreign films. It's an interesting slice-of-life in Iran. It's not a happy movie but it's not relentlessly tragic either.

That's it for now.

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