A lot of suck, not enough punch.

I saw "Sucker Punch" on the weekend. The title of this entry isn't really in direct reference to the movie, and it doesn't accurately represent my feelings about it either. I just thought it sounded like a pretty good snarky review title. Actually, I'm not going to review the movie, since that's not really the point of this blog.
What I will say about it is that I did not like it as much as I had hoped that I would. That being said, I sort of expected that. In 2007, I went to the movies with my college film class, we saw "300" as part of a lesson on critiquing. And the critique I gave that movie almost fits perfectly with this one: Plenty of style, very little substance. The characters evolve and grow, but we don't get to see any of it, because the action scenes took priority. I'll say this much, there was an internal conflict/plot point that I desperately wanted to see explored, and it was ignored almost entirely.
I had an idea for an invention this morning. Its basically a helmet that would prevent me from being able to eavesdrop on my co-workers and hear their opinions about things. The great thing about the internet is that if you don't really agree with what someone is saying you can either stop reading/listening/watching. But in a cubicle situation you just have sit there and listen to them spout off their ignorant bile about whatever the topic of the day might be. When this happens I really want to interject, because the instinctive part of me is naive and optimistic and think it can change people's minds for the better. Of course history has shown this to be untrue. So instead I keep my mouth shut and fester all day long about what the idiot said, angrily chewing over their narrow mindedness.
Of course blocking out the ability to receive outside view points is pretty much the definition of narrow mindedness. So even if it would reduce my stress ever so slightly, in the long run it would probably be... Oh yeah, of course we should clone dinosaurs so you can hunt them for sport. That makes a lot of sense.

Not a single marionette in the whole movie

Last night I watched The Godfather Part 1 for the first time in my 29 years. Being a bit of a film buff and avoiding this classic for so long was no easy task. But I've never been all that interested in the Mafia-Action genre, although I do love Goodfellas. I felt slightly let down by The Godfather. What a controversial statement! But seriously, is it just me or was that narrative a little sloppy and loose? And not in the good way either, in the way that acts of vengence are carried out after heinous acts performed by other characters and it gets a bit confusing who's getting whacked for what.
The best part of watching the movie was getting to figure out all the pop-culutre references that I either only have understood before, or completely missed. The horse head in the bed was definitely a highlight. Along with the toll booth killing scene. A surprise was the line "I hope your first child is a masculine child." I had no idea Randall was quoting that, I just thought he was being a weirdo dick-bag.
I understand why the movie is a classic, the character arch of Michael is truly a masterpiece of storytelling, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. That being said the pacing was a little strange as well. At times there seemed to be minute to minute action, and at other times it appeared that months at a time passed and the only thing to indicate this was different haircuts and healed wounds. It's not like I was expecting a little text overlay of "3 months" later or whatever, but maybe a piece expository dialogue? Oh, and I missed half of the dialogue, because I guess I downloaded a torrent that supposed I would be bi-lingual in both Italian and English.
A terrific film that anyone who loves classics will enjoy.