Since my last post, I have had the chance to see both CRASH and CAPOTE, and having seen that first hour of GOOD NIGHT, GOOD LUCK, I feel I can offer my honest opinion that CRASH was not the best picture of the four I have seen (I have yet to see anything of MUNICH). There are some wonderful, dramatic moments in CRASH. The scene in which Matt Dillon's character must rescue Thadie Newton's character (after having previously sexually violated her earlier in the movie) was intense. Perhaps the most moving moment in the film comes when Michael Pena's character finds his daughter under her bed, afraid to sleep in the bed because a stray bullet had flown through the house one time. He has this very tender scene in which he convinces her that a fairy came into his room one night when he was five and the fairy gave him an invisible cloak that would protect him. The father then proceeds to remove this invisible cloak and place it around his daughter. That scene had more power than anything else in the movie and I feel that Pena's performance outshined the heavy handedness of almost every other actor on screen. That he was not nominated and Dillon was is a shame. My biggest problem with the movie is that there was so much emphasis on racism. EVERY character was a racists in one way or another. There was no escaping it. And it was so black and white. There were no gray areas in the movie. Besides that, there were two major plot holes that took me so far out of the moment that I was angry. I wanted to like this movie more than I did.
CAPOTE, on the other hand, was so well done. Besides Phillip Seymor Hoffman's stellar performance, you had a tight script and a beautifully shot movie that really did deal with the gray areas in life. Capote's actions to get his story was questionable. But what he did really made me look further into myself than CRASH did. What are we capable of to get what we want? In Capote's case, he lied to a man on death row to get the story that would change his life. But by lying to this murderer, a man he had come to care about, he dooms his own conscience and he would never recover. I don't know why, but the message of CAPOTE resonated more with me than CRASH. And the acting was just SO much better. Not just Hoffman, but everyone.
I also saw THE PINK PANTHER this weekend. The remake, not the classic Blake Edwards film. I did not laugh once. I was just so disappointed with this movie. The kids say they liked it, but I know they nearly fell asleep once or twice. And I am a sucker for family films and for Steve Martin and Kevin Kline. I just... it was just so awful.
Right now I am getting ready to begin a new script. The hardest part is writing those first few pages that may not even end up in the final script. But it's just the first draft, right?
Mom and Dad are in town this week. It is nice to have them here. Dad has lost a considerable amount of weight since he was diagnosed with diabetes. This new diet is making him thin.
Aloha
CAPOTE, on the other hand, was so well done. Besides Phillip Seymor Hoffman's stellar performance, you had a tight script and a beautifully shot movie that really did deal with the gray areas in life. Capote's actions to get his story was questionable. But what he did really made me look further into myself than CRASH did. What are we capable of to get what we want? In Capote's case, he lied to a man on death row to get the story that would change his life. But by lying to this murderer, a man he had come to care about, he dooms his own conscience and he would never recover. I don't know why, but the message of CAPOTE resonated more with me than CRASH. And the acting was just SO much better. Not just Hoffman, but everyone.
I also saw THE PINK PANTHER this weekend. The remake, not the classic Blake Edwards film. I did not laugh once. I was just so disappointed with this movie. The kids say they liked it, but I know they nearly fell asleep once or twice. And I am a sucker for family films and for Steve Martin and Kevin Kline. I just... it was just so awful.
Right now I am getting ready to begin a new script. The hardest part is writing those first few pages that may not even end up in the final script. But it's just the first draft, right?
Mom and Dad are in town this week. It is nice to have them here. Dad has lost a considerable amount of weight since he was diagnosed with diabetes. This new diet is making him thin.
Aloha
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