Film reviews

Craig went to the video store yesterday and brought back a mixed bag of delights.

In the order we watched them....

1. Notes on a Scandal - this one is a serious, and seriously great, movie. Riveting story, brilliant performances. It's great when it's hard to pick which of the lead actresses did a better job. Judi Densch gave an astonishing portrayal of a lonely, obsessive, kind of creepy spinster schoolteacher, while Cate Blanchett played a vague, directionless art teacher whose privileged upbringing did her few favors in terms of developing character or depth. She's sort of stuck and floating, neither happy nor unhappy. Watching these two women's relationship develop, and how the title's "scandal" impacts that relationship, is really, really great. I don't want to give too much away. I recommend it. So does Craig. See it.

2. Crank - non-stop action. Imagine you wake up feeling pretty crappy. You can't see so great, and you can tell that something is not right. You stumble into the living room and see a DVD propped up, with the words "F___ You" written on it. You put the DVD into the player, press "play" and see your nemesis standing over your passed-out body, injecting poison into you. He tells you what the poison is and that you'll be dead in an hour. Oh, I suppose I should tell you that you're a hit man and that everyone is pretty angry at the hit you just made on some Chinese guy. This movie is fantastic - violent, hysterically funny, great music, and some really fun characters. If you don't want to see someone's fingers shot off his hand, however, stay away. But I thoroughly recommend it for a fun action romp.

3. The Glamorous Life of Sachiko Hanai. It was late by the time we put this one on, and I was too tired. Best I can figure is that it's pretty soft-core Japanese sex stuff, with an odd variation, in that Sachiko, a sex worker, happens to witness a shooting and gets shot, right in the head, but it's not a mortal wound, and when she wakes up the next day she's smart as hell, and apparently still pretty horny. The case mentioned that she only gets aroused by the words of Noam Chomsky, but we didn't get that far, apparently. We may try to watch the rest today, but the first 45 minutes were not at all action packed and the sex wasn't stimulating or even interesting. And the subtitles are almost impossible to read. So, meh. The lead actress is pretty. That's about the best thing I can say about it.

Two out of three, though, not bad.

/review