A Different Perspective

I confess: I’ve been on a movie binge the last week. I found a great way to watch a lot of movies for very little money… Hollywood Video’s MVP subscription. The first month (I don’t know if this is per store or a chain thing) is 9.99 then 14.99 each month thereafter. You can have three videos out at a time… so if you binge like I did this week, you get even a lot of new releases for next to nothing. Of course, not all of you are writers who can claim research for watching movies, so for you it may be a terrible abuse of your time

I’m working on a couple of scripts right now, but I’ve been blocked. For me, watching a lot of good movies tends to get the creative juices flowing. It’s not about copying ideas, it’s just that for me experiencing a really good story gets my mind turning and opens up new ways of looking at characters and stories I’m developing.

So, here’s a few suggestions from my recent movie binge:

It’s All About Love with Joaquin Phoenix and Claire Danes – quite possibly the WORST MOVIE I have ever seen. Seriously, these two actors just got demoted. Previously, both were on my safe bets list. Now, I question their ability to choose projects.

Prozac Nation with Christina Ricci, Michelle Williams, Jessica Lange – All in all a very good movie, but if you don’t like angsty films, stay far, far away. This one’s all about depression, and the story itself is a bit depressing.

Broken Flowers with Bill Murray, Sharon Stone – Really good movie until the end. Hated the ending. I don’t want to ruin it for you if you haven’t seen it. Everything up until about the last minute was pretty good, although very, very slow. Sometimes I like slow, and I think this flic pulls it off. But if you don’t like slow, don’t watch this one.

The Constant Gardener – Awesome. Twists and turns that work and take you on an emotional ride.

Junebug – I can recognize the best supporting actress nod, but the movie as a whole put me to sleep. Literally. I’m a night person and I fell asleep probably two hours before I normally would while watching this movie.

I’m watching The Machinist today. I’ve heard a lot of good things, so we’ll see. I guess Christian Bale is anorexic in that movie. Wierd that we was so buff in Batman Begins.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 25th, 2006 at 12:18 pm and is filed under Movies, Pop Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.