Saw "A History of Violence"

[prog]

Enh. I liked the premise but it needed a lighter touch. It felt disjointed and full of forced moments, many of which led to unintentional hilarity. (Particularly our exploration of Cronenberg's cheerleader fetish. The overt caricature of a school bully was a close second.)

I didn't really like any of the characters; they were either underdeveloped (wife, son) or made bizarre decisions for no clear reason (main character, repeatedly). I liked the very ending, though the youngest daughter looks like Frodo. (Probably moreso because of Viggo. He actually doesn't look much like Aragorn when he's all cleaned up, but when he talks in a low growl as any character he may as well be saying "He's been stabbed by a Morgul blade." Quite a handsome man though.)

The ultra-violent fights, and the tension leading up to them, were entertaining. There was probably exactly enough, for the kind of movie this was trying to be. The rest, though, had just too many chair-squirming moments for me.

---

I want to note that Serenity made the number-two box office take last weekend (bested only by Flightplan), and has a sweet 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. This is far better than what some local learnéd SF folks had pessimistically predicted for the film. I would take another followup movie or two, though naturally I'd like a followup TV series. (It's happened before. Family Guy didn't even need its own movie...)

What I'd really like is a quality episodic show that doesn't need to kowtow to TV executives or broadcast patterns and yet still have a TV show's budget and schedule. Wouldn't it be sweet to have direct-to-video releases that were actually good? Maybe one two-episode disc going on sale every month? Holy crap.

Comments

[aspartaimee.livejournal.com]

1) i like ed harris a lot. i like the idea of ed harris as a badass. i am going to see this film, because i find ed harris as a badass irresistible.

2) aragorn, despite his need to shampoo more often than he did, was in fact smokin hot sexxxy. could have been the beard. probably was the beard. i am going to go with the beard. cleanshaven, he doesn't really work for me.

3) maria bello is a beaver.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Oh, Harris was the best thing about this movie. He has a one-note character but it's a joy to watch.

On the other hand, there were several moments when I wanted to slap Bello's character.

[in-parentheses.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it be sweet to have direct-to-video releases that were actually good? Maybe one two-episode disc going on sale every month? Holy crap.

This? Is brilliant. And it's basically how most people watch HBO shows anyway, I suspect. I bet we'll see this within the next few years.

[jadelennox]

What I'd really like is a quality episodic show that doesn't need to kowtow to TV executives or broadcast patterns and yet still have a TV show's budget and schedule. Wouldn't it be sweet to have direct-to-video releases that were actually good? Maybe one two-episode disc going on sale every month? Holy crap.

It's coming, you know it is. Television released directly on the Internet, legally uses of bittorrent. The only thing preventing it is the cost of well-made television, but people have been doing half-assed versions of this for a while. Can't stop the signal, baby.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I thought of this, but a revenue model would have to be invented first, where DVD sales already have one. That's why I think that the latter would catch on first.

[prog.livejournal.com]

Also DVD players are, I believe, far more ubiquitous than high-speed home Internet access.

I think that both of these obstacles are surmountable (ask me about crazy revenue models sometime) but they lay before us nonetheless.