Recent Movies

I saw An Inconvenient Truth and I was surprised at how low-key it was. The movie is like one big long powerpoint with sidebars. It is much less alarmist than it could have been.

I saw Bowling for Columbine, partly to have a point of reference for some more liberal friends. Moore is at his best when he's trying to embarass people or capturing them doing and saying really comically stupid stuff.

I enjoyed The Queen, although I couldn't get the tabloid image of Diana on the diving board out of my mind, in connection with the eiree music they used in the soundtrack.

My wife enjoyed Briget Jones and I like it better second time around.

I really enjoyed Match Point. It is certainly Woody's best film. The use of Verdi's Otello in the climactic scenes was a masterstroke. It was fun to watch Scarlett Johansson play... herself. The genius of the film is that it subverts your expectations and drives you into a killing frenzy towards the main character by the end. Almost Grecian in the sort of emotion you are left with. I shoul really buy a copy but then again I don't know if I can bear to watch the film over and over again. Too intense.

Ambrose likes the Raffi concert DVD. I think Raffi is really great and I like the way he weaves subtle religious motifs into his work.


I love the early 1980s Dune and find myself watching it even more than the Sci-Fi channel miniseries, which was my old "finals week" ritual starting with law school December 2000.

The Last King of Scotland is a chilling film. When I was a kid, I was scared of Christopher Plummer as Capt. von Trapp. As a 33 yo, I'm scared of Forest Whittaker as Idi Amin. It's a very intense portrayal.

Do y'all know that Antonioni and Bergman died on the same day in July? Huge. Go watch L'Avventura and Persona back to back. Read Paglia's column on Art Film R.I.P. Weep.