April 8, 2002

  • It’s 2:30 AM. I just watched a number of chunks of a number of movies. Why? Because in between watching those chunks of movies, I was swapping cables around, trying to integrate our new housemate’s DVD player and TV into the Monster Home Entertainment Thing downstairs.

    So bits of ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’ ‘The Thin Red Line,’ ‘The Matrix,’ and ‘Fight Club.’ There’s definitely a theme of violence, but not mere violence. Stylish, poetic, gruesome violence providing social commentary and insight into the larger human experience.

    Of course, when you’re testing to see if the cabling works, you say to yourself, ‘Naaaah, this part’s boring. Fast forward to the part where they KICK ASS!’

    My favorite part of ‘The Thin Red Line’ is before the real fighting starts, though, so no biggie. The part where Witt is narrating and he says, “Maybe all men are one. One big soul,” while we see him cleaning the blood off of a stretcher and helping a shell-shocked soldier. I wish I could watch that whole movie within the course of a half-hour, kind of like Reader’s Digest. I’d watch it every couple of days. But no, it’s three hours long.

    Also, while I was making sure the TV tuner was getting to the stereo, right there on channel 28 was a documentary about the career of Akira Kurosawa! Testing stopped for the next hour and a half while I soaked that in. Of course now I want to buy his whole catalog on DVD. You folks now know what to get me for Xmas.

Comments (4)

  • Nah, don’t take credit AWAY from yourself just because you stumble across social commentary WHILE checking your cable…I think that was how Velcro ™ was invented…only it had something to do with sheep and hand-washable fabrics instead of equipment installation.

  • ah, yes, all our favorite movies.  my six year old has requested his own personal copy of Crouching Tiger…for his b-day.  And my 9-year-old is obsessed with Kurosawa since he watched/read The Seven Samurai.  sounds like time well spent…

  • ah, yes. let’s hear it for stylish social commenting violence. hip, hip –

  • Yes, but do you re-enact the scenes when no one is around?  AND, if we gift you said items, do we get to come over and watch?

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