Burn After Reading

My weekend movie viewing ended on a positive note. I gave De Niro and Pacino respect, and was dissapointed, but with the Coen brothers my hopes were met. This is probably one of the most obvious arguments for picking a movie based on director(s) rather than based on the actor(s). Of course this is no "No Country For Old Men", but then it wasn't trying to be. It was a dark, satirical comedy with off-the-wall characters, set to a relatively quick pace. I laughed hard, I enjoyed the performances of actors in roles not typically their own, and I wasn't treated like an absolute idiot. What more could one want out of a movie? At the same time I realize that after the bad experience on Friday, any movie would seem good. To be fair, this movie doesn't really have any redeeming values, it doesn't have any values at all really. Everyone deserved what they got or didn't get, and there wasn't any happiness on screen. I know what you're thinking; 'Peter, dark comedies aren't supposed to make you feel good'. But I would reply that the great ones, like "Dr Strangelove" maybe don't offer any hope or happiness, but they do scare you, jolt your everyday life to let you know that there's scary stuff out there and the people around you, the ones running the show are the scariest. "Burn After Reading" almost made me feel that, but it didn't go quite far enough as far as I'm concerened. Maybe next time the Coen brothers can cross "No Country For Old Men" with "Burn After Reading" and make something that burns an idea into our minds and makes us laugh too.

Righteous Kill

It's been four weeks since my last movie, it felt like an eternity.  Originally I had hope to go to two movies tonight, but due to theater timetables it didn't work out this time.  I had to make a hard choice; which movie to see?  Of course I plan on seeing the other movie tomorrow, but still which movie you see first is a very important decision, and hopefully I chose well...  I made my pick based on respect.  Respect for two of the greatest actors ever; De Niro and Pacino.  "Righteous Kill" is their third best movie together, which by the way also makes it their worst movie together (do the math).  I'm going to make this review easy on myself; this was a bad movie with two great actors giving alright performances.  It was a bad movie because it insulted my intelligence and didn't really go anywhere interesting.  It had De Niro and Pacino doing De Niro and Pacino stuff, but not De Niro and Pacino at their peak.  "Heat" had De Niro and Pacino together, at their peak not only doing their stuff, but talking about their stuff, which was just wonderful.  "The Godfather Part II" had both doing their stuff, not together mind you, but there on the same screen nevertheless.  "Righteous Kill" had the unintended affect of making me think more about those two films instead of the movie I was sitting through.  Hopefully tomorrow my movie order pays off and I get to finish off with a good movie to write about.