i saw three films this weekend. on friday i saw hellboy which sucked. comic books movies are a major exception to my usual film snootiness. the only movies based on comic books that i have actually liked in the past few years are the ones based on non-superhero comics (e.g. ghost world or american spendor). i guess my basic problem is my growing dislike of action films. over the past 10 years i have been finding action sequences in movies to be, well, boring. so movies like "the matrix" (i'm talking about the original) which virtually all of my friends see as a truly great movie, i thought was rather dull. i guess i am simply not excited by what others find exciting. this has been getting progressively worse (or better, depending on your perspective, i suppose) over the last ten years or so. but despite this i keep seeing comic book movies when i can. so i continue to suffer through "spider man" and now "hellboy" even though there is nothing to them but fight scenes and a bunch of lame jokes out of some lingering loyalty to the comic book subculture. i used to be really into comics. i still read them on occasion, but the only super hero comic i still regularly buy is the one that my cousin writes.
yesterday was another film in the talk cinema series. they showed us spring, summer, fall, winter... and spring, a film which is probably the polar opposite to hellboy. it's comprised of 5 sequences, all of which take place in a different season on a small floating buddist temple in the middle of a lake in korea. it was one of those films that really has to catch me in the right mood. and it did, so i liked it. don't get me wrong, there actually was a plot (there's even a murder, although it happens off screen), but the movie was more about ideas than anything else. the slow deliberate pace probably would drive some people crazy. but it's beautifully filmed, so if nothing else, you can always stare at the pretty colors on the screen.
after talk cinema, i went to eternal sunshine for the spotless mind for the second time. "eternal sunshine" was the previous film in the talk cinema series (you may remember when i wrote about it here). but my wife does not go to talk cinema with me. and in the past month or so since i saw it, the film has come out and all these people have talked about how it is the greatest movie since swiss cheese. so i went again so mrs. noz could join in on the fun. it held up well the second time. i still think its a really great movie
this week the philadelphia film festival opens. normally, this would mean that i would temporarily disappear from civil society and try to see as many obscure films as i can before the fest ends. but it's not gonna happen this year. i'm just too damn busy. between my class, the perspective students crap i do for my alma mater, my sister-in-law's upcoming visit, my work, and the fact that we are going to san francisco in a week and a half, means that obscure films are just not in the cards this year. i am thinking of ditching my arabic class to see this lebanese film. exposure to the language will be good practice, right? or am i just grasping for straws to justify seeing something? there's always the gay film festival this summer.
