Movie Madness

I finally took a break from my three-month long "Battlestar Galactica" (such an awesome show) fest with Andy to actually move some movies to the top of my Netflix list and sit down and watch them. In the past five days I've seen three big supposedly must-see movies of the year: "Gran Torino," "Slumdog Millionaire" and "Revolutionary Road."

Of course, "Slumdog" was awesome. I just love movies and books about East Asian culture. Fascinating. That culture is one of the reasons I had a concentration in Cross-cultural Literature when getting my BA. The first English class I took at Hunter College was East-Asian Women's Lit and it basically changed my life. Reading works by Shani Mootoo, Arundhati Roy and Jhumpa Lahiri (among so many other amazing writers) was just amazing, and turned me onto a whole new world. So, of course, this movie went right into that world and was just great. And sweet and lovely, which is always nice, too (I'm so easily pleased).

"Revolutionary Road," which we watched last night, was good and depressing and all that. I won't get too into it, for those who haven't seen it, but I admit I was nervous that when the movie was over I'd turn to Andy and insist we sell the house and get out immediately. This wasn't helped by the fact that just about every day I tell Andy how much I want to return (again) to Paris. Those who've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about. Anyway, when it was over I was depressed by the story, but didn't feel I had to change my life... because we're special, we are the Spaceks, after all...right? hm.

And "Gran Torino." I though this was a reference to a "Grandfather" or "Grandpa," last name "Torino" because, you know, Clint is old, and what the hell do I know about cars?

Anyway, I liked the movie, and again, it's always nice to get a glimpse of other cultures... however I found that the girl who played Sue was such a terrible actor it was hard for me to concentrate. I felt this way about a lot of the dialogue between her and Clint - like I was watching a student film. A bad one. Sorry. I thought it might be because I had the English subtitles on (I do this when I can't hear/understand the tv/actors sometimes) - perhaps I was reading too much, and that made it seem so scripted? But then I turned them off and I still thought she was awful, so go figure.

Have you seen these movies? What did you think? Wanna argue with me about that bad actress? Do you like/dislike the authors I mentioned? Leave me a comment!