Logging

Film:  Lawless and The Big Year

Yes, a random pair of films.  Not on purpose at all.  Watched Lawless in the theater, came home, was making dinner and looked up what was on HBO on-demand.  Obviously, the pickings were slim, so I told myself I'd start "The Big Year" and see how it went.  I watched the entire thing.

Lawless was a strange movie.  As a story, it was a total mess.  The overall strategy of the good guys and bad guys was unclear to me.  At first, I was surprised by the restraint of the violence, then shocked at the brutality and then later, again, at the restraint.  The film had no rhythm to it...no logic or obvious theme that cut across the stories and characters.  I was rooting for it, but it didn't land.  Quite a disappointment.

On the other hand, The Big Year started off as among the lamer movies I can remember.  But it grows and I watched the whole thing.  It wasn't great by any stretch, but as a contained little story, it wasn't as bad as I thought.  Let's put in this way -- I recently watched Death at a Funeral -- which was supposedly this big comedy hit several years ago and I actually thought The Big Year was a superior film, even though I believe it is known as a flop.  It reminded me of movies I'd see with my parents growing up.  Movies like City Slickers -- which seem stupid on the surface, but end up being little tales to reinforce certain male American middle class values of adventurism and family and eschewing careerism.