Logging

Films:  Near Dark and Strange Days

The other night, I treated myself to a long overdue Katheryn Bigelow fest.  In the wake of Zero Dark Thirty, these were particularly interesting films to watch.  Incredibly different style.  Would be stretching to say the films were representative of the same filmmaker, although some philosophical similarities.  Near Dark is an interesting genre exercise, a mixture of vampire lore, western symbolism, outlaw love story.  I don't know if it was her first film, but it sure felt like a "first film," where some really cool, exciting elements, and then some amateurish ones to keep the story going along.  I was particularly impressed with the shots of vampires on fire.  There are a number of films where a character is on fire and it always looks bad to me, but in this relatively cheap vampire movie, the fire was at least interesting to look at.

Strange Days is simply put, one of the weirdest big scale films I've seen in awhile.  The movie feels both incredibly dated and oddly prescient.  It might make a bizarro pairing with a movie like Demolition Man - another incredibly strange representation of the future.  The human relationships and characters in Strange Days are the weirdest part - aside from all the futurism and virtual reality stuff.  Can someone explain to me how Ralph Fiennes is an ex-cop and spends the entire movie getting his ass kicked?  Aren't cops trained to be tough or at least be able to fight back?  In contrast, Angela Basset is this kick ass limo driver who (from the flashback) used to be a waitress?  Huh?  Why is she protecting him the entire time?  I seemed to have missed something.  The story about a rapper being killed by rogue cops and the cover up mixed in with the insane serial killer was completely bonkers.  Why did Vincent D'Onofrio start shooting all these random people at a big New Years Eve party in an effort to cover up another murder?  Wouldn't that be illegal as well and create a hundred other witnesses?

Also, why did the cops allow for this gigantic New Years Eve party in this chaotic, revolutionary times in the first place?  Doesn't the city have a permitting process?  How were the bands allowed to play and all the crazy party set up?  Just a thought.

This was a big Cameran-Bigelow collaboration and it the movie itself was any representation of the marriage, I can see why it didn't work out.  Too all over the place.  That said, I was glad to have watched it.