She is all that I have left and music is her name

[raybear]

So yesterday broqued texted me and said "Jodie Foster today?" and so we pedalled over to a movie theater that accepts my 5 Buck Club card and saw The Brave One and you know what? I didn't hate it. I actually went with it, it had me along, enjoying the ride, up until the very end, and then it lost me. But maybe I was fascinated because I was watching it as a representation of why the topic appeals to people (including myself) and what we think and feel about it and it teetered on scratching more than the surface of it -- even in the midst of the cornocopia of liberal tropes (interracial love relationship; her job as an NPR reporter; discussions about the 'right side of the law'; the somewhat ambiguously light-skinned perpetrators; the earth-mother wise older woman 'from the island') which were sort of hilarious in their own right -- but in the end, the movie decided to play safe, of course. I was pleased to discover that Jodie's hair seemed real, not a wig, as it appeared to me in the billboards. Also, Terence Howard might be the new Denzel Washington. Oh! And Neil Jordan does some disturbing juxtaposition of naked bodies from two different contexts that was maybe brilliant, but I was too busy feeling exploited and overwhelmed.

Today it was hard to leave the house, it was grey and rainy and then when I was walking downtown to the office, its like every smell had changed in the city and now I know for real the beginning of winter has started. No matter that I was sweating in my light sweater, that was more humidity and the front passing through. This realization brought a certain amount of dread, but also certain familiarity. I suppose that is how nostalgia works. October is finally here, I was preparing for it last week, acting and feeling as if it had arrived, to steel myself. It sort of worked, I think.

Comments

[sebastian6.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I'll probably end up watching this one on DVD or from a torrent. I read the review in the New Yorker on the plane yesterday and it made me apprehensive. Here's a quote from the review that made me think that they might be playing a little too much by the book:
The script cuts its characters down to fit its message, and Jordan’s bleary, cramped direction strips the flavor from his New York locations: it might as well be Omaha.

Hmmmm.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

I disagree with the line "and discovers she likes it" regarding the revenge killing. Though maybe they are just being pithy to prove a point, except it just reads wrong.

It is not a movie I would try and convince anyone to see....its more like, if you already had a curiosity about it, I would encourage one to indulge it (with low expectations).