Can I Buy My Ticket For Catching Fire Yet?

.

I find it hard to look back in time and remember that I once was of the opinion that Jennifer Lawrence was wrong for Katniss Everdeen, our heroine in The Hunger Games. If I were going to defend my tomfoolery now I'd say it was just after she'd glammed herself to high heights for Winter's Bone awards and the freshest vision I had of her was the super blond and ultra buxom version of her on the red carpets. This was not the Katniss I was looking for.

But now that I've seen the movie I kind of want to reach back through time and smack my stupid face good and hard. What was I thinking? Lawrence is terrific - she sells Katniss' steeliness and her vulnerability with equal aplomb. She sells everything - it's been awhile since I have read the books and the film reminded what a first-person experience the story is. This is Katniss' story, and I thought Gary Ross did a great job of getting us inside her head all the while not relying on narration at all, which would've been the easy (cluttered) way to get away with it. The camerawork gets a little bit wobbly for its own good at times but I thought as a way of plunking us down there with Katniss it worked more than it didn't.

Generally I thought Ross made a lot of really smart choices in turning Collins' book into a movie. We probably could have used more time with Katniss in District 12 at the start to set up just how despairing their lives are supposed to be, but I understand that it was already an hour before we even got to the Games, so keeping things moving was an issue. Lawrence sold me on the little notes where this echoed - the way she caressed the fabrics in her room in the Capitol managed to express both awe and disgust, or that half-starved look on her face in the flashback where Peeta tosses her the bread, for instance. I think it got across the notes it needed to, mostly. 

Josh Hutcherson was great - while he never looked like the Peeta I'd imagined as much as Lawrence came to look like Katniss, he was able to overcome that anyway and make Peeta, for me, even more interesting than he was in the book. I think he complicated Peeta's actions just as much as Lawrence did, so there were times where I was wondering just how much he was playing for the cameras too, which doesn't always get across in the books since they're entirely from Katniss' perspective.

Woody Harrelson gave good Haymitch but I really don't know what they were thinking with that distracting Owen Wilson look they gave him. But the weight that Haymitch feels sending off these kids to their deaths year in year out was there. As for Stanley Tucci... Stanley Tucci's teeth. Teeth! So much teeth.

I wasn't crazy about Lenny Kravtiz as Cinna - he kind of sucked all the air out of the room every time he showed up. It felt as if he showed up with two days to film all his scenes and everything stopped in its tracks for him. But he and Lawrence did have a believable, sweet rapport (I think she might be incapable of not having a natural rapport with anything though.) Elizabeth Banks was a wondrous preening vision of grotesquerie and made every single right choice for Effie - the "reaping" at the start was always going to be nightmarish, but Banks really dug into the awkwardness of it and made it entirely unique and disquieting.

Speaking of disquieting, Donald Sutherland y'all. His viper's smile is going to haunt my nightmares. I long to see him have more to do. That last shot gave me chills. And finally, never do I remember wanting to have Seneca-Crane-from-the-book's babies, but Wes Bentley has gone and changed all of that. Flame-tipped beard crests never found their way into my fetish-pile before, but here we are.

The violence was dealt with especially well, I thought - it felt brutal but it got across what happened without wallowing in gore, which just isn't necessary here. From what I remember Collins never got too detailed with it either. I love Battle Royale too y'all, but this isn't going to be Battle Royale. (An aside: God I'm so tired of the endless exhausting "I'm so smart for knowing other stories that told this sort of story!" catcalls, from The Running Man to The Most Dangerous Game and on and on. We get it. You're so clever, congratulations! But THG actually tells its own story. Move on.)

Anyway the death that really needed to work did, judging from the trembling lip and tear-streaked face I was trying to disguise from the people around me. Indeed I found that moment (I'm purposefully being vague just in case, but y'all know who I mean) with its spill over into revolution incredibly powerful, perhaps the most powerful in the film (it reminded me of the part is Ross' Pleasantville where the "coloreds" start getting attacked, actually) and knowing what it means for what's to come...

Mostly what struck me about having this first book retold to me was how small it seems after everything that comes about in the second and third books - how broad the world gets from here on out, I mean. Here in The Hunger Games it's all relatively straightforward and centered entirely on Katniss' experience... which is probably why the first book is the most successful, story-wise. And the film succeeds on that level - I felt there with this girl on fire. Indeed it succeeded well enough that once the end credits started I thought wouldn't it be wonderful if at the end of the credits the second film just started right then and there! Kind of as a surprise gift to us fans. So I am writing this from inside the theater still. And I will stay here until Catching Fire starts. I will live off of popcorn kernels and the kindness of strangers until then. Wish me luck! 

.

Can I Buy My Ticket For Catching Fire Yet?

.

I find it hard to look back in time and remember that I once was of the opinion that Jennifer Lawrence was wrong for Katniss Everdeen, our heroine in The Hunger Games. If I were going to defend my tomfoolery now I'd say it was just after she'd glammed herself to high heights for Winter's Bone awards and the freshest vision I had of her was the super blond and ultra buxom version of her on the red carpets. This was not the Katniss I was looking for.

But now that I've seen the movie I kind of want to reach back through time and smack my stupid face good and hard. What was I thinking? Lawrence is terrific - she sells Katniss' steeliness and her vulnerability with equal aplomb. She sells everything - it's been awhile since I have read the books and the film reminded what a first-person experience the story is. This is Katniss' story, and I thought Gary Ross did a great job of getting us inside her head all the while not relying on narration at all, which would've been the easy (cluttered) way to get away with it. The camerawork gets a little bit wobbly for its own good at times but I thought as a way of plunking us down there with Katniss it worked more than it didn't.

Generally I thought Ross made a lot of really smart choices in turning Collins' book into a movie. We probably could have used more time with Katniss in District 12 at the start to set up just how despairing their lives are supposed to be, but I understand that it was already an hour before we even got to the Games, so keeping things moving was an issue. Lawrence sold me on the little notes where this echoed - the way she caressed the fabrics in her room in the Capitol managed to express both awe and disgust, or that half-starved look on her face in the flashback where Peeta tosses her the bread, for instance. I think it got across the notes it needed to, mostly. 

Josh Hutcherson was great - while he never looked like the Peeta I'd imagined as much as Lawrence came to look like Katniss, he was able to overcome that anyway and make Peeta, for me, even more interesting than he was in the book. I think he complicated Peeta's actions just as much as Lawrence did, so there were times where I was wondering just how much he was playing for the cameras too, which doesn't always get across in the books since they're entirely from Katniss' perspective.

Woody Harrelson gave good Haymitch but I really don't know what they were thinking with that distracting Owen Wilson look they gave him. But the weight that Haymitch feels sending off these kids to their deaths year in year out was there. As for Stanley Tucci... Stanley Tucci's teeth. Teeth! So much teeth.

I wasn't crazy about Lenny Kravtiz as Cinna - he kind of sucked all the air out of the room every time he showed up. It felt as if he showed up with two days to film all his scenes and everything stopped in its tracks for him. But he and Lawrence did have a believable, sweet rapport (I think she might be incapable of not having a natural rapport with anything though.) Elizabeth Banks was a wondrous preening vision of grotesquerie and made every single right choice for Effie - the "reaping" at the start was always going to be nightmarish, but Banks really dug into the awkwardness of it and made it entirely unique and disquieting.

Speaking of disquieting, Donald Sutherland y'all. His viper's smile is going to haunt my nightmares. I long to see him have more to do. That last shot gave me chills. And finally, never do I remember wanting to have Seneca-Crane-from-the-book's babies, but Wes Bentley has gone and changed all of that. Flame-tipped beard crests never found their way into my fetish-pile before, but here we are.

The violence was dealt with especially well, I thought - it felt brutal but it got across what happened without wallowing in gore, which just isn't necessary here. From what I remember Collins never got too detailed with it either. I love Battle Royale too y'all, but this isn't going to be Battle Royale. (An aside: God I'm so tired of the endless exhausting "I'm so smart for knowing other stories that told this sort of story!" catcalls, from The Running Man to The Most Dangerous Game and on and on. We get it. You're so clever, congratulations! But THG actually tells its own story. Move on.)

Anyway the death that really needed to work did, judging from the trembling lip and tear-streaked face I was trying to disguise from the people around me. Indeed I found that moment (I'm purposefully being vague just in case, but y'all know who I mean) with its spill over into revolution incredibly powerful, perhaps the most powerful in the film (it reminded me of the part is Ross' Pleasantville where the "coloreds" start getting attacked, actually) and knowing what it means for what's to come...

Mostly what struck me about having this first book retold to me was how small it seems after everything that comes about in the second and third books - how broad the world gets from here on out, I mean. Here in The Hunger Games it's all relatively straightforward and centered entirely on Katniss' experience... which is probably why the first book is the most successful, story-wise. And the film succeeds on that level - I felt there with this girl on fire. Indeed it succeeded well enough that once the end credits started I thought wouldn't it be wonderful if at the end of the credits the second film just started right then and there! Kind of as a surprise gift to us fans. So I am writing this from inside the theater still. And I will stay here until Catching Fire starts. I will live off of popcorn kernels and the kindness of strangers until then. Wish me luck! 

.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... steaming it up with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Paul Bettany.

Posting that little picture of Jamie Lannister earlier today made this inevitable - once I've gazed upon the indefatigable jawline of Nikolaj, there can be no other.

I've only seen Wimbledon once and all I really remember from it is the sexual tension - perhaps entirely projected by me - between these two fellas. But I mean it's not like I had to work very hard if it was my projection since somebody was shooting these scenes to purposefully plant such seeds.

I mean, come on. Just go at it, you two! 

This reminds me that I haven't written anything about Headhunters, the really terrific Norwegian thriller with a very scary Nikolaj that's actually going to get a little release here in the States next month - I didn't think it was getting a release here and had gotten impatient with wanting to see it (it came out over yonder way back in August, and has been garnering enthusiasm ever since) so I downloaded it and watched it last month, but then I got all caught up in the Trousers and never found the time to write a review.

And now I've waited too long and my recollections are murky. But I did like it very much, I remember finding it very thrilling (a good thing for a thriller to be) - there's an especially memorable scary slash disgusting scene involving an outhouse - so you should definitely seek it out when you can. (I know, it was the outhouse thing that won you over.) Here, let me try this:

Perhaps these pictures of Nikolaj in a locker-room

in the film will convince you betetr than the outhouse thing?

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... steaming it up with Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Paul Bettany.

Posting that little picture of Jamie Lannister earlier today made this inevitable - once I've gazed upon the indefatigable jawline of Nikolaj, there can be no other.

I've only seen Wimbledon once and all I really remember from it is the sexual tension - perhaps entirely projected by me - between these two fellas. But I mean it's not like I had to work very hard if it was my projection since somebody was shooting these scenes to purposefully plant such seeds.

I mean, come on. Just go at it, you two! 

This reminds me that I haven't written anything about Headhunters, the really terrific Norwegian thriller with a very scary Nikolaj that's actually going to get a little release here in the States next month - I didn't think it was getting a release here and had gotten impatient with wanting to see it (it came out over yonder way back in August, and has been garnering enthusiasm ever since) so I downloaded it and watched it last month, but then I got all caught up in the Trousers and never found the time to write a review.

And now I've waited too long and my recollections are murky. But I did like it very much, I remember finding it very thrilling (a good thing for a thriller to be) - there's an especially memorable scary slash disgusting scene involving an outhouse - so you should definitely seek it out when you can. (I know, it was the outhouse thing that won you over.) Here, let me try this:

Perhaps these pictures of Nikolaj in a locker-room

in the film will convince you betetr than the outhouse thing?

You Know Nothing, John Carter

.

John Carter was so bad I couldn't even be bothered to shush the couple sitting in the row in front of me who had a conversation the entire movie. I'm a militant shusher, y'all. But the thought of proclaiming to the world with the shush that I really cared to hear the godforsaken dialogue coming out of these character's mouths was just too embarrassing to even consider. When the guy a few seats over from me turned on his iPhone at the three-quarter mark I almost leaned over and watched him play Angry Birds instead of bothering with the screen anymore.

This all makes me sad. I had high hopes for JC, and with all its negative box office attentions this week I'd hoped I'd be one of the people defending it, saying it's a misunderstood pop masterpiece. I love an epic outer space yarn filled with four armed aliens and the buxom men and lady-folk that fight them, love them, et cetera. When I heard they were finally making the film I ran out and read several of the books in anticipation - it always seemed like I should have read the books anyway, so this made a good excuse - and while I thought the first book was the weakest of the ones I read (I enjoyed the religion-bashing second book a bunch more) I figured all that could be straightened out on-screen once the political pronouncements and dopiness were streamlined and Burroughs' tendency to write action like, "And then Carter fought them, and he beat them good, next scene" could be filled in with, you know, actual scenes of cool fighting.

But good god is this thing plodding. And dopey, and god it's unattractive to look at. Garish and muddled and edited incomprehensibly. There's not a single action scene here that involved me. Taylor Kitsch looks good and looks better in less, but I'll be damned if I could tell you if he can act after this (I know, Friday Night Lights fans, I know). His accent is as wobbly as his triceps are firm - John is supposed to be Southern, not a Canadian Clint Eastwood. That's not the sort of thing I usually call attention to but it gets so thick at moments, his attempts to Southern him up - usually whenever his character being Southern is brought up - and then just vanishes for the rest of the time, that I can't not. The script does him no favors - the dialogue's thuddingly dull, even for someone who recently geeked out about Therns and the River Iss.

I will say I kind of liked Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris - she gave some fire to the character - and Woola was cute. Ending it on some positive notes! Two itty bitty positive notes that are completely drowned out by an opera of failure otherwise.
.

You Know Nothing, John Carter

.

John Carter was so bad I couldn't even be bothered to shush the couple sitting in the row in front of me who had a conversation the entire movie. I'm a militant shusher, y'all. But the thought of proclaiming to the world with the shush that I really cared to hear the godforsaken dialogue coming out of these character's mouths was just too embarrassing to even consider. When the guy a few seats over from me turned on his iPhone at the three-quarter mark I almost leaned over and watched him play Angry Birds instead of bothering with the screen anymore.

This all makes me sad. I had high hopes for JC, and with all its negative box office attentions this week I'd hoped I'd be one of the people defending it, saying it's a misunderstood pop masterpiece. I love an epic outer space yarn filled with four armed aliens and the buxom men and lady-folk that fight them, love them, et cetera. When I heard they were finally making the film I ran out and read several of the books in anticipation - it always seemed like I should have read the books anyway, so this made a good excuse - and while I thought the first book was the weakest of the ones I read (I enjoyed the religion-bashing second book a bunch more) I figured all that could be straightened out on-screen once the political pronouncements and dopiness were streamlined and Burroughs' tendency to write action like, "And then Carter fought them, and he beat them good, next scene" could be filled in with, you know, actual scenes of cool fighting.

But good god is this thing plodding. And dopey, and god it's unattractive to look at. Garish and muddled and edited incomprehensibly. There's not a single action scene here that involved me. Taylor Kitsch looks good and looks better in less, but I'll be damned if I could tell you if he can act after this (I know, Friday Night Lights fans, I know). His accent is as wobbly as his triceps are firm - John is supposed to be Southern, not a Canadian Clint Eastwood. That's not the sort of thing I usually call attention to but it gets so thick at moments, his attempts to Southern him up - usually whenever his character being Southern is brought up - and then just vanishes for the rest of the time, that I can't not. The script does him no favors - the dialogue's thuddingly dull, even for someone who recently geeked out about Therns and the River Iss.

I will say I kind of liked Lynn Collins as Dejah Thoris - she gave some fire to the character - and Woola was cute. Ending it on some positive notes! Two itty bitty positive notes that are completely drowned out by an opera of failure otherwise.
.

Silent House in 250 Words or Less

.

(spoilers ahoy) Elisabeth Olsen has a wonderful face that staring at for extended periods of time is just a pleasure to do - all that space around her giant eyes is just a playground for light and shadow. And in a movie as reliant upon staring at Elizabeth Olsen's face in light and in shadow, Silent House has its pleasures. The leisurely set-up, the music-less soundtrack, I found it effective. I liked the way the single camera gimmick forced scares to elongate - instead of jump cuts that I am so tired of, we get moments where Elizabeth screams about something and then we have to wait for the camera to find what it is she's screaming at, so it becomes this double-punch; it gives everything an odd arrhythmic beat that kept me off-balance. 

But then it starts unravelling its story and it all falls to crap. Why couldn't this just be a simple "There's a squatter in the basement who wants us gone!" horror movie? That is a terrifying thing, and as long as the movie pretends that's what it is the movie's got heat. But no, it decides it has to go up its own ass with hallucinations and incest and ghosts and rape-rooms and none of the last half an hour works, except to undo anything we might have appreciated about the start. It's one of those twists (like the otherwise brilliant High Tension) that puts a pox on the whole shebang. Watch Them instead.

.

Silent House in 250 Words or Less

.

(spoilers ahoy) Elisabeth Olsen has a wonderful face that staring at for extended periods of time is just a pleasure to do - all that space around her giant eyes is just a playground for light and shadow. And in a movie as reliant upon staring at Elizabeth Olsen's face in light and in shadow, Silent House has its pleasures. The leisurely set-up, the music-less soundtrack, I found it effective. I liked the way the single camera gimmick forced scares to elongate - instead of jump cuts that I am so tired of, we get moments where Elizabeth screams about something and then we have to wait for the camera to find what it is she's screaming at, so it becomes this double-punch; it gives everything an odd arrhythmic beat that kept me off-balance. 

But then it starts unravelling its story and it all falls to crap. Why couldn't this just be a simple "There's a squatter in the basement who wants us gone!" horror movie? That is a terrifying thing, and as long as the movie pretends that's what it is the movie's got heat. But no, it decides it has to go up its own ass with hallucinations and incest and ghosts and rape-rooms and none of the last half an hour works, except to undo anything we might have appreciated about the start. It's one of those twists (like the otherwise brilliant High Tension) that puts a pox on the whole shebang. Watch Them instead.

.

Possession in 20 Words

.

I have no idea what I just watched,

but I'm totally going to watch it fifty times and find out.

Possession in 20 Words

.

I have no idea what I just watched,

but I'm totally going to watch it fifty times and find out.

Alps in 300 Words or Less

.

You might say that Alps, the title of Greek director Giorgos Lanthimos' follow-up to masterful Dogtooth, is sort of an inverse synechdoche (the word, but by extension Charlie Kaufman's movie too) - instead of one small piece standing in for the whole, here we've got one large piece (an entire mountain range) standing in for... well nothing. The proprietor behind the business that gives the film its title here explains what the name means - the mountains are the best mountains and can never be bettered, but they can better the lesser mountains - but that really only takes us further into absurdity. Which is right where he wants us to be.

Where Dogtooth kept us confined inside its vacuum-sealed bizarro society, Alps takes us outdoors amongst the world. But not really. It's just as askew a place, and the rules we normally attribute to How People Behave is dutifully kept at arm's length. It seems he wanted to stop letting his countrymen off the hook (and you do get the feeling that Lanthimos is speaking directly at his own society with these movies) by locking up the weirdness behind a big wooden fence - here it spills across the streets and gyms and lamp-shops. Everybody is so not normal. Scenes echo across each other in a prism of false-hoods so complex its dizzying - where does the play-acting end and the real world start? And does it matter? If all it takes is a happy pop song and a pink ribbon to make believe it's a happy ending, then why fight it?

Alps in 300 Words or Less

.

You might say that Alps, the title of Greek director Giorgos Lanthimos' follow-up to masterful Dogtooth, is sort of an inverse synechdoche (the word, but by extension Charlie Kaufman's movie too) - instead of one small piece standing in for the whole, here we've got one large piece (an entire mountain range) standing in for... well nothing. The proprietor behind the business that gives the film its title here explains what the name means - the mountains are the best mountains and can never be bettered, but they can better the lesser mountains - but that really only takes us further into absurdity. Which is right where he wants us to be.

Where Dogtooth kept us confined inside its vacuum-sealed bizarro society, Alps takes us outdoors amongst the world. But not really. It's just as askew a place, and the rules we normally attribute to How People Behave is dutifully kept at arm's length. It seems he wanted to stop letting his countrymen off the hook (and you do get the feeling that Lanthimos is speaking directly at his own society with these movies) by locking up the weirdness behind a big wooden fence - here it spills across the streets and gyms and lamp-shops. Everybody is so not normal. Scenes echo across each other in a prism of false-hoods so complex its dizzying - where does the play-acting end and the real world start? And does it matter? If all it takes is a happy pop song and a pink ribbon to make believe it's a happy ending, then why fight it?

Return in 240 Words or Less

.

For a movie as low-key as Return is, it seems strange I was holding my breath so much. I was just so nervous it might topple into the standard melodrama of the situation as we've seen it played out so many times before (vet comes home from service, freaks out) that I couldn't help myself. But the film doesn't topple - it pushes aside the cliches gently, but confidently.

Similarly Linda Cardellini gives an unshowy performance, presenting a capable woman adrift in a sea of semi-recognizable faces that seem as if they're coming at her from a distant sorta hazy past, and not quite standing in front of her here and now. It's as if she's found herself in an alternate universe, and only she can see how it's not quite right anymore. We watch as Cardellini shuffles and reshuffles, trying to shake out the right shape - she stares at her friends, her husband (Michael Shannon ceding the PTSD to somebody else for a change, playing a light dude who even smiles some), and even her children with unease.

Instinctively you can't help but like Cardellini, who never comes across as anything less than genuine, but she never lets this woman off the hook - she's difficult, frustrating, and even weak. But with so little said and even more deflected, we come to see exactly who she is anyway.

Return in 240 Words or Less

.

For a movie as low-key as Return is, it seems strange I was holding my breath so much. I was just so nervous it might topple into the standard melodrama of the situation as we've seen it played out so many times before (vet comes home from service, freaks out) that I couldn't help myself. But the film doesn't topple - it pushes aside the cliches gently, but confidently.

Similarly Linda Cardellini gives an unshowy performance, presenting a capable woman adrift in a sea of semi-recognizable faces that seem as if they're coming at her from a distant sorta hazy past, and not quite standing in front of her here and now. It's as if she's found herself in an alternate universe, and only she can see how it's not quite right anymore. We watch as Cardellini shuffles and reshuffles, trying to shake out the right shape - she stares at her friends, her husband (Michael Shannon ceding the PTSD to somebody else for a change, playing a light dude who even smiles some), and even her children with unease.

Instinctively you can't help but like Cardellini, who never comes across as anything less than genuine, but she never lets this woman off the hook - she's difficult, frustrating, and even weak. But with so little said and even more deflected, we come to see exactly who she is anyway.

(Wander)Lust For Blood

.

Wanderlust is a lot of fun so I wouldn't hold it against y'all if you went to see that this weekend - give David Wain money and make Wetter Hotter Americaner Summer happen! - but the best movie that I've already seen that's coming out today is The Forgiveness of Blood, the new movie from Maria Full of Grace director Joshua Marston. Granted I've only seen two of the movies coming out this weekend, and they are Wanderlust and The Forgiveness of Blood, but nevermind all that. Blood is the best! It's also presumably coming out on several thousand fewer screens than Wanderlust, but you should keep an eye out for it.

The film tells the story of how an Albanian family in a rural town get trapped inside their house by a blood feud with a neighboring family after a deadly spat occurs between them. It plunks us down in a place with rules very different from our own and then goes about showing how similar we still are under that - Martson, an American who lives in New York, seems to have made this his mission, showing the ill fit between these other cultures with their lingering pasts and the modern world creeping in at the edges. The kids in Blood are literally trapped by the arbitrary and archaic rules of their elders, with the foremost patriarchal figure in their lives having let them horribly down and abandoned them. The film's most riveting, as was Maria, in showing the powerless of women in these structures - best in show goes to Sindi Lacej as the teenage daughter Rudina, full of promise only to have it all snuffed out in a flare of macho.

Besides the movies I have seen, there are a few others - like for instance Tyler Perry's new movie Good Deeds, starring himself and my nemesis Thandie "Ugh" Newton, which might just be the answer to what the equal and opposite force to all the goodness inside of me would be. Also there's propaganda piece Act of Valor, and Gone with Amanda Seyfried and Wes Bentley. Read what I gots to say on them over at Celebrity Beehive.
.

(Wander)Lust For Blood

.

Wanderlust is a lot of fun so I wouldn't hold it against y'all if you went to see that this weekend - give David Wain money and make Wetter Hotter Americaner Summer happen! - but the best movie that I've already seen that's coming out today is The Forgiveness of Blood, the new movie from Maria Full of Grace director Joshua Marston. Granted I've only seen two of the movies coming out this weekend, and they are Wanderlust and The Forgiveness of Blood, but nevermind all that. Blood is the best! It's also presumably coming out on several thousand fewer screens than Wanderlust, but you should keep an eye out for it.

The film tells the story of how an Albanian family in a rural town get trapped inside their house by a blood feud with a neighboring family after a deadly spat occurs between them. It plunks us down in a place with rules very different from our own and then goes about showing how similar we still are under that - Martson, an American who lives in New York, seems to have made this his mission, showing the ill fit between these other cultures with their lingering pasts and the modern world creeping in at the edges. The kids in Blood are literally trapped by the arbitrary and archaic rules of their elders, with the foremost patriarchal figure in their lives having let them horribly down and abandoned them. The film's most riveting, as was Maria, in showing the powerless of women in these structures - best in show goes to Sindi Lacej as the teenage daughter Rudina, full of promise only to have it all snuffed out in a flare of macho.

Besides the movies I have seen, there are a few others - like for instance Tyler Perry's new movie Good Deeds, starring himself and my nemesis Thandie "Ugh" Newton, which might just be the answer to what the equal and opposite force to all the goodness inside of me would be. Also there's propaganda piece Act of Valor, and Gone with Amanda Seyfried and Wes Bentley. Read what I gots to say on them over at Celebrity Beehive.
.