Crash

I finally got to see this movie last night. I've put it on my list for the past two Christmases, and didn't get it until I exchanged a duplicate copy of Kids in the Hall Season 4 (I also scored Robot Chicken Season 1 out of that deal). I didn't really know much about it, except for three things:
1) Racial issues out the wazoo
2) Kind of a fucked up plot
3) Heard nothing but good things about it

It was surprisingly good. My brain was hurting in the beginning because of all the hatred**, and I thought the whole thing would just end up annoying me. But overall, it made me think about the actions of myself and others. I'm not a racist, but just the fact that all these issues were raised really grabbed me.
**although nowhere near as bad as it hurt during the entirety of I Heart Huckabees

The movie ended up being great for a few reasons:

• Very simply written. It wasn't dumbed down; it was fucking real.
  
• You had to care about all the characters, even if they spent much of their time onscreen acting like ignorant dipshits. Everyone learned some kind of lesson in the end.
  
• The kid and the cape were adorable.
  
• They did a great job utilizing a large cast - everyone was connected in a Six Degrees of [insert character here] way.
  
• I'd mention the effectiveness of which characters were offed or saved, but I don't want to give anything away.
  
• The ending tied everything/everyone together nicely. And ironically.

So, yes. Go watch it.

Afterwards we watched The Prestige. I knew nothing about it, and I wasn't expecting it to be about magicians. It was harder for me to follow, partly because my brain was rattled by Crash, but it was still pretty decent. Also, I am still the queen of knowing when a song during the end credits was done by Thom Yorke and/or Radiohead. (It wasn't Bowie, even though he was in the movie!)

Today I saw TMNT. It was okay. I think I was partially let down because of the good movies from last night, but at the same time, I had to remind myself that TMNT isn't as intelligent a movie subject as racial issues or historical magicians. I'd recommend waiting until DVD on this one. The animation was done really well (on the non-humans, anyway) and the plot was okay, but most of its appeal was -- holy crap, a dog was just chasing a pickup down the road -- the appeal was nostalgia. There was a kid in the theater who was maybe a bit older than I was when the teachers would finish lessons early and let us all sit in the hallway watching the original TMNT cartoons before the buses came, and we'd all sing along to the theme song. Which reminds me - they didn't play the theme song during the movie! They did play Black Betty while Raph was fighting some little monster, though, so that was kinda cool.

Now to do actual work.