Prepare Yourselves, This One's a Shocker


Wherein Our Heroine Sticks a Toe in the Cultural Waters.

We actually watched a movie last night. Granted, we didn't go out to the movies, but we did sit down and watch the DVD of "Hero" all the way through. Yep, a whole movie.

Despite our best intentions during the Christmas break, we never did get to the movies then (for those who kindly gave me movie recommendations, thank you again and we will eventually see a lot of them, I am sure!). For some reason, we have been in a long dry spell of intent and will when it comes to movies. We normally enjoy movies quite a lot - I am not sure why movie viewing doesn't seem compelling when it is brought up as an option. Failure of attention span, possibly: sitting still for two hours together may happen quite a lot in our world, but prospectively intending to sit still for two hours just doesn't feel right.

As for last night's fare, it was pretty. The saturated colors of the costumes and sets were glorious as they changed. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai gave lovely performances. The fight scene between Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen on screen. But after a few too many recursive flashbacks and way too many giggle-worthy bits of Peter Pan-style wire work, it seemed to dissolve into ranting bombast. My final reaction was tepid - irritation for the high-strung screaming and manipulative, music video-style slow-motion scenes mixed with admiration for the visual beauty.

Hopefully our next movie viewing will occur before 2006...

Posted: Tuesday - February 15, 2005 at 07:55 AM         | |


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