Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Let's All Go to the Movies

I went to the movies this afternoon, and I have some thoughts.

1. Let's have a five year moritoriam on movie previews in which a row of females act like 1960's girl groups. For one thing, we are nearing the point when more people remember stupid movies in which rows of girls hold out their hands to some song, then they remember the actual original performances themselves. So knock it off. At least for a little while.

2. The Interpreter is not, in fact, a movie about interpetation. Wouldn't that have been cool? "Wait a moment, you didn't conjugate this verb properly. If you don't correct it in the next three minutes, Italy will go to war with Algeria! Move move move!" Or maybe more of a humorous movie. "Billy Jo, did you really just translate "I demand freedom for my oppressed people" into "Oh no! My heacache medicine just wore off?"

But Interpetation plays only a tangential role in The nterpreter. Mostly it's a taught thriller with a lot of emotions in it too.

3. The movie takes place in the fictional country of Matobo, which I presume was done out of courtesy to real African nations that might have similar problems of noble leaders turned to monsters or genocide. But what I want to know is why the same courtesy isn't made for American locations. Take "Escape from New York" which portrays a city torn apart by gang warfare. It's basically a burnt out shell of a city, where human rats tear each other apart in search of scraps of civilization. But the movie ignores New York's vibrant night life, it's proud theater district or it's amazing culinary scene. Is that really fair? Wouldn't it be more fair if the movie were called "Escape from North Yorkshire" or something like that?

Just some thoughts.

No comments: