Movies: From Dumb To Very Smart

Virg and I saw three movies worth blogging about recently. Today, against my better judgment, Virg dragged me out to see Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder. Rated 83% on Rotten Tomatoes, I was sure I'd be that 1-in-6 person who hates it. But I have to say, this movie is that rare dumb comedy that transcends its genre and pokes fun at dumb movies. A true meta-dumb movie. Virg and I laughed a lot. But don't get me wrong: It's pretty dumb.

(movie poster stolen from Wikipedia)

We also watched V For Vendetta couple days ago on DVD. It's a very cool movie. The story is sort of a 1984-totalitarian-government meets a charming-but-dark-knight. I'd tell you more, but I think we're the last people on earth to have seen it.

V and Evey, as seen by V and me

When Ravi was here a few weeks ago, he told me I had to see a movie called Primer, and that the less I knew about the movie beforehand the better. So, Virg and I finally watched it last week. First of all, it's only 78 minutes long. It was made on a budget of $7000 largely by just one guy, Shane Carruth, who wrote, directed, produced, starred in, edited, and composed the music for it. 15 minutes into the movie we were pretty unimpressed by it. The dialogue was so hard to catch that we had a hard time picking up on a plot to follow.

scene from Primer

But an hour later we were completely blown away by it. That's an hour later in movie time, but probably 2 hours of actual time if you take into account all the pausing to figure out what was happening. The plot turned out to be a puzzle as rich as movies like Memento or Usual Suspects, and no one could have understood this movie in one viewing. I've now watched it three times, and I think I understand most of it now. The movie is rated 72% on Rotten Tomatoes, and the reviews are sharply divided between the ones who understood it ("one of the best science fiction films") and the ones who just gave up ("one of the most wilfully obscure sci-fi movies ever made"). I will warn that this movie is not for the faint of brain, but that's what's so good about it. Although you're probably better off catching it on DVD, it turns out you can watch the movie online for free right now at:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3909854615539675694