TNMC

The title Full Battle Rattle is apparently army slang for wearing full body armor, approximately 50 pounds of it.  As for the movie, it's a fascinating documentary of the army's full scale battle simulation area set up in the Mojave Desert.

I saw this movie with an older upscale crowd.  They didn't seem like a natural fit for the movie and yet they howled with laughter.  They may only grudgingly admit it later but they were having fun.  I suspect a lot of people will have a hard time admitting that they enjoyed a movie with porno in the title.

Closing out the 2008 FilmColumbia festival was James Grey's latest film, Two Lovers.  It star Joaquin Phoenix as Leonard, an emotionally unstable young man trying to take some control of his life.  

Kristin Scott Thomas gives a tremendous performance as Juliette, a woman who reappears in her family's life after spending fifteen years in prison for an unspeakable act.  The reason it is unspeakable is that this is the sort of movie that loses a lot of steam if its secrets are revealed too early.

Breakfast with Scot is a story about a gay couple who are placed in charge of a young boy when his mother dies suddenly.  The couple is lawyer Sam (Ben Shenkman) and former NHL player Eric (Thomas Cavanagh).  The twist is that the kid comes off as a flamboyant gay stereotype and that makes Eric a bit homophobic.

In my effort to get back to posting regularly I actually went out to a movie.  I'll wait while you collect your wits after that shock.

 

After a short stint as a TA for a film noir class, I have now reached six weeks of unemployment before by PhD career begins. Having not written for a while and looking down the barrel of a handgun labeled “book chapter deadline,” I thought I’d spew off a few thoughts on my summer media interactions. Due to my lack of cable television and my shortsighted knowledge of recent music outside the new Portishead, Roots, Beck, and Nick Cave albums, I’ve kept these notes down to movies and video games. Needless to say, there may be ::SPOILERS:: below, so read at your own risk!

Purely on a whim I did something generally against my rules of conduct, which is buying a DVD for a previously unseen movie.  Why buy when Netflix will provide it easily for me?  If the movie sucks, $20 has just been saved.