Viva La Vida: Coldplay

I'm used to exotic sounds and disharmony from Coldplay. And I tend to like only the most melodic bits of their songs. On this album a couple songs are more conventional and very conventionally melodic, but they totally work for me. I'm addicted. They are: Lovers in Japan and the title song.

Narrow Stairs: Death Cab for Cutie

I saw the lead singer of this group on TV, and realized that he looks quite different than I thought he would. It's good he's a singer... Anyway, on this album, I liked the song: 'Your new twin sized bed' among others.

The Bubble (2007)

A gay interest film, but one which educates about the history and politics between Israeli and Palestinians. Sounds right up my alley, and it is. In any case at least, those looking for a gay interest film won't be disappointed.

Goya's Ghosts (2006)

Somehow I've never been a big fan of Ms. Portman, and here she's barely passable playing two roles, the character Ines and Ines's daughter. The background of the story is interesting and one which I don't know well, about how the French came and stopped the inquisition and then the British came and reinstalled the Spanish monarchy. Actually, the movie could have been great, I think, but falls quite short of its promise. It's still watchable though.

No Country For Old Men (2007)

A film about a depraved mercenary with a horrifically botched haircut, a cop tired of it all, and a not so bad guy who finds a lot of drug money.

The characters are quirky perhaps as is supposedly expected from the Coen brothers. The bounty hunter is a completely illogical character following his own rules so different from everyone else.

I'm inclined to say I didn't like the film. But actually it was just okay. It surely doesn't deserve the Oscars it received.

-- Major spoilers --

The sheriff talks to his uncle and in answer to the question about why he wants to retire, says something like that he expected god to step in [to stop the bad guys], but he never did. But in some minor way, does god step in somehow? The bounty hunter has an accident towards the end of the film, where his car is hit by another one running a red light. But of course, the guy doesn't die, but certainly was in pain. Divine retribution? The annoying thing about this idea is that if god bothered to see all this, and that's all that happened to the bastard, god really didn't go all out there. I suppose there is a line of argument that god wouldn't just go and kill the dude -- i.e. he's too subtle for that. Well, maybe...

Which reminds me that it seems that god saved the guy who happened on the money. There was a lightning strike which happens just before the time he makes his escape from the Mexicans who are also after the money. And in fact he does miraculously get away on foot with the Mexicans behind him in big truck. They should have easily run him down, but somehow didn't. He had in fact gone back to do a good deed, i.e. give water to the dying Mexican.

And then of course god is mad at the guy later because he seems willing to cheat on his wife with some woman near the pool. And so it goes downhill from there for him. He dies.

All of this is very annoying to me as, god doesn't exist, remember? I guess it's unavoidable to see a movie made by believers. But someone needs to warn us non-believers beforehand.

Frontline: Bush's War (2008)

This is a totally awesome program, so complete in its indictment of the Bush administration, and the doctrine we should all now follow: that you should always vote for a President who is smarter than the stupidest of his cabinet, especially the vice-president and his secretary of defense.

And we should never again buy the argument that the President doesn't need to be smart, he just needs to pick some smart advisors. This is, on the off chance, that he is inclined to listen to the inevitable one or more seemingly smart, but really stupid ass advisors. Bottom line: a smart cabinet on a stupid President is lipstick on a pig.

A couple other observations: (1) wow, was that an incredible lineup of white guys running the Iraq show -- no wonder there was no diversity of opinion, and (2) people around this issue -- journalists even -- seem to have not so good teeth, not sure what the reason for that is, perhaps my hdtv, perhaps they did meth to compensate for the horrors of this debacle.

For some reason, I really like the Frontline narrator's voice despite its somewhat nasal quality.

Michael Clayton (2007)

Why do the writers take away the drama by giving away the story in the beginning? I'm not sure about the strategy of the writers in doing this, but overall, it brings down the intensity level of the movie several notches. Perhaps they test marketed the normal non-flashback version of the movie, and people liked it better this way. Sure, we wouldn't believe that Clayton's story would end in a certain way -- hollywood movies stubbornly refuse to be tragic --, but somehow this ending was lacking in punch. Clooney plays the cool as a cucumber, never a misstep fixer well. But is that acting?

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I've seen Sydney Pollack, who just died today, in many films. Here he's quite good with just touch of the corrupt boss.

Lust, Caution (2007) / The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Neither of these was very good, but neither were they bad. There is a strange sort of linkage between these two. There are 'criminals' in both who someone wants to kill. Both criminals are charming in some way. And obviously the viewer should care what happens in the end of these, will the killings be successful and how will they be accomplished.

-- Spoilers --
The Lust, Caution criminal does not seem at all charming to me, but perhaps to a woman he would be. What was his big attraction? He seems to know a lot of sexual positions. Big whoop. But more importantly, he has money and power. I don't know exactly why the woman decides to save him, but perhaps he seems to truly love her and trust her. As a spy for the resistance, her facade is so solid, perhaps it's become truth. She does love him. She doesn't immediately realize perhaps that she is causing her own death by warning him off. Of course, for me, the guy is definitely not worth it -- he's completely unattractive --, though the diamond is certainly an expensive bauble, it wouldn't sway me. But in the end, what good would killing the guy have done anyway? Just someone else would have taken the guy's place. This whole assassination mission of the Chinese resistance to the Japanese wasn't worth the trouble.

As for Jesse James, I did start rooting for the brothers trying to kill him, and in a way, he perhaps wished to be killed by 'a friend' rather than by law enforcement. But really this Jesse James seems unworthy of admiration, unless one hailed from the defeated South.