Sunday, September 19, 2004

Not Entirely Fine With This!

Oh, and this was kind of a fucked up movie. Great for its first three-quarters -- comedy with philosophical underpinnings about masks people wear, the rigidity of class stratification and class expectations, how social interactions shift with varying perceptions, etc. Good soundtrack (any film that plays "Sandstorm" rocks my world!), really hot lead actor, great stage sets.

And then the sick and twisted subplot emerged in the last fifteen minutes or so. So disturbing that I had to take a half-hour walk afterwards. It was kind of the same feeling I got after watching Better Luck Tomorrow -- except that the awful, disturbing, unsettling ending in BLT symbolically eradicated belief in bootstrap ideology, and challenged the viewer to trust in an uncertain "tomorrow" with a new and undefined American Dream.

I understand that one of the themes of ESIF is that life can be bittersweet, it has its highs/lows and ups/downs to deal with both personally and with/for the people one encounters, but jeez! Why this particular disturbing subplot???

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