"A History of Violence" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
I've got you a two-fer today. I just finished watching "A History of Violence" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".
"A History of Violence" is the first David Cronenberg film I\ufffdve ever seen all of. I saw parts of "Welcome to the Videodrome" at a friend\ufffds place in the very early \ufffd90s, but that\ufffds it.
Plot summary: Tom Stall is a simple man. He\ufffds married, has two kids, and owns a diner in a small Midwestern town. One day, at closing time, two men come into his diner, with the intent of robbing the diner and killing everybody in it. Tom\ufffds quick actions leave the two men dead and his employees untouched, but also draw the unwelcome attention of some men who think they know him from before... But they think his name is Joey. Joey Cusack.
Violence begets more violence, and before long his formerly peaceful son is putting bullies in the hospital, his own wife doesn\ufffdt know him any more, and strange men with guns are showing up on his doorstep.
As an exploration of how violence destroys lives, this is an excellent film \ufffd one step in self-defense and in the defense of others, and a life slowly unravels, each step pulling Tom deeper and deeper into his past, until his life begins to unravel. If I had one complaint about this film, it is that it occasionally forgets the message it is trying to portray, and slips over into the action genre \ufffd one particular scene near the end rubs me the wrong way with the rest of it. What really makes this film is the interplay between Tom and his family, watching how trust unravels.
If you have a weak stomach for violence, don\ufffdt watch this film. There are some fairly graphic up-close exit wound shots. This is definitely not a film for young children.
On the other hand, it\ufffds a damn good film. See it.
And now on to "Buffy The Vampire Slayer." That is, the TV show, not the movie. Don\ufffdt bother with the movie \ufffd it was butchered so badly that Joss Whedon actually walked off the set in disgust.
For the record, I\ufffdve never seen Firefly or Serenity. I\ufffdd heard that Joss had a gift for dialogue, and there were a few parts in the movie that actually did shine through. I met some people at a recent play I was ushering for who badgered me to watch the TV series, and so I did. Joss definitely does have a gift for dialogue \ufffd such witty bits like "We saw zebras mating \ufffd it\ufffds like watching the Heimlich maneuver, with stripes!" and "You remember, you fail math, you flunk out of school, you end up being the guy at the pizza place that sweeps the floor and says, 'Hey, kids, where's the cool parties this weekend?' We've been through this."
It\ufffds fun. It\ufffds light fluff, stuff you would enjoy if you\ufffdre into sitting around on the floor in front of a big TV with a bowl of popcorn and a bunch of friends, throwing the popcorn at the screen at especially egregious howlers. It helps that I seem to finally be redeveloping my sense of humor \ufffd after watching the first four episodes, I had a \ufffdmehtacular\ufffd feeling about the show, but the last eight from the first season had me chortling. Okay, the season finale was very serious and a bit jarring viewed in conjunction with the others, but was decent. The plotting is actually pretty good for network TV. Some of it actually kept me guessing for a bit, or at least got me to guess the wrong plot twist.
Not bad, decent mind candy. It\ufffds not Battlestar Galactica, but then again what is?</olmos>
