Sunday, July 17, 2005

One out of three ain't good

I just couldn't do it.
My wife bought a DVD copy of Phantom of the Opera - she and her daughter were blown away when they saw a stage performance of it some years ago - and was keen to have me watch it with her.
I lasted about halfway through it before I excused myself to go back to my Photoshop CS tutorials.
Yeah, the music sounded pretty spectacular on our Dolby 5.1 home theatre audio setup, but I just couldn't get into the sung dialogue and I couldn't make myself give a damn about any of the characters.
And the look of it reminded me of Moulin Rouge, which I absolutely detested for its incomprehensible mix of cultures and periods. Pretty movies? Yeah. But devoid of anything I think of as substance.
It was part of a three-DVD rental-purchase deal we did yesterday at Blockbuster. Besides buying Phantom, we rented National Treasure and The Ref. Nicholas Cage is one of my favorite actors, but I found my mind wandering during scenes that were supposed to be riveting action. The Ref, a relatively unnoticed comedy with Kevin Spacey, turned out to be a much better crafted, better acted movie and the only one of the three that really impressed me.
Not that anyone cares.

1 comment:

Totsie said...

I haven't seen the Ref in a quite some time but I do remember some funny scenes. Like slipper socks and guchens (sp?).

If you can actually find this movie anywhere, please rent "Still Crazy". 70's rock band blows their big shot and tries to get it back 25 years later. Hysterically funny, great cast and the music is pretty decent. One of my faves.