Things Change, Closer, & Steamboy

Things Change was typical Mamet, although much fluffier than his typical twisting tales. Not that there aren't enough twists in this for another movie, but it's a light movie. With Don Ameche being very enjoyable. And Ricky Jay telling a story in such a way that would only be told in a Mamet movie. I really enjoyed it, but that could just have been because I love the way that Mamet uses words and repetition.

Closer is depressing. I'd like to think that love isn't anything like that. I'd like to. Clive Owen and Natalie Portman were much better than Jude Law and Julia Roberts. Much better. I can appreciate a movie like this, but I can't say I like any of the characters much. Except for Natalie, but that's probably just because she's nowhere near as evil as the rest of them. Maybe Julia wasn't as evil as either of the two guys, but she's Julia, so she loses points for that.

Steamboy looked good, but made little to no sense. I'd really prefer that anime made more sense, because they have so many opportunities to make great stories, but this was just mumbo-jumbo about not using science to destroy. Steampunk is fun as an idea, but I don't think it's really been done effectively by anyone. At least not off the top of my head. Well, H.G. Wells and Jules Verne both did some interesting things that could be considered steampunk, but few others. The entire end of the movie was just one big long never ending action scene. Which could have lost at least 20 minutes and everyone would have gotten the same idea. Beh. Why must anime never make sense unless Studio Ghibli is involved somehow? I think all my expectations for them are too high. I keep expecting that this one will be the one that makes some sense. And they keep failing.