Murder, My Sweet & Russian Ark

Murder, My Sweet was somewhat disappointing mainly because it's a Phillip Marlowe without being Bogart. Now, I do enjoy Elliott Gould as Marlowe in The Long Goodbye, but it's mainly because it's almost an anti-Marlowe. Telling it straight just made me think of how much better Bogart was than Dick Powell. The problem is that not only is that matchup an unfair match, Hawks is a much better director than Edward Dmytryk. Although the plot doesn't entirely make sense, much like The Big Sleep, it doesn't work nearly as well to keep suspense. Plus, the twists either come out of nowhere or they're obvious. The drug sequence just seemed to be there, and made me annoyed. Now, having said all that, it is a compellingly interesting movie, and Powell is good. I just think that it could have been a better movie with a little more talent involved. I also need to read Chandler's stories, since I am such a big fan of Hammett.

Russian Ark was boring. Maybe I just don't care about a one shot 90 minute film done on digital nearly enough to care about a few hundred years of Russian history. But the guide guy just kept making me think more of Nosferatu, and reminding me of a vastly superior movie is never a good way to go about a movie. That's what I get from reading Ain't It Cool News. Man, that just sucked. It's really impressive from a technical standpoint, because there are thousands of people in the movie, and there are some good costumes, but I just kept thinking about how boring the movie was, and how that was a waste to do that much effort for a movie that had nothing to interest me in it besides the effort.