Damage, Keep the River on Your Right, I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, & Sometimes in April

Damage has a typical performance from Jeremy Irons as a really creepy older guy. Does he actually get any other roles? Every single one of his roles is the same. And he nails every one. Juliette Binoche was just ok, and Miranda Richardson has her one scene that netted her an Oscar nomination. I'm not talking about the topless scene. The movie was just ok, nothing that special.

Keep the River on Your Right was interesting, but ultimately too little depth. It does have a hell of a lot more nudity than I was expecting. And Schneebaum was only interesting because of what he had done, because as a central character he had no charisma at all. With all that, it is a shame that civilization has basically ruined their culture and is giving them all the sickness and repression that Europeans gave to every area they found. Dude, we suck as a civilization.

I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang was just bleh. Yay for it saving Warner Brothers studio, but beh for it being a typical early sound film with way too much overacting. I guess that Paul Muni was good, but his style of acting was alternately annoying or over the top. Too much of that was just the way that movies were made back then, and it's way too Hollywood in making every character (except that one convict) either good or evil. No real middle ground there. Damn shame, because otherwise it's a good story, based on a true story, that is a condemnation of the southern chain gang system, something which was horrible. I can appreciate the historical importance of the movie while still having a problem with it as a movie.

Sometimes in April starts with a fascinating opening crawl, just pointing out how terrible colonialism is. Seriously, colonialism and imperialism just screw up everything. Idris Elba (the supremely awesome Stringer Bell) is a very strong presence in the middle of this film. Debra Winger, as the white conscience of the movie, is very good as well, but the best thing was just seeing her in a movie again. (As an aside, she was having sex with Bob Kerrey? Weird...) Unfortunately, it will be compared to Hotel Rwanda, while both are telling a similar story, the different approach makes for a very different movie. This one is actually telling more about the massacres, rather than just the brave story of saving lots of people. The use of the hotel from the other movie doesn't help the comparisons either, but by moving outside the hotel to tell about others gives the story more historical heft. Using the story of two brothers split apart by the genocide makes it clearer to Americans how much of a civil war this was. It's just like all those stories about brothers fighting against brothers in the Civil War. Now, if only there was a bit of genocide in the Civil War... One last comment: I am not entirely sure where that scene on the Metro was shot, but it could have been Dupont Circle. District represent!