Slacker & Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story

Slacker is really a lot more like A Waking Life than I was sort of expecting. Well, it's a mess, but it's a strangely watchable mess. Some of the stories were great. Some were boring. The Kennedy assassination, Leon Czolgosz, and Mars stories were my favorites. And the Madonna pap smear, but come on, it's about someone stealing a pap smear sample.

Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is pretty funny, and ridiculous. Especially the dueling Al Pacino impressions during the end credits. And pretty much anytime that Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon are on the screen together. It's definitely a great movie. I think that this is my new, "Michael Winterbottom is a genius" film. Gillian Anderson and Kelly Macdonald are also great, and the cast is full of English actors I'm fans of, with Stephen Fry, Benedict Wong, Shirley Henderson, Naomie Harris, Ian Hart, Kieran O'Brien... It's just a long list of fun actors. Seriously it's just really really good. I really should read the book, but I have a feeling it might take me a while to get through it. Anyway, the movie's battle scenes were hilariously ramshackle, and the cast was bizarre, but brilliant. And the references to Fassbinder just remind me of my distaste for what I've seen of his work, but the Bresson was right on, sort of, but in an intentionally too emphatic way. And the use of the tongs to birth the baby was pretty darn disturbing. All the stuff about Tristram's nose was great. Anyway, back to the movie...