My Own Private Idaho, Jacob's Ladder, The Virgin Suicides, Piccadilly, & Long Day's Journey into Night

My Own Private Idaho has a great performance from Keanu Reeves, although it's similar to his performance in the Matrix, as in, he's supposed to have no emotions. River Phoenix on the other hand, just reminded me that Joaquin Phoenix sucks. Seriously, what an outstanding performance. I didn't care for most of the characters, and the faux-Shakespeare was distracting. So basically, it was really good, but should have been better.

Jacob's Ladder was a strange and twisted film. I'm not entirely sure what to think about it, because it's one of those movies that I generally hate because of the ending. But it was crazy with the whole thing. Very Ambrose Bierce, which I like as a short story, but seems cheap as an approach to a movie. It's the sort of thing that screwed with Stage Fright. Messing with the audience and showing something as true when it's not is just messed up. Of course, that was mainly just after watching it. With a little more time, it was clear that most of it makes sense in the sense that it's a struggle between heaven and hell for the soul of Tim Robbins. It doesn't really matter who won or who lost, because the movie was very superficial, and Adrian Lyne isn't a particularly deep director. All the deep aspects of the film are there in the script, but it loses a lot because the film is of his crappy movies. And even the script seems like an utter mess, not something that would surprise someone after finding out the guy also wrote Ghost, Deep Impact, and Stuart Little 2. Seriously, Ghost sucked and is a horrible blight on 1990 movies and the Oscars. Jacob's Ladder has some interesting things in it, not the least of which is Elizabeth Pena, someone I will always be excited to see in a movie, and was the only good thing in Tortilla Soup. Well, the only good thing that wasn't food. Well, all the girls in that were attractive.

The Virgin Suicides, which I'd seen before, and vastly enjoyed, was just about as good as I remember, and definitely captured the feel of the book perfectly. Kudos Sophia. I mainly just wanted to watch it again because I'd reread the book this summer and I am that excited about Marie Antoinette, and I would've seen it if it weren't for those meddling... job. Yeah, job really limits my ability to do what I want when I want. Damnit. And I hate that it got So Far Away stuck in my head for a day. Not as bad as the day I had This Is Our Country stuck there, though.

Piccadilly was only worth seeing for probably one of the least stereotypical portrayal of an Asian on film for a western film for, well... many many years. It was 30 years later that we still had Mickey Rooney doing "Japanese". Anna May Wong, while still being a quiet Asian woman, is, at least, a real person with feelings. There were so many crappy ways to use her talent, and, unfortunately, she suffered from the horrible racism that dominated Hollywood. She was clearly very talented (both as an actress and a very attractive woman), and that she lost out on roles because she was Asian is just wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. The film itself was nothing particularly special, except for some very impressive camera movements and stylistic effects, impressive for 1929.

Long Day's Journey into Night has good acting, but I just don't care. Sorry. Three hours of a family collapsing under drug use, alcoholism, and miserliness just was too much for me. Sorry, everyone involved.