An Inconvenient Truth, The Idiot, Harakiri, & Sunday in the Park with George

An Inconvenient Truth was quite good, not that it presented all that much new information. I mean, except that we're all pretty much doomed to have to learn how to swim. The little bit of Futurama just reminded me of how great that show was. Man, that show was consistently the best cartoon ever. Mainly because it wasn't allowed to go far too long. But it also rewards intelligence, nerdiness, scientific and mathematical knowledge. The couple digressions about Gore's life don't entirely add that much to the story, except to show that the science around smoking was against it, and industry didn't want to accept those truths either. It's clearly an important film, and the message is essential enough that the Oscar win cannot be begrudged it, unless you don't believe in climate change. Which, if you do, shows a distinct lack of intelligence. I do want to point out what most people don't seem to understand: Al Gore didn't win an Oscar. Davis Guggenheim did. Al Gore is not an Oscar winner. Then again, he was elected president and people took that away from him.

The Idiot is Akira Kurosawa's love letter to Fyodor Dostoevsky, and it is outstanding. Depressing as hell, but that's to be expected. It was also, apparently, almost two hours longer in the original version. I've never read any Dostoevsky, but I have seen The Brothers Karamazov on the stage, and I saw Crime and Punishment in Suburbia (that's sort of a joke... well, the movie was). He always seemed like one of those depressing Russian writers discussing being depressed and horrible things happening for hundreds of pages. Weird how that is. Especially since I was right. There are only so many days in my life I can read utterly depressing Russian works of literature. There are many more hours I can watch great films of depressing Russian works of literature, so I was quite happy to watch this. Well, I liked that I was able to watch this, not that I was at any point happy watching this. Because all movies like this do is remind me of things I have messed up in relationships. I'm not quite sure whether that makes me associate more with Kameda or with Ayako. Either would be depressing enough. And I'm not suggesting that anyone I was attracted to was a kept woman. I don't think so, at least.

Harakiri is Masaki Kobayashi's denunciation of the Samurai culture. I'd only seen Kwaidan, but man, he's very talented. The facade of samurai culture needed to be poked, and mocked, and more. Committing seppuku because it's honorable is a joke. Man, suicide is stupid. Ritualized suicide is even stupider. The script, by Shinobu Hashimoto, who did pretty much every great Kurosawa film of the 50s, is excellent, and Tatsuya Nakadai is suitably anguished and threatening as the vengeance seeking father. The scene of seppuku by bamboo sword was horribly painful. It's always nice to be reminded that bamboo can't cut very well.

Sunday in the Park with George is a Sondheim musical, so some of the songs are far too complicated. However, if you ever needed to be reminded of how talented Mandy Patinkin is, just watch this, as he's excellent as Georges Seurat, and Bernadette Peters is also quite good. The musical wasn't nearly as good as Sweeney Todd, A Little Night Music, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, or Into the Woods. Better than Pacific Overtures, though. Maybe I should see that one again, because I saw that one a long time ago, and the first time I saw Sweeney Todd, I didn't care for it at all. Sondheim is definitely not the easiest to appreciate, although I'd take him in an instant over Andrew Lloyd Sucker. Man, I hate him. Yes, I do. I love that there are options to watch the original Broadway cast performances of these musicals.