Half Nelson, Gray's Anatomy, & Boudu Saved from Drowning

Half Nelson is depressing. And I was extremely tired. Not the best combination for enjoying a film. Every time you think he's hit rock bottom, he lights up the crack rock and keeps going downhill. It's a good film, but man, I really, really, really got frustrated with Dan Dunne, as well-portrayed by Ryan Gosling. Just made bad choice after bad choice. Good choices? Casting. Also, in a serious way: the soundtrack. Broken Social Scene has a lot of songs in it, but the thing that made me sit up and think, "HOLY GOD", was Billy Bragg's A New England. Without a doubt, one of the best songs of... the electro-anti-folk... post-punk-ish... lefty-awesomeness. You completely owe it to yourself to listen to the song.

Gray's Anatomy is just Spalding Gray talking to the camera with brief bits of horribly disgusting eye injuries or diseases. But Soderbergh (and/or Gray, I'm not sure but I'm mainly guessing Soderbergh) mess with colors and backdrops and music, making it far more interesting cinematically than a filmed monologue would suggest. And it's funny and touching. It's not for everyone, especially if you have a fear of eye injury, but I liked it.

Boudu Saved from Drowning just goes to prove that the bourgeois were just as stupid then about thinking they can do everything as they are now. And that it's not funny at all. If you want a not funny movie about an antisocial bum who just spends the movie being an ass and probably raping a woman, then this is a movie. I could see this movie being remade today... Oh, man, just imagine if Rob Schneider got his hands on this. Ugh. Renoir is clearly capable of far better films than this one. This one is just an hour and a half of not funny. The interactive map of Paris was by far the best thing on the DVD, which is actually the entire reason I got the DVD. It was recommended and neat. If only I liked the film at all.