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No Country for Old Men (Review) One of the perks of being in the Screen Actors Guild is that, on occassion, the studios will send members free copies of the movies they have nominated for SAG awards. It's their way of greasing the wheels a bit to get the nod. It's not really payola, but you can smell it if you tilt your head the right way.. more >>> |
Auditioning With A Hangover (Advice) Just about every Thursday night, the boys and I get together and play poker in my buddy's basement. It is the quintessence of masculine bonding, with an occassional intellectual twist. And we drink. Which would be fine, if we all didn't have to get up for work in the morning. more >>> |
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The Deer Hunter
(1-12-08) Yeah, that's right. I just watched it for the first
time. For the record, I have yet to see Raging Bull, The
Great Escape, or Battleship Potemkin either. However,
by the power vested in me by Netflix, it won't be long. So feel free
to chide me, but damn it, I'm trying.
I avoided watching The
Deer Hunter for... my entire life... because I knew just enough
about it to know that I was not going to walk out whistling a happy tune. It
takes a pretty big act of will for me to go into a theatre or sit down
in front of the TV for three hours knowing that, in the end, no one really
gets out alive.
I'm not stupid. I'm just a pussy. I know great art doesn't
have to have a happy ending, but if I have a choice between that which
is billed as the end all be all of rip your heart out drama or a film
that might make me smile just a little, I tend to go with the fluff. However,
as part of a long-standing effort to suck it up, I finally rented it
last week.
Now what do you say about that movie? Talking about the performances
would be silly; they're obviously great. Robert DeNiro, Christopher Walken,
John Cazale, and Meryl Streep just to start. Who's gonna' argue
with that kind of firepower? The only place you could go wrong
is with the story. And it was great. Riveting. Three
hours and I never got up to get a drink of water or take a leak. But
that last scene...
I don't know. Maybe it's because I live in a time when I feel like my
country's flag is a little torn up. Maybe it's because I don't
carry the psychic wounds from Vietnam that needed tending, but went unacknowledged
for so long. Maybe I'm more cynical than I would like to believe.
Or maybe I was just worn out. Whatever the case may be, the end
of The Deer Hunter, with its ham-fisted round-table sing-along, sort
of left me cold. And, I guess, maybe that was the point.
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