The Things We Do When There's Nothing Else To Do

Today I watched two movies. Would you like to know what they are? Check either an emphatic "Yes!" or a slightly bored, "Sure, okay." Would you like to know what I thought about them? Your options are, once again, of enthusiastic or apathetic affirmation.

Basically, you're going to hear about them either way.

Copy-pasted from my Flixster page:

The Science of Sleep

My "review" (I gave it 3 stars out of 5):

I love Gael Garcia Bernal in this movie, and Charlotte Gainsbourg was surprisingly not at all annoying. But this movie just had no real plot to speak of. It plodded on, boringly, and nothing really HAPPENED. The imagery was sometimes cool, sometimes garish and painful to look at. The movie seems to ride too much on the visuals and too little on the story. There was some good dialogue, though, dialogue that I'm sure the 20-somethings will quote in all seriousness, saying, "YES I AM LIKE THESE CHARACTERS" when really, they are not. But while dialogue like that bothers me in most other movies, I find myself wanting to quote these things, too, because they are meaningful, even while they are trying to be.

Additional thoughts: About the dialogue thing. It's the same with another, much better, and more popular Michel Gondry movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The plot of that movie is inherently easy to relate to for a young person, and there are so many conversations that the characters have that you can, and do, see said young people quote and apply to their own lives. However, these snippets aren't TRYING to sound clever or witty. They're not trying to sell posters. Gondry (well, Charlie Kaufman wrote that movie, but still) has a knack for selling the sometimes preposterous dialogue as realistic. These movies are not annoying.

Well, okay, actually, Science of Sleep is annoying at times. But it's good to know that it's not because of the dialogue. It's annoying because, as I said before, nothing really happens at all. People sing the praises of experimental films, saying a plot isn't necessary, and there doesn't have to be a character you like. The latter, I can concede, is true for the most part. But it's my personal opinion that a film is trying to tell you a story. There are a lot of films that convey emotion, but, to me, the best movie is the one that conveys emotion within in a story. This movie is just preoccupied with feelings, although I'm not so clear as to what those even are here! One quote I really like is from a review of the first Back to the Future by the BBC: "Every scene, every line works but then later you see how you were set up: nobody says anything that doesn't become important to the plot later. That should be terrible, but it's done so very well that it's a treat. It's undeniably formulaic but so outstandingly executed that it vindicates the formula." There shouldn't be completely pointless scenes, especially if said scenes are extremely boring like the ones in this movie. Every scene should have a purpose, even if that purpose isn't to drive the plot along.

Here's one crazy scene from the movie. I think it's emblematic of what it basically is:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

 This review that I posted on my Flixster basically covers all of my opinions about this movie (I gave it 4 stars out of 5):

It cut out a lot of the stuff that I hated from the book, making the plot a lot tighter and easier to follow (for the most part). However, it also cut out a lot of Mikael's characterization and a lot of the stuff that I really liked from the book - namely, the stuff involving his magazine. My favorite characters in the book are Berger and the graphic designer whose name I can't remember, and Berger's subplot was completely ignored. It's really important, too, so what the heck? And the graphic designer wasn't even in the movie!

Since Mikael's backstory was ignored in favor of having more scenes with Lisbeth in them, it was really hard to pay attention to him. Luckily, Lisbeth carries the film. While I didn't personally imagine her to be as...intense as she was in this movie (in terms of how she looks, really), I do agree that the casting is pretty perfect. Also, Lisbeth is much less awkward and irritating. She's more talkative without losing the anti-social behavior that makes her who she is. I'd say that if they added at least SOME of the Millennium stuff, then I would have liked this movie WAY more than I liked the book. But as it stands, I'd say that I liked it a little more than the book. I definitely appreciated the fact that I didn't have to read this movie and face the horrible writing and drawn out descriptions. That helped.

Additional thoughts: More on the book, really. I make it sound like I absolutely HATED it. This isn't true. I actually really liked it! The writing wasn't that good, but I guess at the time I was just too used to reading all those fancy novels we read in school and such. This is more "popular" fiction, you know, like Dan Brown, Stephen King, Tom Clancy, etc. Also, I hadn't read a mystery novel in a long time, so I didn't remember what they "felt" like. But this movie reminded me of how interesting the plot was. Once again, that is most important to me: a good story. The book, and the movie, had a very good story. While the book decided to convey the story sometimes with "drawn out descriptions" (seriously: there was a WHOLE CHAPTER just dedicated to Mikael Blomkvist's day at the cafe! Ugh) it really did get the job done. The book did a way better job of letting you get to know the characters, as well.

So, that was my day. Notice that I am considering my day to be over when it's not even 2:30 yet! Such is the nature of the summer. *dramatic pose, then even more dramatic fall to the floor!* Excuse me...I feel so faint...I haven't yet had a cookie today...I should correct that situation at once!