Watched: The Counselor

Uhhh... okay. This was... a movie... that happened. It was beautiful. Seriously. The cinematography was great. I am kind of drawn to movies that take place or concern themselves with the desert in the first place, and this captures those places in Texas and Mexico really beautifully. But the story... and the coincidences, oh god, the coincidences...

It felt like it really wanted to be a Cormac McCarthy audiobook with accompanying moving picture book by Ridley Scott, except that it actually was supposed to be a movie. So... it dragged a bit. LOTS of talking. Lots of people sitting across tables from each other, pontificating. Some of it is interesting. Some of it is... less so. It took me about four separate attempts, and by the third time I was just fast forwarding the movie to the last place I had given up. That is more attempts than it took me to watch Alexander Nevsky and that movie was CRAZY boring!

Fassbender looks really, devastatingly handsome though. His performance is... decent, once he's allowed to give one.

Fassbruary. Dedication.

  

Watched: Inglourious Basterds

There seems to be a division in the opinions of people I talk to about IB. Some, like me, really like it, and some to think that it's a big step back from Kill Bill. I don't know. I think it's fantastic. It's entertaining, it's exciting, it's beautifully shot, it has Christoph Waltz playing one of the creepiest villains I've ever seen in the role that basically introduced him to America (thanks for that Tarantino!), it's just stuffed wall to wall with cool/fun cameos but also with great performances (WHY does Eli Roth not do more comedic performances?? Missing your calling!) and perhaps most importantly, it is the movie that put the honoree of Fassbruary, Michael Fassbender, on the map.

For that alone it would be a great movie. Perhaps it's because of all those reasons that people don't like it, perhaps they see the bursting-at-the-seams quality of the movie as a detriment, but I think it's great. I mean, look at this cast: Christoph Waltz, Daniel Bruhl, Brad Pitt, BJ Novak, Melanie Laurent (who still is not super famous but is doing such great stuff in indies these days, I love her!), MIKE MYERS!!!, Diane Kruger, Eli Roth, Til Schweiger (who I'll love forever for his character in SLC Punk), Lea Seydoux, Samm Levine, August Diehl, plus you can definitely hear Samuel L. Jackson doing some narration. It's just insane. Insanely great.

Did this happen anywhere else in the movie? It seemed like this was the only character that got this introduction. Which made me love it even more. This was probably a reference to something that I am too ignorant to pick up on.

 There were a LOT of Riefenstahl references in the film which I really appreciated after taking that Women in German Cinema Class. There's no arguing that her early films are interesting, regardless of what you think of her work for the Reich.

 Aaaawkward.

Heeee's here!

  Even though I am not a huge fan of the mustache I am including all of these... for science.

War paint. Loved that shot.

 I MEAN LOOK AT HIS FACE THERE. MORE COMEDY PLEASE ELI!

Watched: 300

Look, there were attempts when 300 came out to understand it in the context of the Iraq/Afghanistan War, but I'm not even going to justify that. This movie is not, in my mind, meant for the purposes of deep philosophical understanding of the world around us. It is meant for super cool visual effects, super hot actors looking super buff, and super slo-mo fight scenes. That, to me, is the heart of 300. So this is a post dedicated to the things I find finest in 300. Most of them are, as you might imagine, Fassbender-related.

Fassbruary.

 SLO MO.

 SLOOOO MOOOOO.

 First Fass sighting!

 Great shot.

 WUT.

 So many great shots in the second act.

 Love attention to details like this. That arrow is gonna HURT.

 :(