“Yes, I am back, oh my readers (if you’re out there) after a Lost-watching hiatus. It kills me that Im the last person to ever find out what happens on that island, but I think its worth it to get it all at once. Okay getting distracted now by what is supposed to be my backgroud noise: NPH’s episode of SNL from last year–“”I turned to my girlfriend and said ‘what is this guy allergic to timing’ and she said ‘why wont you kiss me’ and I said ‘later. look at this guy’…””
I decided to jump in with a film I’d been curious about for a long while–The Deer Hunter. I guess it first landed on my radar when I saw Jarhead. One of the marines gets a video from his wife that’s labeled as The Deer Hunter, and all the guys gather around the tv really excited to watch it. And it turns out to be a tape of his wife banging the next door neighbor and then saying that she knows what he’s up to overseas. Yeah, not exactly what they were expecting. For some reason the movie title stuck with me and I just had to know hat it was about. Although, finding out it was a war film (Vietnam specifically) turned out to be a bit anticlimactic for me, but I guess it was a sensical choice to use in Jarhead.
Impressions once I finally got to see it? Love the cast (I say that a lot dont I?) But for real: Christopher Walken (in his Academy Award winning role), Meryl Streep, Robert DeNiro both of whom also scored Oscar nods. I think you’ll take my “”I heart the cast”” thing seriously this time with those big names on the list. I very much fell in love with 1978 Christopher Walken. Not used to seeing him in such a serious role, but he did a damn fine job of it. Although, I still prefer zany Chris Walken. He first landed on my radar in Fatboy Slim’s “”Weapon of Choice”” video. There were some goofball moments in this flick, though. His rendition of “”Cant Take My Eyes Off of You”” sure gives Heath Ledger’s performance of that song a run for its money as the best one. Heath still wins of course, but this scene was still classic.
The three hour movie basically went thru three stages: fun, effed, \m/ depressing. I ended up having to watch it in chunks too. Fell asleep right at the transition from fun to effed (I’d stayed up late wrapping X-mas pressies last night). Watched the next bit. New I was gonna cut it really close to the showing of Up In the Air I was aiming for, so I paused to shower. Watched more. Then still had about 10 minutes once it was time to run off to the theater.
The first third had me completing bonding with and falling in love with (thats another phrase I tend to overuse here) the characters. Just the camraderie they all had with each other, in particularly on their way to the wedding, I just wanted to be part of that group. And of course, when we first got to the Vietnam scenes (section 2 of the film) my first thoughts went to Tropic Thunder. That quickly changed when we got to the Russian Roulette stuff. Oh yeah, very edge of your seat. The last section was the one that was most broken up for me given my outside distractions, so I wasn’t quite as focused on it. I was mostly just waiting on edge to see what happened to Walken’s character.
Anyhoo, thats not all the blogging I gotsta to do tonight, so that should suffice on this one.”