I’m trying to spread out my weekly chores between my three days of weekend I now have, hoping to spend the entire afternoon and evening just watching movies on the couch (with a yoga or walk break in between). Last Sunday, I finished off my list pretty early, and had ample time to make my way thru the stack of movies I’d pulled. One movie I pulled was 3.5 hours long. It seemed like a good time.
I’d watched this once before but didn’t pay attention. Those are the types of movies that I’m trying to tackle in lockdown. But I discovered something this weekend. While there’ve been a few of those that have been gems to revisit, there’s others that I zoned out on for a reason. Movies have been what’s keeping me going without even feeling like I’ve been cooped up for over a month. But if I’m watching a boring movie, that’s when I start to feel it.
This movie’s not about what you think it’s about. Well okay, it’s just high enough in the movie pantheon that you prolly know what it’s about. But it’s not quite to the level of movie royalty, so maybe not. Yes it’s about JFK, but not really. He’s only seen in stock video. The film is about the investigation into the cover up conspiracy around his death, led by Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison.
This film is dense. So much information being thrown at you non stop. I was watching the director’s cut no less, so even more info flying at you. Here’s the thing though. It’s all information coming to the same conclusion, with only slight variations in it. You don’t need to watch more than a few minutes to know what their point is. But if you stick thru the whole thing, it’ll get hammered home so dang many times.
I would categorize this as a prestige picture. High Rotten Tomatoes ranking, some awards love, and INSANE cast (most of whom are just there to be able to say “hey look, that person’s in this”). But to me it’s one of those pretentious prestige pictures. It’s trying to feel like it’s so important, and I don’t think it really backs itself up well enough. It’s good, but it’s a slog.
As I alluded to earlier in the post, I did have trouble getting into it. And suddenly the crochet that had been so interesting was also now boring to me. It was early afternoon on Sun and I was officially bored. For one of the first times in this month of quarantine. But a couple hours later, I was watching something I did enjoy, finishing up the same crochet doll, and I was content again. I was happy to tackle my movie stack. So while I did want to make sure I completed this movie, I’m giving myself permission to give up on any others I’m just not that into. Life’s too short to watch boring movies, especially when movies are all I got right now