blogue

Some people will hate this. I liked it, great movie for a Wednesday night. I’ve heard it described as ‘Bill Murray on Valium’, which is an understandable opinion, however that belies the strength of his performance. Looking for unconvincing, overdone emotion? Go watch a Tom Cruise movie, pal.

The movie is split up into little chapters which are all part of a simple story of one mans quest to connect with his past relationships and to see whether he has a son he never knew about, and whether he can find some extra meaning in his empty present daily existence.

And the pacing:yes, it is slow and very measured. But it is not dull. It would be easy to make this movie uninteresting. Yet Jim Jarmusch makes a movie about a guy sitting at home, his neighbours house, driving around to other peoples houses, somehow intriguing. Bill Murray puts as much emotion into the role as he can whilst showing as little as possible.

Not brilliant, but worthwhile.

Clints’ Oscar nominated film is certainly well crafted. The acting is solid, cinematography is impressively sombre and almost monochromatic. There are well crafted battle scenes but it is never overdone, as Clint focuses on the characters themselves so that we can feel sympathy for the soldiers caught in a doomed battlefront on Iwo Jima. Ken Watanabe is great as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, whilst the best role has to be that of the reluctant soldier Saigo (Kazunari Ninomiya) who, despite generally being seen as a coward, is actually one of the brightest, bravest and most humane characters in the movie.

Overall though I felt that the film was a little overlong or lacking in pace, given the heavy atmosphere and feeling of claustrophobia that you are drawn into. There were one or two brief comic moments that give relief, but it was not enough to prevent you from leaving the cinema feeling a little depressed. Perhaps that was Clints’ intention, given the outcome of the conflict and the fact that he probably wants to send out an anti-war message.

War - what is it good for? :)

So first came the White, but then I just had to make a Black theme too. Perhaps Monocle has something to do with it, perhaps not, but I must go and buy it.

And here it is! Total redesign of the entire chillfinn.com…There’s tweaking to do and so on, but I’m just glad I managed to change it all in 2 days, shamoan.

chillfinn.com, the blog, everything, it’s all going to get one unified, tight, fresh new look very soon. It’s my way of kicking winter apathy and getting back into the zone. Expect strange activity in the coming days on this site.