Saw a couple of movies recently. Completely different, but both very good.
Firstly, there was Hard Candy, an incredibly well-acted movie about a 14 year-old girl who meets a sexual predator in an internet chatroom. Back at his place, she turns the tables on him and gets revenge in the MOST squirm-inducing way. Let's just say that if you're a guy, double ouch. Ellen Page as the Hayley was incredible, going from vulnerable to menacing in the blink of an eye. It's one of those movies, like American Psycho, that I enjoyed but find hard to recommend. People ask if you liked it and you go "Yeah, but..."
Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it really seems like films seem to be obsessed with the idea of torture as entertainment, perhaps tapping into the American psyche of today. From horror movies like Saw and Hostel to TV shows like Lost and 24 (starring everyone's post-911 superhero Jack Bauer) we just can't get enough of seeing people held captive and abused in horrific ways. Even shows like Jackass and Fear Factor involve cringeworthy tests of human endurance. And of course, American Idol is a different kind of torture altogether.
The second movie I rented (coincidentally also starring Ellen Page) was X-Men: The Last Stand. I think the X-Men series is definitely one of the better comic book interpretations done recently and this one was no exception. There's always a lot more emotion and subtext than you expect. Plus you get see lots of stuff getting smashed and blown-up. The special effects were incredible. I particularly liked how they managed to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen look twenty years younger in the prologue. Really impressive stuff. The only downside was that they seemed to rush things, trying to wrap up way too many loose ends to complete the series. I imagine there'll probably be an extended directors cut in the near future. There usually is.
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