sick day 2

so i am again lying in bed. this happens occasionally - the stress of life and lack of sleep will combine to make me completely useless...and snotty. sorry, too much information. so while i hate to be sick it does mean more time for movies. yay!

bus 174. this documentary looks at the taking of a bus in rio de janeiro, brazil. a man named sandro takes twelve of the passengers hostage and what ensues is a long standoff between him and the police. the movie talked a lot about the problems in rio: racism, poverty and homeless children and mass violence. this man sandro was a victim of all of the above. the filmmakers obviously had a lot of sympathy for his plight in life so it is a bit of a skewed view of the incident. however, the movie overall involved interviews with everyone from the SWAT team to a social worker who used to work with sandro. it's a gritty emotional roller coaster. i won't spoil the end but i will say it doesn't end well. how could it? a-.


ghost dog way of the samuari. i'm a huge jim jarmusch fan. HUGE! however, i never saw this one before, well, because i have no interest in swords and such. my bad. i really enjoyed this movie. i liked the way he can blend such contradiction and have it work: lots of violence along with serenity. forrest whitaker was excellent as a loner expert assassin. as in all jarmusch films i've experienced - a cast of misfits plus sparse yet meaningful dialouge make for a poignant movie. a-.

the wedding singer. i personally believe this is was one of the last good adam sandler movies. no, it's not an oxymoron. as with ben stiller, i rely, or relied, on adam for comic relief from my heavy indie/documentary watching. this movie has got it all - silly physical humor and wacky situations all in a romantic comedy that delivers well on both romance and comedy. i am not ordinarily a fan of drew barrymore (because she makes me think of mayonnnaise) but her cutesy affect worked well in this movie. the regular happy madison crew is all there too and how can you resist an 80 year old performing 'rapper's delight'? b+.