Are you getting a sense how behind I am on my movie watching? I believe this movie was originally released in 1999. It's actually a convenient defect though because the library is chock full of movies everybody wanted to see eight years ago. I may not be able to speak intelligently about the current cinematic landscape now, but just as today's popular movies fall of the public's radar you can be sure I'll catch up.
Snow Falling on Cedars is a well-known book and, from everything I read, critically acclaimed. I never read it. The movie came out and I transferred all the praise I'd heard about the book over to the movie and decided I wanted to see it. Someday.
Sunday night was this night. I'm quite sure Superdad, while reading this, is feeling like he dodged a bullet by being out of town and missing my most recent movie selection. I put the kids to bed, popped some popcorn and settled in alone. Gloriously and blissfully alone.
The best parts of the movie were the popcorn and the solitude. Otherwise, there wasn't a lot to write home about. The acting was better than average, especially Youki Kudoh's performance, and it was a very visually pleasing movie, but something about it all just didn't connect. There wasn't enough passion, save some forlorn looks every so often, to make the love-of-a-lifetime storyline plausible (for me, anyway) and some parts moved a little bit too slowly to hold my somewhat wavering interest.
Overall, it was a decent movie and decidedly better than something as brain-numbing Talladega Nights but I'd hoped, that after waiting eight years to see it, that it would be better. Oh well.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Movie Review, VI
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
I agree - very disappointing as a movie. The novel is tremendous and I highly recommend it to any readers out there. It just didn't translate in the same haunting way that the book did.
(still fun to watch movies and eat popcorn in peace and quiet though!)
I didn't see the film, so can't comment, but I read the book. A major theme is the internment of innocent Japanese-Americans during World War II - a shameful chapter in our history. Interesting that the book/movie were both pre-9/11, and pre-Guantanamo. Have we learned anything yet?
I agree with Angie. I loved the book (though I can barely remember much of the plot anymore), but was terribly bored with the movie.
Sixty-five... It seems we don't learn an awful lot, do we?
Post a Comment