Down by Eternal Sunshine
Mar. 24th, 2005 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trocheeThis week I saw two great movies courtesy of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
imtboo (have I mentioned I like her rather a lot?).
Last night we saw the second of them: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; last week we saw the first: Down By Law.
Sunshine was everything that Groundhog Day should have been (and I might add that Kate Winslet and Kirsten Dunst are both better actors than Andie MacDowell), along with a twist of Memento and maybe a little tiny bit of Existenz (for the Dick-ian questions of memory and reality) or Brazil, for the stalkerish brain-plumber/technicians played by Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood.
Down by Law, on the other hand, was essentially a Marx Brothers' jailbreak flick as assembled by Jim Jarmusch, only set in gritty New Orleans underworld. Tom Waits plays Groucho [mustachioed hyperverbal smartass]; Roberto Benigni is Chico [Italian malaprop-spouting physical goof], which leaves John Lurie to play a modified combo of the silent naive child that is Harpo and the overshadowed romantic "lead" that is Zeppo.
Okay, it's not really a Marx Brothers movie. But it's not a crazy way to look at it: Jarmusch says he filmed in black and white -- and allowed open shooting, with the camera quite still -- as a reference to Buster Keaton, and yet it has a film noir feel through the whole movie. The "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream" scene alone has yet to be topped in prison movies. Hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
imtboo (have I mentioned I like her rather a lot?).Last night we saw the second of them: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; last week we saw the first: Down By Law.
Sunshine was everything that Groundhog Day should have been (and I might add that Kate Winslet and Kirsten Dunst are both better actors than Andie MacDowell), along with a twist of Memento and maybe a little tiny bit of Existenz (for the Dick-ian questions of memory and reality) or Brazil, for the stalkerish brain-plumber/technicians played by Mark Ruffalo and Elijah Wood.
Down by Law, on the other hand, was essentially a Marx Brothers' jailbreak flick as assembled by Jim Jarmusch, only set in gritty New Orleans underworld. Tom Waits plays Groucho [mustachioed hyperverbal smartass]; Roberto Benigni is Chico [Italian malaprop-spouting physical goof], which leaves John Lurie to play a modified combo of the silent naive child that is Harpo and the overshadowed romantic "lead" that is Zeppo.
Okay, it's not really a Marx Brothers movie. But it's not a crazy way to look at it: Jarmusch says he filmed in black and white -- and allowed open shooting, with the camera quite still -- as a reference to Buster Keaton, and yet it has a film noir feel through the whole movie. The "I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream" scene alone has yet to be topped in prison movies. Hilarious and terrifying at the same time.
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Date: 2005-03-25 11:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-03-26 01:41 am (UTC)