Tag: Pulp Fiction

Milk is Good

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Image via Wikipedia

As i was saying in a post i made a few months ago where i talked about how much i love milk, the drink, i saw the movie with the same name.   I think it’s really good – 8 out of 10.  I do have some thoughts about it

sean-penn-113008-2

  • Sean Penn is f’ing amazing.  He should definitely get a nod for this performance.  James Franco and Emile Hirsh are great too.
  • There is some serious guy-on-guy making out in this movie. More than i’ve seen in any other movie. I’ve heard from a few “old” people (over 60) that they don’t like it and really can’t sit through it. I don’t know if it’s a generational thing, or if older people just don’t know as many gay folks so it seems too odd and uncomfortable.  Personally, there is still shock value there for me when i see two guys really going at it out on the screen.  It’s just something i haven’t seen much in real life
  • I like how they portrayed Josh Brolin‘s character.  Nuanced and complex.  I’m starting to think i’m going to see Brolin in tons of movies. He came out of nowhere to be in last year’s No Country For Old Men and now he’s in W. and Milk.  I have a feeling i’ll be seeing lots of him over the next couple of years – similar to how we saw lots of John Travolta after he re-appeared in Pulp Fiction.
  • What did Harvey do before the age of 40?  Cutting out 40 years of someone’s life is pretty substantial.  The movie does mention that he was in the closet before he moved to San Francisco, but i could have used some more background about him and what was driving him.  Sean Penn created an amazing character but i never got a sense of why he felt he had to the the activist for the group.  He mentions that he wants to do something “he’s proud of” but why?

All in all, it’s a good movie and worth checking out.

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Distinct Voices in Film

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My last post about Vicky Christina Barcelona created some conversation about writer/directors who have distinct voices in film. My friend Sari came up with the Sorkin analogy to Woody Allen and it got me thinking about who else there is. Here’s what i came up with:

Quentin, Robert Altman, and Kevin Smith
  • Robert Altman. Talk about a distinct tone. Overlapping conversation everywhere. Sometimes it’s awesome (Mash, The Player, Gosford Park), sometimes it just sucks (Dr. T and the Women) and sometimes it doesn’t one way or another and it just is (Nashville).
  • Kevin Smith. His movies all have the fast talking, pop culture, sexual references. Mallrats and Clerks could have been the same movie. It’s fitting that his last movie was just a continuation of his first (Clerks and Clerks 2) because they are all basically the same. That said, Chasing Amy wasn’t fairly normal.
  • Quentin Tarantino. He’s the most like Woody Allen to me because he likes to have people talk like him in his movies. He also likes to have people talk like a total badass (Samuel in Pulp Fiction and Uma in Kill Bill) which i completely appreciate. I do love how he uses dialogue instead of action in his movies. I mean Kill Bill’s final scene – a samarui movie – was not a long sword fight but rather a convesation between Uma and Bill. Only Quentin could pull that off. Very cool
  • Who am i missing?

Now whether it’s a good thing to be able to identify a writer by watching a film is another whole post. Sometimes i love it (Tarantino) but sometimes i wish they would just write a story without needing to feed their ego.