on movies

After a bout of probable depression in which I predictably lost interest in my usual activities, I am back to watching movies again. And there are a couple I wish to tell you about.

1. Synecdoche, New York. It's a Charlie Kaufman movie, so obviously it's fucking weird. It stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener (both of whom I love) and a few other recognizable faces. Synecdoche means referring to the whole of something by referring to a part of it or vice-versa. Like "mouths to feed" to mean "hungry humans" or "ivories" for "piano keys" etc. It's fucking weird, but I recommend it. I can't even begin to tell you what it's about. It's about living, and what that means, and it's about a guy who makes a real-time play about real-life people in an actual-size model of New York in a warehouse in New York. It's about a play starring hundreds or thousands of people, none of whom are extras. You should watch it.

2. Bedrooms and Hallways. Less cerebral, more gay. Okay, so gay movies are, more often than not, terrible. For several reasons, I'm sure, but the one I can readily make up on the spot is that sexuality is still an unfortunately controversial issue that large studios don't want to cough up lots of money to make movies about. So the production values usually suck and all that. That's Hollywood, at least. I think some of the best gay movies I've seen have tended to be foreign. Which brings me to this movie I watched today. Let me tell you who's in it. I'll point out that nearly everyone in this list is a) attractive and b) a great character.

Lord Cutler Beckett from POTC:AWE and Mr. Collins in the Universal Studios (bad) Pride&Prejudice (Tom Hollander)
Dr. Owen Hunt from Grey's (Kevin McKidd)
Edward, Black Prince of Wales from A Knight's Tale (James Purefoy)
Gareth from Four Weddings and a Funeral (Simon Callow)
Fanny Farrars Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility (Harriet Walter)
Elizabeth from the BBC (good) Pride and Prejudice (Jennifer Ehle), and
Elrond/Agent Smith/V (Hugo Weaving) [playing a seemingly straight-laced, smugly high-maintenance, surprisingly sexy, sexually aggressive gay man (who has sex with Cutler Beckett).]

I love watching movies in which all/most of the cast is recognizable, not because I know everyone's name, but because I have seen everyone in some other movie I like.

ADDENDUM: JESUS H CHRIST the fucker goes hetero in the end. I hate those movies. The rest of the movie is excellent, though.