At home on a boat its a fish trap

Saw a couple of movies lately. The best was Goodbye Lenin. The worst was Once a Thief (although it is by John Woo, it is not to be confused with John Woo's Once a Thief, which is not directed by John Woo).

Once a Thief wouldn't have been that terrible if it weren't for the incredibly corny synthesizer music that dominated the movie, which was acentuated by Woo's tendency to slow down the action and throw in romantic scenes between the little love triangle that Jess and I first thought was incestuous, then realized that the two brothers and sister were not biologically related -- they had just grown up together, raised by the same 'father'. The romance scenes were thus infused with a tender, touching feeling that I tried to extend to Jess by making out with her, but she just laughed. I was so hurt, but I was able to console myself by laughing at the music and watching Chow Yun Fat totally kill like a hundred guys while in a wheelchair, even though he could walk, he just confined himself to a wheelchair to prove how totally bad and kill-awesome he is. If you're going to watch this movie, don't permit yourself to watch anything but the final fight scene, where Chow Yun Fat totally kills like a hundred guys while in a wheelchair and then gets up out of the wheelchair and surprises this guy and then totally kills like another hundred guys. With one pistol. Chow Yun Fat is so tough he never runs out of bullets or has to reload.

By way of extreme contrast, Goodbye Lenin is a funny and affecting movie. Some dills from the New York Times or Boston Globe or some other little league outfits criticized it as being an apology for communism, but that's not how it really goes down. I wouldn't want to reveal anything about the plot, because I enjoyed it that much, but its well-shot (always makes a difference to me) and well-soundtracked (in stark contrast to Once a Thief), on top of being crowd-pleasingly excellent in quality of humor and acting. This Daniel Bruhl kid can act. He reminds me of Jake Gyllenhaal, but more subtle. Anyways, I've gotten to where I watch movies for the quality of images as much as for the plot. I suppose I think that plot is better expressed in other ways, such as writing, while film presents some sort of unique opportunity to take a bare-bones plot and infuse it with both the power of live drama and the beauty of photographic representation. I like to emphasize photographic representation. Just look at the picture and see if you don't want to watch it.