Not much of a Saturday, all things being equal, just the kind that seems to vanish out from under you. Beyond stopping by the library and the post office, I’m not sure that I did much of anything today.
This evening, I did watch Monsters, which manages to do a whole lot with almost nothing…and yet ultimately not feel like a whole lot in the end. It’s sort of a cross between Cloverfield, with that movie’s oft-unseen alien nasties but minus its shaky-cam aesthetic and interchangeable characters, and District 9, with that movie’s impressive yet low-budget special effects but minus the political commentary, or actually much of any script. The two leads work well together, with the unforced chemistry (perhaps of two people looking for chemistry), and the movie does a remarkable amount of world-building and raising of tension with very few appearances of the titular alien monsters. The Mexican locations are both exotic and familiar, suggesting a very real and lived-in world, with the creature effects, impressive as they might be, relegated mostly to the background.
Which would be fine if the movie were as interesting as it was amiably exotic. In many ways, it’s effective because it isn’t a traditional, scary creature-feature. It’s less effective because it doesn’t ever seem to figure out what else it wants to be instead.
As I recall, that was a low-budget indie film. I’ve yet to see it, but I’m hoping that it’ll be as good as Paranormal Activity was. Sometimes low budget effects turn out to have the greatest impact.
I watched Hurt Locker last night – really enjoyed it, and the lack of jingoism that usually seems to be part and parcel with military-themed films these days.
Monsters was low-budget indie, and makes remarkable use of its limited means, but in the end I just don’t think it was as effective (much less as scary) as Paranirmal Activity. I liked it, would even recommend it, but ultimately I think more story and a better script were needed.
The Hurt Locker is less a movie about the Iraq war and more about people put into (and eventually maybe needing to be put into) impossibly tense and dangerous situations. Renner’s really good, and I liked the film a lot, too.