Johnny Mnemonic

I'm too much of a William Gibson fan to not like Johnny Mnemonic, even if most of the acting is horrific. There are so many cool ideas, costumes, and characters, you just have to look past the line delivery.

I loved William Gibson's books in high school, although I don't actually remember them anymore. This was the second time I've seen Johnny Mnemonic. I did remember the book the first time I saw it, 11 years ago. I gave it a 3/5 then. I don't think I recognized how terrible *all* the acting was. I knew Keanu was bad, but this time I saw that everyone else was, too.

I still like the atmosphere and idea of it, the characters, and the costumes. They should do a remake with good actors. Keanu and Henry are atrocious. Everyone else is just flat. And some of the CG is really cheesy.

It definitely works a lot better if you've read the book. I still think all the stuff about implants and enhancements is cool, and the idea of the low-tech underground counterculture, and the whole "ghost in the machine" digital consciousness concept.

Dark City

Dark City is super weird and unique, but in a way that still holds together and makes sense. You don't hear much about it, but it feels like a classic that everyone should see.

I had a hard time finding the theatrical release of Dark City. I own the DVD, but for some reason I only know where the case is, and not the disc. You can only torrent the director's cut. The library catalog lists only the theatrical release, but when you get it, it turns out to be the director's cut.

I thought it would be easy to rent it from YouTube, but it took me an hour to get it to work on my Apple TV, only to find out that that's the director's cut, too. So I rented the theatrical version from iTunes, and spent another hour getting *that* to play. And then realized after I saw the movie that I should have kept the library version so I could a. see the differences in the director's cut and b. hear the commentary. But I don't have it in me to request it again and wait another six months for it to come in.

You don't hear a lot about Dark City. I really only knew about it because I had a friend that liked it. The movie is super weird. I feel like everybody should see it just to have the experience.

Memento

It has enough cool aspects to earn a solid 3, but it's sad.

 I had to watch something solo today. I couldn't find any of the movies I actually wanted. I checked Xfinity free stuff (there is nothing there I will ever want to watch), Hulu, and Netflix to no avail. I was puttering around my last resort, Hulu, when I saw they had Memento. I had seen it earlier in my search, on my "to watch" list, but I'd long passed the point when I actually wanted to watch it, so I hadn't bothered to see if I could find it anywhere. But, seeing it there on Hulu, I remembered what it was actually about, and I decided it was time to see it, if only to finally be able to say I had.

Guy Pearce is awesome. One of my favorite actors, for sure. I don't think I liked Memento, though. There were a lot of twists, and parts of it were interesting. I liked some of the themes, and the dialogue was stellar in parts. But parts of it also lagged, and it was a bit of a downer. It's slightly reminiscent of The Salton Sea, in ways, but I liked that movie a lot more.

Shutter Island

This movie has a lot going for it. Scorsese's a great director, DiCaprio's a great actor. The overall production is solid. The ending wasn't exactly a surprise, and it's still a bit more ambiguous than I'd like, although I'm not sure what could've been done to change that.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

While watching this movie, I thought, "The last time I disliked characters this much was when I saw Being John Malkovich," and sure enough..this was written by the same man. Unfortunately, this didn't grab me the way that did, and it was even tougher to sit through. I think I may have to write off Mr. Kaufman altogether, no pun intended.