Postal

For those of you who have actually taken the time and care to check this thing, I must apologize for my absence. The pollen on the ground this time of year pretty regularly takes me out for brief periods of time. Having said that, let's get down to business.

I saw Eastern Promises with a friend of mine this past week, and I must say, I was very pleased with the film. The story was filled with complex characters and concepts. The brutality of the film was certainly there; however, it seems that, more than ever, Cronenberg has found a way to use explicit scenes of sex and violence to drive character development and create a conceptual platform for his ideas. To me, the film was unabashedly about being human. While there are traditional protagonists and antagonists in the film, each character seems to promote the full spectrum of humanistic traits. No character is absolutely good, nor absolutely bad (though some come close.) The culmination of these ideas seems to happen during the already nearly infamous steam bath scene. In this scene, Mortenson is jumped by a few members of a rival organization. The fight that ensues is, doubtlessly, the most carnal and brutal struggle I've seen in a film. Of course, since the scene does take place in a bath house and he is caught off guard, he is nude. As the scene progresses he becomes increasingly bloodied and battered. It is as if Cronenberg wanted to hide nothing when it comes to the nature and violence of humanity. This scene, to me, would not have been nearly as powerful had he been fully clothed in a back alley. I read an interview once in which Cronenberg states that he uses such vivid depictions of violence in his films for two reasons. The first is to show that violence does have consequences, and it seems that he feels these scenes must be depicted as graphically as possible in order to show theses consequences. The second is that the scenes stay with the viewer long after the credits roll. For my money, Eastern Promises accomplishes both of these ends, and I give it the seal of approval...for what it's worth.

On to other boring movie crap -

I was reading about this movie that's on it's way to theaters called "Postal." It is the new film from non other than Uwe Boll, who is responsible for such pieces of crap* as House of the Dead, Bloodrayne, and Alone in the Dark. (*But hey, that's just my opinion.) The main thing that these films have in common is that they are all based on video games and always always always get smeared by film critics. I'd been reading a bit about the film over the last few days and found that the studios are expecting great controversy over the film. And they're right. Apparently, the opening scene sort of takes a low jab at the 9/11 attacks. I know how I feel about this stuff, but I would like to hear from you guys. Below you'll find a clip of the first three minutes of the film. All patriotism, love of country, or even love of movies that are remotely good - does anyone think this is funny?

Take a look and let me know what you think.



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