Saw the ULTIMATE 3.5 hour cut of WATCHMEN. Oh. My. God. Talk about operatic. Any snob you meet that claims opera is superior to comic book movies can be officially thumped in the nose.

I watched Only God Forgives earlier today. Man, what a disappointment. It was a 90 minute movie with only 20 minutes of story to tell. The rest was a lot of style that didn't mean much beyond, "Look at all my neon!"

So, the movie is using "hammer space"?

(an old anime trope, from comedies where women would suddenly whip a giant hammer out of nowhere to smack a guy who was looking at another woman)

I read that Refn pulled some symbols from the Chinese deities. Apparently, the singing we see the policeman doing a lot is associated with divinity and such. I don't know, maybe the guy pulling his impossible sword from nowhere is a part of that.

PS: I enjoyed this movie a lot. I'll agree it doesn't seem to tell much story-wise, but the very stylistic parts of it are full of symbols and themes that require some interpretation. I got out of the theater thinking, "What the hell did I just watch?". The stylistic parts are completely surreal, and are followed by violent scenes which leave you a bit stunned.

The film's freakingly beautiful, too. Definitely not made to be everyone's cup of tea, but I found myself liking these peculiar works of art a lot. Valhalla Rising is next on my watch list.

We'll see. Maybe I will love it and realize I was a movie hipster all along.

Oh God, no.

Just got back from The Wolf of Wall Street. That movie is bananas. For the first half, I was sure that it was a vital piece of American cinema, a perfect comment on how the country behaves today. But the longer it went, the less convinced I became. It's still a great movie, and maybe even a necessary one. It's a movie about American excess that itself is incredibly excessive. Was that an intentional thematic choice? Scorsese is so brilliant that I might just give it to him.

More reviews should start, "I went to Walmart today..."

Pain & Gain - One of Bay's best movies, and actually pretty watchable. Still, it's 20 minutes too long, and he ruins multiple scenes because he can't restrain himself with his shitty comedy. A scene will start out working well and kinda funny, and then he'll keep pushing it until it stops being funny.