Running Scared... Again!

Good evening! Well, morning might be a better description... it's 2am, and yes, you guessed it, I have to be up for work in 5 hours. Like I said before, sleep is overrated.

I just watched Running Scared again... I blogged about this movie a while ago (click here), and I think after watching it again, it gets better every time I see it. I just can't say enough good things about that movie. It's one of those movies where you watch it, then everything watch for the next month or so seems so worthless and cheap, because it can't compare to Running Scared.

For the record, Paul Walker is the shit! I believe I said something to that effect in the last blog I wrote about the movie, and I still think that's true. Cameron Bright is great too, I am a huge fan of his... but I haven't seen him around in a while. I have the sudden urge to watch Godsend. Hmmmm. I've got that around somewhere.... can we say 4am anybody?

Back on topic here, I went back and read my old post, and I don't think I did quite enough in the way of conveying my excitement about this movie. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. That doesn't quite cover it, but it is adequate. I have seen hundreds of movies (I might even go so far as to say thousands... and if you don't believe me, come see my movie collection), and I think it's a pretty big deal when a movie makes my "Top 5 Movies Ever" list, because, well, it's only 5 movies long. I'd say right at No. 3, right behind Requiem for a Dream (of course) and The Fountain.

Requiem makes number 1 for many many reasons. You know, the first time I saw that movie, I was really bummed about having to watch it. I thought it was one of those stuffy independent flicks, but was I wrong. There are few movie in my collection that I've watched more than that. In fact (funny story here), I watched it with my mother one night (one of those 'family night' things... anyway), and she was literally screaming for it to stop by the time the movie ended. I had to turn it off before we got to the credits. I'm not gonna lie, it's intense.

The Fountain... what can I say about this movie? I can go on and on about how absolutely brilliant it is, how I spent almost the entire movie wanting to cry; I can tout the symbolism and the acting and the soundtrack and the camera angles and the script... Yet, all this is lost on most everybody I know who has seen it. I'm going to make a bold statement here... and I don't really ever say this, but I think it holds true in this case... If you didn't like it, you probably didn't understand it. That's not just me being pretensious, that comes from the many conversations I've had with others who have seen the movie. "I didn't understand" is a common thing to hear. Then there are the people who claim to understand, but when I ask them about the symbolism and such, I get a blank stare.

Seriously, watching this movie is like reading Lord of the Flies in that everything, and I do mean everything, is symbolic. And therein lies Aronofsky's genius. And Clint Mansell's score is one of the most beautiful things ever. In general, he writes amazing scores (requiem being another shining example), but the score for The Fountain is just beautiful. And the acting is top notch. And it is the combination of all these things that elevates this movie to greatness. But the foundation of the movie is the symbolism, and if you miss that, you miss all the rest of the pieces too.

Anyway, tangents aside, that covers the top 2 in my list. Running Scared easily rounds out the top 3. Number 4 goes to Cloverfield. Again, I can't say enough about how stupendous that movie is. The number 5 spot goes to Prime. Say what you want about Uma, I think she's a great actress (Kill Bill anybody? That's definite top 10 material... Be Cool, The Producers, I could go on...). AND, as an added bonus, it also stars Bryan Greenberg, who, as I mentioned in my previous post, is also one of my favorite actors.

The rest of top 10 would include Noel (it makes me cry every time), Kill Bill (Tarantino is a genius, period), The Perfect Score (Chris Evans, Bryan Greenberg, and Scarlett Johansson? Come on, you know it's good!), House of Sand and Fog (see a Jennifer Connelly thing here?), and Batman Begins (though I daresay The Dark Knight will blow that squae out of the water).

There you have it, a top 10 list. Everybody likes lists, right? I mean, just look at how many surveys (aka lists of questions and answers) are posted on Myspace bulletins.

RIP George Carlin. He was one of the only comedians I've ever seen who was smart enough to include politics in his acts in a way that was both eye opening and funny as hell. He'll definitely be missed.

Good night.