Saturday, January 17, 2009
Waltz with Bashir
Whenever you're going to the movies and can't decide what to see, go with the animated foreign film you've never heard of. The artwork will be interesting and unexpected, the reductionist quality of the drawings will give the story universal appeal, and you will learn something new.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
This reminds me of Gene Weingarten's chat, where he poses the following question:
ReplyDeleteOn the spur of the moment, you go to the movies. There are five films playing. You've never heard of any of them. All are rated R. Which are you most likely to see, based on title alone?
a. "Revenge of the Gnarbots"
b. "Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of The World"
c. "Pigeon, Anxiously"
d. "Somewhere In The Heart"
e. "Murder By Malice"
At first, Gene answers the question thusly:
The movie [question] seemed easy to me. The scenario is pretty preposterous - you know NOTHING of any of the movies, so in a crapshoot like that I am going for the film that seems most likely to surprise me. That would be Pigeon, Anxiously, which gives no clue as to what it is, other than something unusual. All the rest sound like predictable genre movies. (And yes, it is kind of sweet that a number of the girls, and virtually none of the boys, went for the weeper.)
But then a reader weighs in, and we get this priceless exchange:
Washington, D.C.: All the movies were rated R. Which one would most likely have this rating due to flashings of boobies? Gotta be (d) "Somewhere In The Heart."
Yet only 1.8 percent of men realized this. I'm being charitible, even worse would be realizing this and still voting for one of the others.
What's wrong with you guys?
Gene Weingarten: Sir, you are right. And you are a God. This eluded me, too.
I'm suspicious of "Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the World". Such cumbersome titles for prestige studio epics are very out of style; in reality such a movie would be simply titled "Napoleon". Therefore I conclude that NBEotW is a cheeky comedy in disguise, and I would see it.
ReplyDeleteWell, he was probably thinking (consciously or nor) of "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World". Which was a while ago (2003), but the chat itself is from early 2006.
ReplyDelete