Quick takes

Bad Boy Bubby–I had much trouble getting past the sound issues. (A prefatory note on the dvd indicates that the movie was recorded in binaural sound, replicating the way the protagonist hears. I thought–how interesting–and then struggled and grimaced my way through the movie, unable to pick up all that much of what was going on one moment, then blasted the next.)

Dark comedy about a guy raised, abused by his grotesque mother, who’s told him the outside world is poisoned. He ends up, of course, wandering the world and having adventures. The film is deeply, strangely bleak about human nature, yet it also has this strange sweetness. Early on, Bubby is given a cat by his mother, who tells him the cat survived because it could stop breathing. Cut to a very funny, very disturbing shot of the cat wrapped entirely in clingwrap, now dead, with Bubby poking and hissing at it, trying to spur a reaction. Yet the scene is not merely sickly, scornfully funny—it’s kind of touching, and Nicholas Hope as Bubby is damn good. That said, the sound aggravated the hell out of me, and I’m not sure the movie ever gets too far beyond the generic conventions of the innocent abroad–I didn’t like it as much as Being There, for instance. Still, worth a gander.

9 Souls–I’m similarly conflicted here. Toshiaki Toyoda’s movie is about 9 guys who break from prison, and their adventures on the road. But what at first glance seems to be a very hip, stylish dark comedy–the opening titles are a blast, the escapees frozen in beautiful frames with text filling the space all around, telling us about who they are–is actually, as the title suggests, more reflective than razzle-dazzle Tarantino knock-off. The various characters spin toward redemption and responsibility for their crimes, and there’s a generosity to the final scenes that I found pretty impressive. It always looks great. But I have to admit–not always ‘fun’ to watch; more often, I kept thinking “Oh, this guy has talent” when I wish I’d been engrossed more fully in the flick.

Battlestar Galactica–the miniseries. I saw ads when this came on, and I thought not only did they remake a shitty ’80s series, they seem to have made it worse, with hot robot chicks as the major Cylon threat. Then this last year I began hearing that the series was as good–or even better than–any science fiction show that’s ever been on. So…. we decided to check out the miniseries, which has a few missteps (e.g., hot robot chick, and occasionally stilted dialogue), and it’s half an hour too long, but: it’s very well-shot, and its sense of politics–the military and civilian governmental structures struggling to deal with the destruction of humanity–is thrilling and intriguing. Worth seeing, particularly if the great promise/potential is fulfilled by the series.