Three Movies I Saw Recently

Here's the thing; I just don't feel like writing anything now.  The weekend kind of snuck up on me and I didn't think of any weirdly specific lists or mildly pretentious short essays.  Usually when I get to Friday and I don't have anything I stress out and spin in circles trying to come up with something.  That's not happening now.  My best guess as to why is that nothing seems to matter after the events in Charleston this week but it could be something else entirely.  I don't claim to understand my own brain.  I thought about addressing Charleston as directly as a I could but I don't think I'm the right person to do that and certainly not so soon.  However, I promised myself I would post something every week so here's three movies that I saw for the first time recently.

Oldboy

Oldboy is the second part of the South Korean Vengeance Trilogy.  It's an intense film that looks incredible and is certainly not short on vengeance.  As far as I know the first and third movies aren't directly related to the second.  I didn't even realize it was part of a series until after I finished watching it.  I'm looking forward to watching the other parts soon.  I've read that the recent remake by Spike Lee is disappointing but I'm still curious to see this story told with an American sized budget.

High Fidelity

Putting "record store" in a movie's description is a pretty good way to get me to watch it.  I think High Fidelity and Empire Records are the only two I know of and they're both great.  I love movies that are about music.  It's practically a guarantee that they will make full use of the auditory aspect of the medium and love of music is a character trait I can easily identify with.  The High Fidelity characters' pretentiousness on the subject could be off-putting but it's acceptable because the movie is so well made.

Army of Darkness

Sam Raimi would be one of my favorite directors if the only good thing he ever made was Spider-Man movies.  Fortunately that's not the case.  I've also been impressed by The Quick and The Dead and Evil Dead 2.  The latter is such a unique movie for its manic energy, humor, and all around strangeness that following it up was certainly a challenge.  I wouldn't say Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness surpasses its predecessor but it's not exactly a dissapointment either.  It is still memorable and worth watching.