I watched Howl's Moving Castle today. I don't really know why because it's not my usual thing and I have like eighty million other movies waiting around to be seen, but something intrigued me about it. All I knew is that it was supposed to be good. And then it surprised me by being way better than I expected.
I love that. I loved Pitch Black for that reason - it was a film I expected to be just a straight cheesy horror sci fi thing but it turned out to be a film about real human emotions. Same with In Bruges - it was supposed to be an action comedy, but it turned into this really neat combination of comedy and drama that challenged my brain.
Those are my favorite movies - the ones that aren't supposed to be as good as they are. That's what I want to write. I want to write films that aren't supposed to be as good as they are, so that I can spend my entire career surprising people.
I think that's the best compliment when somebody tells me they were surprised by how much they liked the story. Maybe that's why I choose to write about things like zombies. Expectations for zombies are pretty low.
have you seen Let the Right One In? people were shocked that *gasp* vampire (or really, horror) movies can actually be really, really good with realistic, touching characters.
ReplyDeleteIs that what that's about? I have it in my queue because I heard it was good, but I didn't really investigate the plot. That sounds neat.
ReplyDeleteHey there - I agree - it's the best when a movie that isn't supposed to be good is better than you thought it would be and also when it then stands alone as a quality piece of work. Par example: Proof of Life. Supposed to suck and yet it is decidedly unsucky. Miss ya;-)
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Move LET THE RIGHT ONE IN up to the top of your queue immediately.
ReplyDeleteBut just so you know: It's a Swedish film and the DVD has for some idiotic reason been set up so it defaults to a unspeakably lousy English language track when you put it in the player. Be sure to set the audio for Swedish with subtitles on. No one should ever watch it with that English track.
Sir yes sir.
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