Homegrown

This movie is about a bunch of dope growers in northern California. Their boss gets killed, they don’t know who did it, and they decide to sell the crop… but they don’t really know what they’re doing. It’s a pretty funny movie – it doesn’t have much of the ‘whooo I’m so stoned’ type of humor, it’s sort of a dark comedy about a bunch of people in way over their heads. This theme has been done before, but this movie takes a somewhat fresh approach. I never had the feeling that I’d seen it all before, the acting, characters, and writing were all good, and I liked the ending & the way the plot wrapped itself up. I was surprised by all the big names in it: Ted Danson, John Lithgow, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kelly Lynch, Billy Bob Thornton…

Gosford Park

It’s just fascinating to watch snobs and their servants. This movie makes you feel like a peeping tom – relegated to inadequate glimpses of the central activity. I liked the way there were few “plot bits” in the movie – (e.g. action or dialog that exists only to move the plot along). For the first hour of the movie, I had absolutely no idea what was going on, or who was who – nothing is explained to the audience. That makes the movie a real puzzle – not only are you curious to know who did the murder, but simply “who is who”… A good deal of credit goes to Robert Altman for paying attention to the detail in the movie – it didn’t feel like a movie at all, rather a window to a lost world – the directing, acting, and general style were that good.