Sniper!

March 18, 2001

I went on a movie run this weekend. Last night, I caught Enemy At The Gates on premiere night. The movie was quite good, but not great. I can’t think of a more contrived love story in recent history, especially considering the context. WWII buffs and sniper fans will probably get into it. Seems like a lot of the Counter-Strike players are giving a big thumbs up, even if they are calling it the “AWP Whore Movie.”

The second movie I caught Memento. I’d recommend anyone remotely interested in watching this movie not to read too many reviews or gather too much information about the film. It’s a gimmick and puzzle movie, so the less you know, the better.

Basically, Guy Pearce plays a man without short-term memory, trying to find the man that raped and murdered is wife. Because Pearce has no memory, he’s constantly writing down notes to keep himself informed each day. It’s a lot like Dana Carvey’s “Clean Slate,” except that it’s actually good.

The other gimmick in the film is that the scene sequence is backwards, while there’s a black and white narrative that’s running forwards. It’s a bit hard to explain, but I’ll just say that it took a good deal of concentration to deal with the constant temporal displacement. I burned off a bunch of energy just thinking about the movie, but I found that it was worth the effort.

That’s about as much as I can say without saying too much. Go see it.

Posted in Moving Pictures