what the (bleep) do we know?

(that's the name of the movie i'm reviewing, for those of you who might not have heard of it.) and i really tried to make it through the whole thing. tried and failed. it was THAT bad. you all know i love movies. it must be really horrible for me to go out and rent it and then decide to do something else.

i was actually very interested in the movie, hearing good things about it, and reading the synopsis and see marlee matlin in it, i decided to rent it about three times before finally finding a copy in the store. you'd think that would be a good sign.

but my goodness, what a greasy gob of garbage! actually, using the term "movie" is being very generous. it's more like a poorly produced infomercial for some really spacey, new age hooey fooey. i'm not really sure what it was they were peddling, maybe scientology or something, but it was a pretentious pile of crap.

it's a bunch of people talking really "deep" about the nature of reality, quantum physics and how we aren't really sure what's real and what isn't. kinda like the matrix in the "there is no spoon" school of thought, except without anything looking nearly cool.

marlee matlin is that deaf actress that got an oscar or at least a nomination about ten or fifteen years ago. man, she couldn't act herself out of a wet paper bag. i would have never suspected that i would ever say such a thing before i saw this movie, but i'll take keanu reeves over marlee matlin any day.

so yeah, after about the longest half hour i've ever experienced, i got that thing out of the dvd player and plopped in "stalingrad". i was so glad that i got two movies!

"stalingrad" was a german movie made in 1992. it's about the epic battle of stalingrad, russia, during world war II. if you saw "enemy at the gates" then you know a little about the story. this is kind of the same thing, except from the german point of view, and it was very interesting to me, given the 60 year anniversary of germany's surrender this week.

of course, it's bleak. but i like movies that are not happy endings, and i pretty much knew everyone was going to die. and it was also much more authentic feeling without the english dialog and contrived love triangle that made "enemy at the gates" a little too western for me.

so that's two movie reviews for you, if you count the first one as actually being one. hope you have a pleasant tuesday.