lauralh | i might like you better

Rewatched The Emperor and the Assassin (saw it when it came out, waaay back in Raleigh) with Steve today. GOD that is the most depressing movie ever. Well, ok, Titus was a little more depressing, but at least it was in English. Something about Chinese-language movies (or maybe just subtitled movies?) that make them seem even more depressing. I mean it's a great film, but it's just really depressing. During it, I tried to voice to Steve what was so disturbing about it - it's not just that everyone is killing everyone, but that life is so little valued that only a couple of characters seem to give a fuck about all the killing. People routinely commit suicide to help out other people do stuff (which ends up also being on the suicidal side, actually). Maybe it's my humanistic atheist side* talking, but people being so casual about ending their own lives - or taking action that will basically end their own lives - really creeps me the fuck out. I guess I was supposed to think the King of Qin was a horrible guy for ordering whole families killed, but mainly I was horrified that no one else was bothered. It just seemed too everyday in that world.

To lighten things up we watched Boiler Room, which I had never seen. I really really liked the first hour, before the actual "plot" crap began. Which wasn't that bad, but the "emotional" subplots just made me larf. Oh, no, he screwed over some guy with a wife and two young kids! Nooo! You bastard! And the Father/son shit was even funnier. I mean honestly I was laughing out loud when Giovanni Ribisi was crying about it. Was it just that badly written or am I just that jaded? I dunno, the first scene with the dad, where he yelled at him at the table, was a bit over the top, but on the other hand it rang rather true. None of the other stuff really did.

* that would be my only side, really. Well, no, there's my nietzchean side.